These things happen

It’s strange because last time I was here I was writing about having been unwell and here I am again writing about things not being ok.

This time though it is a completely freak accident, one that would perhaps have been hard to avoid other than to have not been doing what I was doing of course. So what was I doing?

I was helping move a bookcase, a large pine one and yes it did need to be moved as the room it was in needed to be emptied out. I should probably explain here that this is a bookcase that I have helped move before without anything happening so I had no qualms about doing so again this time. I did though have the going backwards end and it was the going backwards that proved to be the problem. I stepped back, probably a little awkwardly and that was all it took – I now have a hairline stress fracture on the top of my foot, in a place where neither a boot nor strapping is of any use. The only thing is to rest it and try hard not to make it worse.

I wouldn’t mind but over the various lockdowns I have discovered the joys of getting fitter than I have ever been before through walking, QiGong and Zumba both online and on Zoom. I now of course can do none of these….or can I?

It seems I can up to a point. I can walk, in firm soled, supportive shoes (for me this is trainers) for a maximum of 30 mins before resting and I have been lent a pair of crutches by a friend which helps me move around without using my injured foot for weight bearing too much.

To be honest I’m finding the shoe bit really hard. As a child I would go out of the house wearing shoes, take them off and drop them in my bag when I got down the road and out of sight then pop them on again when I was almost home. As an adult I have always spent almost all the time barefoot at home and when I could get away with it, at work. I hate walking on a beach with shoes on with a passion and never usually have them on around the house or garden, so the wearing shoes bit is one of the hardest things for me and one I am failing at miserably.

As far as exercise goes today I discovered a seated cardio workout with weights that was cardio enough to record both fat burning and cardio minutes on my Fitbit and there are many more of these on YouTube thankfully. I also found a seated version of one of my current favourite QiGong practices, 8 Pieces of Brocade. None of these are the exercise I have become used to but I’ll survive. It’s only Zumba I haven’t worked out yet but give it time.

So do these things happen or could this have been avoided?

If I am honest I have been getting messages from my guides for a little while, about balancing the focus on my physical and mental bodies with my spiritual, which to be fair I have been neglecting quite a bit. OBOD Ovate work has been left to one side plus with retiring from seeing clients and training students I suppose I have paid less attention to my energy and shamanic ‘work’, but some of this is just my giving it space to find it’s place in my life after retiring. Honest.

I am a week and a half into a six week period of ‘taking it easy’ to let the hairline stress fracture heal. Maybe during this time I will find that balance as well as the place for my spiritual work to sit alongside the rest of my more active life. But am I willing to sit things out and not exercise? The answer to this is a firm and resounding NO! I just need to be creative for the next few weeks and see how it all fits together so nothing else needs to ‘happen’. This may involve a few more conversations with my guides, possibly a bit of shamanic journeying for guidance or insight, maybe some dowsing, who knows how it will pan out. What I am sure of is that there is always a way to make to all work if I put my mind as well as my intention to it and try.

My Experience of Bell’s Palsy – 7

As I said in an early post, at the beginning I knew nothing at all about Bell’s Palsy and it was hard at the start to find useful information. I gained a lot from reading a blog about someone’s experience so that is really why I decide to blog about what it had been like for me.

What I did learn, online mainly, is that it can strike at any age and that around 0.02% of the population worldwide contract Bell’s Palsy every year. Strangely very little seems to be known about what causes it. It is thought though that it might be caused by a virus, be post viral, a result of lyme disease, stress, hypertension, heart attacks, a million and one other things, or caused by nothing at all.  It is said to be best described as an event, a trauma to the nerve and recovery depends on how bad the initial trauma is.

This trauma takes place as a result of inflammation in the CN7 nerve (seventh cranial nerve) or its nerve sheath. This nerve runs behind the ear, connects to and controls the facial muscles. When this nerve is inflamed, or compressed by the sheath it can no longer control the facial muscles, hence facial paralysis on the affected side.

The inflammation is why high dose steroids are prescribed and the connection to a virus or post virus infection is why they also give high dose antivirals. One thing I also learnt was that the sooner these are taken the more chance there is of some recovery and that within 72hrs is the optimum time. I started taking both within 24hrs.

