It is one of life's delicious little irones when a person who writes a blog ironically entitled 'Modern Girls Can Have It All' is informed that her frenetic lifestyle is making her sick.
They say that 98% of disease is the result of stress. But what if you don't realise that you're stressed?
We all know those annoying people who race around excitedly proclaiming how stressed they are, as if to convince themselves that they're working harder than the rest of us and haven't been on Facebook all morning...Well there is another group of people who cannot see, however hard they try, that a morning spent juggling dishes, laundry, cooking, emails, unmade beds, missing socks, multiple teeth brushings, toilet training, three kinds of breakfast, fire alarms, transatlantic relatives and upended art boxes can possibly be deemed as stressful, because, well, they fail to acknowledge it as 'work'. Work begins when the child is at pre-school, or asleep.
Usually, the genuinely exhausted will fail to register as so. Possibly we've gotten so used to gradually stretching our days further and further, or allowing our intentions and ambitions grow in accordance to our achievements, that our self preservation - that bit that say's 'Stop!' gets fed up of being ignored and packs its bags and leaves for a sunnier disposition.
12 years of expedited real time is partly to blame for my 12 years of chronic migraine. And you can feel free to remove the word 'migraine' as it appears herein and to insert whichever stress related impediment relating to you that you see fit. Some examples you might like to choose from include: IBS or Anxiety, PMS or Spots, Weight Gain, Allergies, Trouble Sleeping or Irritablity, Headaches or Wrinkles, Exhaustion, even Fertility Problems...
Living in expedited real time.
When I went from being a longtime socially hectic career girl to being a mother I transferred my work hours and work ethic precicely, if somewhat oddly, from a profession in bossing brands about, writing for magazines and orchestrating grand scale events, to one of joyous yet unrewarding repetitive monotony (when ones prior knowledge of 'reward' equals payrise, promotion or professional accolade).
Still yearning for payrises, promotions and professional accolades, whilst in the employ of a small boy who only wanted to spit rice then play with fire trucks, I began to moonlight.
Any spare minute would be spent working, learning, or writing in any which way that made my brain feel alive. The only way to do this, when your boss is quite demanding, is to introduce an element of expedited real time. And once expedited real time becomes your norm, just watch, for your poor body will start to crumble.
My migraines failed to respond wholeheartedly to any conventional or alternative treatment I cared to invest in, from hypnotism, homeopathy, reflexology, accupuncture, and biofeedback to neurological botox, IV magnesium and chiropractic adjustments, and more, and oh my, I almost forgot, six months in a neck brace wearing MBT shoes (which are larger, and heavier, and possibly less aesthetically pleasing than strapping medium sized picnic hampers to each of ones feet, in public).
Why did nothing work? They all seemed to work for somebody else?
Possibly, it was on account of my tendency to race home afterwards and resume my frantic activity.
On the suggestion of Joshua Rosenthal, the inspirational Founder and Director of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition I stopped grasping for more and more in my already stretched existence. I began to dilute my compulsion for achievement with two hours or more, each day, to read, bathe, walk, breathe, or write without purpose.
I felt horribly guilty. Just the thought of the rest of the world at work while I 'did nothing' felt terrible.
It was then that I realised that I never did a thing without a purpose.
Frighteningly, I hadn't noticed that I'd swopped baths for showers, novels for text books, real friends for Face Book and had all but stopped listening to music and was using my i-Pod instead, to track migraines. Such had I 'streamlined' my life.
Joshuas chosen process of counseling was to provide me with daily text based support. His texts were challenging, thought provoking, and designed to propel me into confrontiation of areas of my life that I had been avoiding.
Each day brought a new challenge.
I learned about my resistance towards doing anything to 'nurture' myself, or acknowledge my needs over others (even in the face of a migraine attack). I learned that I'm tempted constantly to tidy, cook, or compute, that my natural tendency it to push myself to collapse (signified by a migraine attack), that I'm a sucker for learning one last page or writing one last paragraph, which soon turns into 20.
Slowly, though, I stopped feeling guilty for taking a bath, or reading a book, or neglecting my battered career prospects by joining a yoga group, and I began to breathe, and love, and observe the world at its true pace.
As a result of this process I am happier than ever. I have not had a headache, let alone a migraine, in over three weeks, which I attribute 50% to the prior identification of food intolerances (which cut my frequency and duration of attacks in half but still rendered me codeine dependent) and 50% to finding balance in my lifestyle. I also have increased mental clarity, so function more efficiently when I do work in 'that' way, and more importantly, I now know when to stop. My health counseling practise, when it reopens to new clients in September 2009, will be strenghtened infinitely from this experience.
I now read the warding signs of a potential migraine attack and I respond accordingly.
Prevention is better than cure.
I'm less demanding of myself and less critical of myself, and while my technological relationships are on the decline, all of my human ones have improved.
The Institute For Integrative Nutrition
http://www.integrativenutrition.com/
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