Getting back on track when life gets in the way

I have been sick for about 2 weeks. I had to do an iron infusion and I experienced the side effects from day 1. At the start I was dizzy and felt so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open, then I had these terrible migraines, felt nauseous, constipated and my energy has been on the low. I had the same side effects when I did this before for 3 long weeks. Feeling sick is a trigger for many emotions in me. I felt helpless, useless and depressed as I wasn’t able to do what I had to do and wanted to do. In other words feeling sick was making me feel even more sick.

The truth is, I made myself feel even more sick. I looked at myself with self pity as the voice in my head said “I am a fake”, “I cannot be a Wellness Coach and be sick” “I will never get completely well” I was letting people down. I felt shame and guilt and I let them stay for a while. Until I surrender, I was in too much pain and discomfort to fight the fact that I had to do this or that. Then by letting my symptoms be, I started feeling more comfortable and less tense and I was able to better handle the side effects. It all made sense to me: ACCEPTANCE. Acceptance is when you see things as it is with the good and the bad in them. It is when you trust that what is happening, is just what is meant to be. In my case, I looked at my body just the way it is, the parts that are functioning very well and the parts that needed more support. I shifted my focus to blaming the iron infusion, to blaming my body to slow me down, blaming myself for being so weak to loving and accepting who I am in my body, mind and spirit. In fact I didn’t quite see that until I reflected on how these two weeks unfolded.

I remembered why I was on this journey and that it IS a journey after all. Nothing is a straight line. I remembered my New Life Resolution and my commitment to it. The following happened at different time during this process of acceptance:

1. First, I gave myself permission to just be sick and not do the things that was on my to do lists (including adding new posts on my blog, completing my next module, working on my talk, cleaning the house, cooking, shopping, laundry, dishes etc…) . I even took a sick leave from work and I worked on my mind to let go of the guilt that I usually have when I don’t go to work because I am sick.
2. Then, I emerged myself into self care and self love. I remembered that my healing started when I decided to LOVE and ACCEPT myself deeply and completely even though I had things to work on and things to forgive myself for. So I let go of self pity and welcome self love. I did head massages to myself, I had magnesium baths with some calm essential oils, I stayed in bed and rested. I took some supplements to support me and ate the best I could.
3. I also accepted the fact that I am a human being! A wellness coach is a human being, just like a doctor etc.. I mean doctors get sick too right? By becoming a wellness coach and committing to helping others on their wellness journey, I don’t escape being a human being. However, I know better how to get back on track, how to tune into myself and listen to my own body. But I cannot do that if I am in self pity and busy feeling bad for myself, feeling guilty and shame, being angry at the world, at life/god. It wont work if I am resisting the circumstance. I need to be in the right mindset to allow my body to heal.
4. I also had to be patient and have faith in myself and in this whole new journey. I may not be where I want to be just yet but I am doing everything I can right now to get there. I am taking the steps I need to take to get to where I want. I never remember to acknowledge this. I always forget to be in the moment.
5. Lastly, I saw how being grateful can shifts my perception of life. There are so much that life gives us, so much that we already have but somehow we focus on what we don’t have and what we are not. There are so many things that I could have been grateful for during these two weeks, that I didn’t feel grateful for in the moment, because I was focused on the other side of acceptance that is, resistance. My daughter had lots to say about her camp experience and she was happy (I was worried because she was very anxious to go), I was celebrated in the newsletter of the IAWP (where I do my coaching course) for the actions I took, I was supported at work when I did my first talk and something that made my heart melt happened at kinder: I was at the table with A and other children (4 to 5 years olds) and we were talking about what they wanted to be when they grow up and the other children said, superhero, a mechanic, a builder and A said ” Corinne, I want to be like you when I grow up”. The next day, everyone was sitting on the mat and I was talking about the superheros in their life, who do they look at and think they are a superhero, the children said, mum, dad, my sister, and A said, “You are Corinne, you are my hero” I feel so grateful to work as a teacher. All of this and much more happened when I was still feeling unwell. I needed to shift my focus from my ego to my higher self.