I know how lucky I have been with this and how unusual it is to have had nearly complete recovery within a few weeks. Everything I read said that any recovery can begin to take place from two weeks to three to six months after the initial paralysis but can continue for nine months or even years. I read posts online from people who had had complete recovery, partial recovery and no recovery at all. There seems to be no pattern to the recovery nor any one thing that made a difference.

So what may have helped me?

• That I was lucky enough to have a Dr who responded quickly, got me to hospital quickly and that I began taking medication early.
• That I had access to so many amazing distance Reiki and Shamanic healers. I knew I had this support and was being taken care of so could just relax.
• That I knew what to take in terms of the Australian Bush Flower Essences Waratah and Crowea to help my body to release the trauma and shock so it could begin to heal.
• That I knew how to work with nerve damage and a singing bowl and had someone who could help me as I couldn’t reach to do it myself.
• That I did just stop. I gave myself permission to rest, to do nothing, initially for a month, in the knowledge that I could extend this complete rest if needed.
• That I was somehow able to stay positive, not to worry or stress about what was happening.
• That I treated myself to bluetooth headphones so it was easier to relax listening to audiobooks without all the wires. Doing something nice for me felt good.
•  That I treated myself to something to look forward to by way of some dumbbells and new resistance bands. While I knew I couldn’t exercise in any way, not even a short walk I also told myself there would be a time when I could and whenever this was these were there for me.
• Having good friends nearby who, at the beginning, both dropped off cakes, scones, chocolate, soup, vouchers for a take away for my husband and myself, along with bunches of flowers and who contacted me regularly to see how I was doing and if we needed anything.
• Having a brilliant husband who took over everything, so all I had to do was rest up.
• Walking bare foot in the garden, grounding myself in my body also felt as if it was both doing me good and was important all the time I was unwell.
• And finally recognising that I was unwell, that this was me being sick and that it wasn’t something I could work through or shake off was definitely a huge factor in my healing.

I can’t say to anyone who goes through this do this or do that, it works. All I can say is what I feel helped me. At the first visit to my Dr I asked him about facial massage and exercises. His answer was that he really didn’t know. If my paralysis had continued I would have looked into these and also into seeing my cranio osteopath but for me neither were necessary. I read online about someone who found reflexology very helpful which of course could be another alternative. Another thing that was recommended to me was a TENS machine for pain relief but having looked into it ‘just in case’ it appears a more beneficial machine could be a TENS/EMS machine as the EMS function helps tone muscle groups and provides massage.

There were two websites that I did find useful early on when trying to understand a little of what was happening to me. These are The Bell’s Palsy website  and Southampton Universities site both carry comprehensive information and also useful links to information.

There are no photos accompanying any of my posts about Bell’s Palsy mainly because I was never inclined to take any. There was no reason for this, no thought behind it, although having come out the other side I realise I am glad that I do not have any. I remember quite clearly how my jaw felt that first night as well as how it looked and do not need to be reminded. Some sites recommend taking nine photos each day to assess the situation, and to see any improvements and for some this might be useful but I was simply never drawn to do so. Hence there are no photos.

One thing I was completely unprepared for was that there would be a point many weeks after I was back to normal where it would all catch up with me and that there would be a period where I felt stressed and overwhelmed, both mentally and physically. Presumably despite everything I had done to support myself, this was the shock of everything that had happened catching up with me. The other thing I hadn’t anticipated was how long it would take to get my energy back, how long I would feel physically tired for. It was over three months after the initial event that I began to feel someway back to ‘normal’ energy wise. Better energy levels and being able to get back into exercising and walking of course really helped dissipate any remaining stress, as did a birthday weekend away walking, relaxing and being totally spoilt. 🙂

My Experience of Bell’s Palsy – 6

Four weeks after the event saw me completely off the steroids and with a little over two weeks of antivirals to go. Finishing the steroids made a huge difference to my sleep and for the first time since the event my tiredness felt normal. I began to sleep for longer and occasionally found myself dozing off in the chair whilst listening to an audio book. I was still resting as much as possible to give myself as much chance to heal as I could and friends were still sending distance healing to me.

