 |
| Lift one foot, then the other. Add a smug smile ;) |
I'm not sure what the issue is this year; I (and the family) have been ill more times than in the last few years put together. I suppose 2 years of deprived sleep will do that on it's own, nevermind the myriad other stresses and difficulties.
When I get ill my brain often goes into overdrive during all that sleeping and dozing, so it very rarely ends up being restful sleep. The result is a feeling of bleary fractiousness and despondency where I struggle to deal with the world at large and feel the need to retreat into a dark hole for the rest of my days... The challenge is to to turn around my thoughts before they solidify and stagnate. To anyone else in my position I would say "Get out in the fresh air"; "Go see a friend"; "Do some yoga"; "Bake a tasty treat for yourself" or all of the above. But I am at heart a total hypocrite and all of those things seem as impossible to me right now as putting on a pair of running shoes and going for a jog (with or without mini-me, anyone who knows me knows I am not a runner!).
I have taken much heart today from one of my favourite blogs, Dreaming Aloud. Lucy, who I recently interviewed for the post of Super Woman, has been such an inspiration to me as a mother, creative and all-round sensitive person. Her posts on her "highly sensitive family" have really touched me this week and I hope to take a little of that candid positivity and put it to good use - for myself, for my own family, and for the little bubble that is my world, and all inside it.
One day I may break out of the bubble and spread the goodness both near and far. But for now baby steps are very much the order of the day.
Ha! ask my husband how much candid positivity was sloshing around here this morning!! Very growly mama! We have been SOOOOO sick here this year- from last Nov till last week there has been at least one, if not more of our household really sick - we have had swine flu, other flu, umpteen coughs and chest infections, ear infection, tonsilitis, hand foot and mouth, stomach abscess, two vomitting bugs, and diahorrea bugs and a baby who teeths for 4 months at a time for one flipping tooth. Hardcore breastfeeding a needy baba and lack of sleep are an evil combo - we're there right now, and I'm threatening to quit the feeding... I am with you sister! Baking stuff always cheers me up!
ReplyDeleteI HATE the crankiness that comes with being sick... but I find it is actually part of the physical/ spiritual purging of illness... but also the idea of the pain body - Eckhart Tolle in his superbly insightful book A New Earth has a concept he describes as the pain body
"This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind. If you look on it as an invisible entity in its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth. It's the emotional pain body. It has two modes of being: dormant and active.
The pain body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it. It can then rise up, take you over, "become you," and live through you. It needs to get its "food" through you. It will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain in whatever form: anger, destructiveness, hatred, grief, emotional drama, violence, and even illness.
Once the pain body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim or a perpetrator. You want to inflict pain, or you want to suffer pain, or both. There isn't really much difference between the two. You are not conscious of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But look closely and you will that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain going, for yourself and others."(see Choosing to live on my blog if you don't know what I mean) comes into play too with illness...
Be gentle with yourself, you'll come right x
Ok ok you definitely win on the illness front - my god I don't know how you manage!
ReplyDeleteFantastic quote, I will have to look that one out. I think for me part of the healing process is definitely to keep myself under wraps until I'm ready for the big bad world again, but the danger comes when I stay there too long and don't want to resurface!
I envy your library; it sounds magnificent! By the way, I've found fresh ginger (perfect in honey and lemon) is really rather brilliant at keeping chest infections at bay - both for mamma and babba (by proxy).
x
Ha! ask my husband how much candid positivity was sloshing around here this morning!! Very growly mama! We have been SOOOOO sick here this year- from last Nov till last week there has been at least one, if not more of our household really sick - we have had swine flu, other flu, umpteen coughs and chest infections, ear infection, tonsilitis, hand foot and mouth, stomach abscess, two vomitting bugs, and diahorrea bugs and a baby who teeths for 4 months at a time for one flipping tooth. Hardcore breastfeeding a needy baba and lack of sleep are an evil combo - we're there right now, and I'm threatening to quit the feeding... I am with you sister! Baking stuff always cheers me up!
ReplyDeleteI HATE the crankiness that comes with being sick... but I find it is actually part of the physical/ spiritual purging of illness... but also the idea of the pain body - Eckhart Tolle in his superbly insightful book A New Earth has a concept he describes as the pain body
"This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind. If you look on it as an invisible entity in its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth. It's the emotional pain body. It has two modes of being: dormant and active.
The pain body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it. It can then rise up, take you over, "become you," and live through you. It needs to get its "food" through you. It will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain in whatever form: anger, destructiveness, hatred, grief, emotional drama, violence, and even illness.
Once the pain body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim or a perpetrator. You want to inflict pain, or you want to suffer pain, or both. There isn't really much difference between the two. You are not conscious of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But look closely and you will that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain going, for yourself and others."(see Choosing to live on my blog if you don't know what I mean) comes into play too with illness...
Be gentle with yourself, you'll come right x