I’m not well

Unless you are my closest and dearest, you won’t hear me share too much about what’s behind the scenes. I wait for no one to sort out my issues and I prefer searching for solutions rather than talking about the problems that arise. It’s no different this time either but for a change, I decided to write about it as the cheapest and most easily accessible way to cope.

I’ve been the most content for ages up until a week ago. Following my heart I was convinced that I was on the right track towards something I’d set my eyes on so long ago. Follow your heart and you will never be wrong, they say. There is a small print though added to the contract I forgot about – don’t ignore the facts. I gravely ignored the facts and when reality came screaming into my face, I collapsed. Nothing changed in my circumstances but my perception of the situation. It was all there now in black and white, I couldn’t look away any longer.

I didn’t sleep that night but the following week I slept ten hours a day. That’s how my body usually protects me when my mind can’t cope with more. I remain sane enough to know that sooner or later my life instinct will kick in, it always does, and until then I focus on the basics – eat, sleep, and move my body. Everything else will have to wait, I’m grieving now (to be clear, no one I know passed away).

In the first few days, I was gasping for breath and the feeling of profound loss felt unbearable. The loss of something that has never been mine and would have never been mine anyway, no matter how things turn out. Thinking we can own anything or anyone is a play of the ego.

These feelings still wash over me when I wake up to my consciousness in the morning and I remember what happened. Then I take a deep breath and the next, knowing that this too, shall pass.

My academic background in mindfulness and what my yoga practice has taught me over the past 15 years, comes in handy in similar situations. I can look at the situation as an outsider and not let myself be entirely involved, to the extent that I lose full control. I won’t let anyone, myself included, destroy my mental health. Yoga and breathing techniques calm the nervous system, and the anger and helplessness I feel, I take out in the swimming pool.

I have had my yearly yoga retreat arranged months before with Isabell, whom I have mentioned in a previous post. For a few days I wished the whole trip to hell, the last thing I wanted to deal with was the challenges that come with travelling solo as a woman. Then, as the brain fog started to disperse, I realised that the timing couldn’t be better. I’ll board a flight to the Taurus mountains in less than two weeks, for two weeks of solitude to put my broken pieces back together and light my fire again.

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