By now I had around 90/95% of movement back in my face, mouth and eye. What was left to resolve was small, fine muscle movement mainly around my upper lip and above my eye, that probably only I was aware of. My eye was still dryer than usual but I found was using the eye drops less during the day although I was still using the Vitamin A drops and an eye mask at night to protect my eye whilst I slept. I also continued to wear prescription sunglasses during the day even though I was not aware of any sensitivity to light. Wrap around sunglasses were always on when I was in the garden or sat anywhere there was breeze. It really was protect my eye at all costs.

Due to the fact that I was still on antivirals which continued to make me tired and a little forgetful, I was still not driving. I may have been ok to drive if I had needed to or in emergency but it really was not worth the risk so I refrained.

I was still getting crawling sensations around my face, especially up inside my nose, across my cheekbone and into my ear plus on some days, especially when the weather was damp, there was a dull aching in my face but lucky there was no real pain at all so it was just something I was aware of.

The thing I found most interesting about these four weeks was that at no point was I bored or looking for something to do. This was completely unlike me. There were times when I found myself thinking of things that I could be doing but it was never ‘I could do this now’ only ever ‘I could do this one day’. I seemed content to rest, to relax and to keep everything for some point in the future. Looking back I can see how much all of this helped me as my body had nothing it needed to be doing other than to heal itself.

At five weeks I had almost all movement back in my face, eye and mouth, At six weeks I had all movement back and the eye Dr in the hospital, when I went for my follow up review, checked twice which eye it was that had been the problem, spent a few minutes trying to open my eyes while I tried to keep them both closed and then pronounced I had all my muscle movement back. Great to have confirmation and to be given the all clear.

After resting for six weeks what was left to do was begin to rebuild my stamina, strength and, thanks to the meds, my immune system. I had though learnt the importance of not pushing myself, of being gentle and not expecting too much too soon so I approached this with the ‘however long to takes’ mentality that had got me this far.

My Experience of Bell’s Palsy – 5

Three weeks after the event I hit a wall. Up until then I had been able to see and feel the difference in my facial muscles as they began to work again but suddenly this changed. I think mentally this was the hardest part of the whole process. It was here I began to consider that this really might be ‘as good as it gets’. Despite this ‘as good as it gets’ being really good for three weeks of healing I could feel myself becoming a quite dispirited.

By this point I had almost all movement back in my mouth. My lower jaw was back to normal but there was still weakness in my upper lip. I could smile, show teeth, eat pretty much normally but if I yawned or tried to open my mouth fully I could see and feel it wasn’t right yet. I doubt anyone else could unless I pointed it out but I knew and that was enough.

My eye could close and blink but was still getting dry and so eye drops were my best friend. I could move my eyebrow and forehead to some extent by now but the muscles above my eye lid were not fully working still. Again I doubt anyone else would have noticed this but again I knew. I also recognised that I would have to make a decision within the next three weeks about whether to keep my follow up with the eye Dr at the hospital. I had been told I didn’t need to go back if my eye was ok but how would I really know?

I kept telling myself that as I could still feel crawling and tingling in my face and so healing was still taking place but not being able to see it, only what still wasn’t right, was hard. I assumed that the reason I couldn’t see any changes was because it was the fine muscle movement that was being reactivated and that a) this was less visible, b) would take much longer or c) would not happen. Did this help? Not really if I am honest.

I made the huge decision at the three week point to stop taping my eye at night. I was worried of course about my eye opening during the night, scratching the cornea on the pillow or eye mask but knew I had to be brave enough to do it at some point and not let it become a crutch. My eye was closing easily and staying closed so the sensible part of me knew there wasn’t any risk really. I continued to use the Vitamin A cream and the eye mask to protect the bed linen but the tape went.

This week was also the week I was easing my way off the high dose steroids, one less every day and a lot of how I was feeling in terms of my mental state might have been connected with this. I now appreciated why people might benefit from counselling during the recovery period especially if this phase lasted for months or years, or if there had been little or no improvement. I discovered an online weekly meditation group and joined that via Zoom. This helped me enormously as it was mindful, gentle, gave me time out each week and something I could use any time I needed to get out of my head and give myself a break.