This experience reminds me that things happen. In fact, things will always happen and sometimes they are things that we don’t want to happen. But it is about accepting that this is part of life and that there is always something to learn from our circumstances (may be your mess will become your message or may be it is so that something great further down can happen). This does not means that I ignore my circumstance and become passive, on the contrary it means I allow my emotions to be, I become aware of them and I use them to take actions to get to where I want to be. I work with my emotions and process them one by one ( I could cry, talk, write, laugh,walk to help my body to produce new chemicals that will bring balance to my body, mind and spirit…) I can do this in spaces that are safe for me to do so and then be at peace with what is, by simply accepting it and trusting Life/God. I understand that certain circumstances are very challenging and hard to move from but if you can see the possibilities on the other side you will see that you have always the choice between LOVE and SUFFERING. Loving yourself is believing that you already have everything you need to navigate through life, all you have to do is to (re) discover them all.

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like” Lao Tzu

Accepting who I am and my situation brought me freedom and peace. One of the things I wanted to achieve with my SLOW DOWN approach is to ‘Do things more peacefully’. I wanted to feel calm and at peace within myself. This came from the fact that I was often rushing, from one thing to another, I was also rushing my daughter in the process. I wanted things to always work out for me, and if they didn’t I got mad, mad at my husband who can’t understand me, my daughter who is not listening to me, the people on the road who aren’t driving fast enough, the weather because I can’t get the clothes to dry outside, the tax department for asking me to pay $ 3319.55, and the list goes on and on…. I still get mad by the way.

What I now understand after listening to Peter Crone, is that firstly, these reactions are driven by fear. My own fears; fear of judgement, fear of failures and fear of the unknown. These fears are based on old beliefs, the main one for me being that “I am not good enough” (based on my previous experiences). Therefore to compensate for the belief that I am not good enough, I tend to be a ‘perfectionist’ (at least what I perceive to be perfect), to have a sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment, of success. What Peter Crone said is that this way of doing is only going to reinforce the belief that I am not good enough. And to keep up with being ‘perfect’ comes with a cost, loads of energy, perfection is an illusion I’ve learned, so good luck to me to keep up getting there!

Life is amazingly intriguing and full of surprises. I had already my ideas and notes on what I wanted to post next after I got sick and went through all the emotions I had. In fact I already wrote most of it but needed to reread and edit. Then the past two days somehow I remembered to watch the Hay House Heal Summit, https://www.hayhousehealsummit.com/learn . And just like that they were talking about what I just realised for myself and I got a deeper understanding of what Acceptance is which seems to be a primordial ingredient on a healing journey and it made me reflects on my journey so far and what actions I will take next.

Listening to Peter Crone has made me understand the importance of Acceptance in my life to achieve my goal to “Do things more peacefully” and move forward with freedom, hope, and trust. Acceptance is loving unconditionally. Therefore what I want to achieve for myself is to become aware when I started reacting to things when they don’t work. This involve me being mindful everyday. Something I have been meaning to get back to, as I lost the practice, I have been too busy being in the future and stuck in my head. This ties with my goal to “Live in the moment” which I haven’t been good at. How will my aspirations look like in my everyday life?:

1. At least 10 minutes of meditation/silent 2 times daily (morning/lunch time and evening)
2. Mindful eating, I have been meaning to do this for a while, I eat an absolutely clean diet but the HOW I eat works against me
3. I will write down every time I notice that I reacted vs responded to a situation. Awareness is key!
4. Getting back to my gratitude journal, I’ve stopped for some reasons a couple of months ago
5. Breathe through my emotions without judgement
6. Mirror talk- telling myself things such as I am good enough every morning and evening. In fact I will be inviting my daughter to do this to
7. To support my physical body, I will take my supplements daily and add a green smoothie with super foods. By accepting that, the fact that my body needs support doesn’t make it less good, I feel more empowered to take care of it and I am reminded to love it unconditionally everyday. Love heals!

How do you get back on track? Are you fully accepting yourself for who you are? How do you show love to yourself? What is/was your circumstance and How hard is/was it for you to choose Love instead of suffering?

Whatever your situation, I am sending you a virtual rope of love and a positive energy, in the hope that it can help you to see the possibilities/ light on the other side and use your inner strength to move forward in your life. My hope is that you choose LOVE, HOPE and TRUST.

With much much Love and to the BEST IN YOU!

Corinne xo

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