As I came off the steroids I found I was able to do a little more each day. I wasn’t as bone wearily tired despite only getting 5-6 hrs sleep each night. Insomnia was listed as a side effect of both the steroids and antivirals so I suppose I was lucky to be getting this much sleep really.

My Experience of Bell’s Palsy – 4

My second visit to my Dr was two weeks after the initial event. By now I had about 80% of the movement back in my mouth, could close my eye and blink all of which were huge milestones. My Dr, happy with the progress began the task of running down my steroids slowly so my body could cope with the withdrawal. This was not pleasant as every morning my body felt wired until the lower dose kicked in, but was necessary as stopping steroids can actually be dangerous.

Since around five days after the event I had been having tiny ‘sparks’ in my face, around my mouth at first and then up my cheek and below my eye. By the second week my face was aching pretty much all the time as the nerve re-connected with muscles and my face gradually adjusted. My pain threshold is high and so I was never in actual pain but my skin was crawling 24/7 as things reawakened, around my mouth, in my cheek, inside my nose, back into my ear, below my eye, above my eye lid,  on one occasion a sharp transient headache vertically down my forehead on the affected side and on another a sharp pain through the back of both sides of my jaw.

Up until sixteen days after the event I had been cutting all my food into small bites but on day sixteen I discovered I could actually bite into a small peach and a small plum without needing to cut them up.

These various milestones, along with the crawling sensations in my face which told me something was happening, really helped keep me positive through all of this. I was determined not to put myself under any pressure or stress and so each day my thoughts were ‘If this is as good as it gets I can live with it’. This allowed me to get myself out of the way of my body’s own healing process and just allow it to do what it was capable of without my mind interfering.

My Experience of Bell’s Palsy – 3

After the ED discharged me, my Dr picked me up once more and an appointment was made to see him a week after the initial event. My main concern by that time was the debilitating tiredness I was feeling but was told that this was exactly how I should be feeling as what I needed was total rest. Not just rest for a few days but for a whole month so my body could repair and heal. My body, he explained was fighting the virus, the meds and trying to put things right. After hearing that I understood and so just gave in to it all. The steroids were to continue as long as there was improvement and I was prescribed a months supply of antivirals.

I discovered over the following days that I could do small things that lasted around 10 minutes, any longer and I was totally wrecked and so I allowed myself one small thing a day and then only if I wanted to. Everything else either waited or got left out, there was nothing I needed to do except heal. I put myself under no pressure to do anything whatsoever. Anything that needed me to follow instructions, use a knife or heat was done under supervision. Needless to say I went nowhere near driving my car at all, I certainly would not have been safe to try and drive.

Very gradually over the next week my jaw began to move more normally and eating became slightly easier. At the same time my speech became harder to understand when I spoke at normal speed and some days I could feel my lips and teeth getting stuck on some letter formations and sounds. When I remembered, I tried to slow down when speaking. The real highlights though were realising I no longer needed the lid on the keep cup and then the fact I could drink out of a normal cup once again without ending up wearing the contents. Food still often ended up around my mouth as opposed to in it, but less and less as the days progressed. For some reason the hardest thing to eat proved to be ice cream. One happy day I even managed to eat fish and chips. Ok so I broke everything into small pieces but I still ate it.

I am not someone who gets sick, nor am I the kind of person who willingly does nothing yet here I was able to give myself up to the need to rest 100%. Usually I would have tried to push through, to accelerate the healing process, to deny my body what it needed above all else, which was the time to be still and to carry out the phenomenal healing that all of our bodies are capable of. This is something I do not believe I have ever done before but resting, being still and watching the smallest of changes take place gave me the incentive I needed to continue to do so. It helped of course that I had read in several places that trying to get the muscles working before they were ready and the nerve had healed could be counterproductive. I certainly wasn’t about to inflict any further damage upon myself.

There was also the additional benefit of being sick during a pandemic as even if I had wanted to work I wouldn’t have been able to as all therapy work, like most other sectors was closed down. I had no excuse not to rest, I wasn’t letting anyone down and nothing mattered except my own healing.

My Experience of Bell’s Palsy – 2

The steroids and antivirals given me by the hospital made me debilitatingly tired and I could do nothing at all, however small, without needing to sit and rest. Unable to read I dug out some headphones and listened to audiobooks. I say listened to but in reality they played away while I dozed in the chair. It is quite a weird feeling being totally wiped out and wired all at the same time but that is the effect the medication had on me.

I couldn’t drink out of a cup at all without dribbling it down me but luckily a friend had given me a keep cup with a soft travel lid and this proved perfect. Eating was a nightmare. Everything had to be cut up in tiny pieces and ideally soft. I could swallow and chew but because my jaw didn’t move properly I could neither chew nor swallow easily. Moving food around my mouth was tricky and eating anything took about four times longer than usual. My sense of taste was unimpaired, which I now understand isn’t always the case, but I had no interest in food at all. I did know though that I needed to eat to keep my strength up so somehow managed to get through anything that was put in front of me however long to took.

For the first few days my eye was very sensitive and so I fashioned an eye patch from an airline mask and wore this under my prescription sunglasses. I also found some wrap round sunglasses which I wore whenever I didn’t have my glasses on. I was mindful of any air movement and the need to protect my eye at all costs. After about three days, when I had the smallest of movement back in my eye and it became uncomfortable to wear it, the eye patch went but the glasses in some form or other remained at all times. At night I slept with my eye taped closed as advised by the eye Dr and wore another airline eye mask.

At the start of the pandemic I had set up a WhatsApp group for some of my past and present Reiki Masters so that we could support each other if needed. Little did I know at the time it would be me needing support. The day I had been rushed into hospital I had been due to work via Skype with one of my Reiki Master students and three days later had been due to meet one of my Reiki Master friends for a socially distanced coffee. Once these two knew what had happened they began sending me Reiki and a request was made via WhatsApp for the others to send.  Another friend asked to send me healing and once I gave permission began doing distance shamanic healing. I knew then that I was being well supported and could just relax.

Dozing one day I slipped gently into a shamanic journey which provided both healing in non-ordinary reality and a place I could go to rest and recover. I rested in this place every night when I went to bed, safe in the knowledge of all the support I was receiving from my guides and allies

Having worked as an energy therapist and shamanic practitioner up until the start of this  year there are more than a few things I have in my toolkit that I can still draw upon. In the kitchen cupboard I always keep two Australian Bush Flower Essences; Waratah and Crowea. Waratah is described as being for the ‘black night of the soul’ and is brilliant for depression and stress. I was not depressed but knew that I had had a huge shock. The body cannot begin to heal until the shock and trauma have left it so it was important to do something quickly to help this happen. I had also been warned to mentally prepare for the fact that 30% are left with some symptoms and 30% have no recovery.  This meant that I was aware of the need to mind my mental health and so I took a double dose of Waratah for the first few days. Crowea is a rebalancing essence and I knew the shock had thrown everything out of balance and so again I took Crowea for a few days checking in with a quick bit of dowsing to see how much, how often and for how long.

In my work over the years I have, on many occasions, used a singing bowl to help clients with nerve damage. As Bells Palsy stems from inflammation in the CN7 nerve or its sheath my husband worked around my head with the singing bowl for me, allowing it to breaking up any blockages it found and reconnecting the energy. Sometimes the singing bowl works hard and fast, at other times like this it works oh so gently. It always knows what it needs to do as long as whoever is working with it gets themselves out of its way and allows it to work.

I also used the tiniest amount of Better You Magnesium Skin body lotion twice a day around the muscles on the affected side of my face. I had no reason for doing this other than the knowledge that our muscles need magnesium to repair and so trusted it would do no harm. I have very sensitive skin and would usually avoid using anything like this on my face but needs must and my skin coped perfectly.

Prior to the onset of Bell’s Palsy I had been taking Zinc  B12. Knowing both Zinc and B12 can help with nerve damage I continued taking these.

Nothing major or immediate happened but over a week, very gradually the numbness around my mouth began to wear off and my jaw became easier. My eye became easier to close a little and although there was still a lot I couldn’t do, there was some slight progress which again helped me cope mentally with all that was happening.

My Experience of Bell’s Palsy – 1

I’ve been thinking long and hard about whether or not to post about my experience of Bell’s Palsy but having been through it and come out the other side I have decided to do so in the hope that it may help anyone else going through it themselves.  There are seven posts and I will be adding one each day now.

It all started very unexpectedly really, although looking back my eye had been sore for a couple of days and my sinuses had been niggly which was setting my teeth on edge. This was nothing new though as I get hay fever which at times sets off my sinuses, ear and teeth and so have had this all happen before. Then late evening, shortly before heading to bed, I noticed my jaw didn’t seem to be moving properly. I have a friend who dislocated her jaw once and so all I remember thinking was that I hoped I hadn’t done something similar. No pain so I went to bed.

The next morning when cleaning my teeth I realised my jaw wasn’t right and that I couldn’t open my mouth properly so spent a few minutes pulling faces in the mirror. Dressed and downstairs I realised my mouth now felt as if I’d had an injection like at the dentist and was quite numb. After this it all happened very quickly. The right side of my face then started to feel numb and I discovered I couldn’t close my eye unless I closed both of them.

My Drs, during the Covid19 pandemic, had set up a consultation form for non urgent tele or video appointments. Was this urgent? I really didn’t know. So I emailed them listing all that had happened and saying I didn’t know if it was urgent. I then sat down with my coffee and promptly dribbled it down me. This definitely wasn’t ok so I rang the surgery.

There was no hesitation, they were making a home visit and shortly afterwards my Dr and one of the practice nurses arrived in the rapid response car with blue lights going having called an ambulance while on the way.

Within minutes I had an IV line in, bloods and blood pressure taken, had pulled lots of faces showing what I could and couldn’t do and my speech had begun to slur. The prognosis was either a stroke or Bell’s Palsy but whatever it was I needed a CT scan hence the ambulance.

It turns out that being taken to hospital during the Covid19 pandemic is actually a good thing. ED was quieter than it would have normally been, no-one was waiting on trolleys and as soon as I was out the ambulance I was in a cubical and being swept up by the stroke team.

What followed were a lot more tests, a CT scan, fortunately clear, and the decision that it was Bell’s Palsy not a stoke. I saw the eye doctor, was given eye drops, a Vitamin A cream for night, tape to keep my eye closed at night, advice on how to protect it from cornea damage and a follow up appointment in case I needed it. The ED Drs gave me more tests for coherence and cognisance and five hours after I’d arrived I was discharged back to my own Dr with a heavy dose of steroids and antivirals.

At this point I knew next to nothing about Bell’s Palsy.

Practicing Self Care

Photo by Madison Inouye on Pexels.com

This year has been a bit of a shock all round what with lockdown, social distancing, hand washing, mask wearing, daily figures……….I could go on but you all know how it is and the effect it has on our mental health and in some cases on our physical health. Many of the avenues we would have used to practice self care have been closed off to us and where those have now reopened, or are in the process of doing so we may not wish to take the risk, however small of accessing them.

In the past when I needed to give myself some self care it would have quite likely taken the form of getting a hands on Reiki treatment as well as booking myself in for a massage, reflexology or something similar. Earlier this year though I had a health scare which occurred during lockdown so nothing like this was available to me which was difficult at a time when I was not well enough to fall back on my own resources.

One of the things that was gentle enough for me at the time was the free weekly guided meditation sessions via Zoom with Dzochen Beara. The other form of self care I used was to reach out to friends who could do distance healing with Reiki and Shamanic healing. Once I was feeling up to it I also began to join in a weekly Reiki self healing and found the group energy helped support me there.

Listening to my body, what it would allow me to do at any time, what it needed me to do come to that, focusing inward rather than outward and really paying attention to both my physical and mental health have been a really powerful form of self care. I used to always be reminding clients and students to do this and although it is something I have always tried to do I am not sure I have ever done so to this extent.

My self care so far has included, in no particular order:

• walking barefoot in the garden
• stepping outside to take in the fresh air
• opening all the windows for fresh air
• listening to audio books when I couldn’t read
• reading ebooks once I could read again
• allowing myself to sleep as often during the day as I needed to
• going for very short walks that gradually increased in length over time
• walking on the beach
• listening to music
• attempting not to get caught up in the news too much
• painting or drawing for no reason
• simply sitting and being still and not feeling I should be doing something
• using Reiki to support me at all times
• beginning to move my body again through gentle exercise – Feldenkrais, Somatic Yoga at first and now light resistance work
• giving myself permission to do whatever was needed
• recognising when I wasn’t ok
• letting others help me
• not reaching out to help others when I wasn’t really ok to do so
• putting my own health before everything else

I am sure there are other things I have been doing as well but underpinning everything has simply been listening to what I really needed and still need rather than letting my mind try and dictate to me. Self care at its most fundamental.

The Strangest of Times – Staying at Home Week 9

I like siting in the garden and quite enjoy doing ‘big’ things like building a new bed, a path or a wall, but hate the fiddly stuff, so as a non gardener I am fascinated by the fact that this year I am lovingly nurturing lettuce. They were purchased, planted in small pots and have now been transplanted to larger ones so they have room to grow. The photo is an early one and some are now big enough for us to be taking leaves for our tea. Some lettuce plants are also in a small bed in the garden and I visit daily monitoring their growth and comparing the potted ones with the garden ones. Now it seems it’s not only lettuce I am growing. A few weeks ago I had a conversation with some friends online about growing coriander from supermarket seeds. We all took a different approach. Both of them bruised their seeds as recommended by his Indian father, one soaked hers and planted hers in a pot, the other planted his straight in the pot. I researched online and placed mine between sheets of wet kitchen towel and waited for them to sprout. After about two weeks of nothing happening I got fed up with watering mine and with nothing happening, threw them away. At the weekend I was sent pictures of both sets of coriander plants, tiny little shoots peaking above the earth. So I have now bruised seeds and have them planted out in pots. Three weeks time all being well I should have tiny shoots appearing. If I am still writing this blog by then I will let you know.

This week I actually managed to do a live online yoga class. Really gentle yoga that worked on the psoas muscle. I have had an ongoing abdominal injury for well over a year now. The ‘it settles, I do something and it goes again’ kind of injury. Nothing serious but annoying enough to stop me doing lots of things such as a lot of exercises in the gym and also now Zumba which I am really sad about. Anyway, the psoas muscle connects to the abdominal muscles and by the end of the session of slow stretching, the right side of my body which is where the injury is, had felt tight at the start had loosened a little. So far so good 🙂 I woke up the next day and was aware my ribs were sore, by the end of the day I could hardly move. I couldn’t get out of the chair, cough or laugh without it hurting. Not an injury but muscles that hadn’t been used for the last months being woken up. So much for slow gentle yoga! I am doing it again as soon as this settles enough for me to move 😉

We are now a few days into Phase 1 of easing the lockdown. Online there were pictures of queues at DIY shops and MacDonald’s which opened 6 of its drive throughs in Dublin. For me though the only difference it made was that the small garage in my village opened and I was able to get my car serviced and so keep the warrantee valid 🙂

I tried to do Yoga Nidra this week, something I usually love but found it hard to settle in to. I am used to doing it at the end of a yoga session and not as a stand alone so this may have been part of it, maybe it wasn’t right for me today, or maybe I am just too scattered to relax in to it at the moment. I’m going to let it go for now and come back to it another time, see how I feel then. Like everything at the moment it seems best to simply acknowledge it, let it go and move on.

On a positive note I have managed to read not one but two books recently which is a huge improvement on how I was a few weeks ago. My concentration seems to be improving as far as reading is concerned at least.

I am still working with Air which is the energy that connects to the mind and so governs the intellect, reasoning, memory, thoughts, knowledge and comprehension. It is interesting that I have now begun working with yoga which focuses a lot on the use of the breath, the inhalation, the exhalation and the sigh, the cleansing breath to release as the body is allowed to settle.

I’m not sure how long my Air phase will last but I am certainly less ‘scratchy’ than I was last week, a little calmer and feeling a bit more like myself.