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 – 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 – 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 – Week 8

 

I’m beginning to find it harder to know what to write here now as the days are all starting to merge into one and it is getting difficult to recall what has happened and how I am feeling. This may of course be a bi-product of the lockdown as I read somewhere the other day that confusion and forgetfulness are common when the brain is not being used in the same way as it is used to. Not too sure mine is being used at all really.

So how have I been spending the time? The garden is getting a tidy up in areas that we have been putting off for years. We have actually finished sorting out a large corner in the front of the house. I say finished because we started this about a year ago. The guys that cut our hedges have, for the last two or three years, been itching to get in there and cut it all back. Every year I stop them telling them we have plans. Last year we cut back overgrown shrubs, cleared brambles and ivy and there it sat. Until the last few days that is, when we moved large stones to form a border, raked earth, made a small curved bed and filled the remaining space with gravel to connect it to the drive. Our stone Buddha was moved from the back of the house and ornamental grasses planted in the bed. What was really lovely was that the whole time we were working we were joined by a Robin searching for nesting materials and any bugs we dug up. Nice to be working in harmony with nature.

I think this work in the garden fits with the clearing out and decluttering that was suggested as part of my work with Air 🙂 I kinda think the author, Denise Linn, had rooms in the house in mind but as the garden is part of my home for me it counts. We have also been rescuing plants, shrubs, hedging from overgrown ivy which definitely counts as clearing out.

Although we are still getting home delivery for our shopping we made an Aldi run this week to get some things we can’t get online. No browsing, structured list each according to shop layout, a trolley each, a quiet time of day and we were in and out without a bother. Our wine rack is full, we have nuts, seeds, hand soap and hand cream plus of course a few things that were on neither list of course, but no browsing and nothing from the middle aisle 🙂

I also had to pick up a repeat prescription this week and our pharmacy has a system where you text and they have it ready for you at the pick up time you request. This is a million times better than going in, ordering and having to wait around while it is done so I do hope this is one thing that carries on after the lockdown.

I have been doing some art work this week and am enjoying working on a new piece. It helps that I took a photo that really called me to work with it, so it is something I actually want to do. All our exhibitions are cancelled or postponed for the foreseeable future so I have no purpose for doing this other than that I want to, which is lovely.

Also I have begun to read again, not snippets online but an actual ebook. I get ebooks online from our library and usually get through one every few days. Since the lockdown I have had to renew every book I’ve borrowed at least once. I had only been managing a about a chapter before I lost interest and found my attention wandering, but the last couple of days I am up to four or five chapters which is a huge improvement. It would be nice to stop feeling scattered and unable to concentrate on anything for long, so I really hope this continues. It does feel a step in the right direction.

I have noticed that I am getting a bit ‘frayed at the edges’ and that others seem to be the same. I have been getting a lot of ‘your lockdown is easier than ours’ online because the sea is within our 5km, but this is hard for all of us wherever we live. I think we all need to bear in mind, myself included, that we really have no idea how anyone else is feeling or how they are coping with the lockdown. We still have a long way to go with this.

The weekend saw a welcome break for all of us here with our village community online Bingo. This was 2 hrs of much needed craic. We had all registered online, been sent bingo cards for two games, prizes of chocolates, wine, spirits, vouchers were donated and last night everyone logged on to the youtube channel and the fun began. Prizes for a line and a card and spot prizes throughout, online live chat and a good bit of banter made the time fly.  A lot of work went into the preparation and execution but it would be really good to do it or something similar again.

The coming week sees the first easing of our lockdown. Garden centres, hardware shops, opticians. garages, electrical, phone and computer repair shops and a few other ‘essential’ services can reopen. This is good news as my car is due a service, We can also meet up with four other people outdoors as long as we maintain social distancing. We have pretty much been doing this anyway, by chance, when coming across neighbours or friends when out walking but it’s official now anyway. Golf and tennis are also allowed reopen but only to those within 5km. We are all still staying at home and exercising within 5km apart from shopping, medical etc so this won’t mean any change for me at all except I have had a friend, who lives locally, ask if I’d like to go for a socially distanced walk one day. I will, as a new person to chat to while walking, even if it is from either side of the road, could be nice 🙂

 

The Strangest of Times – Stay at Home Week 7

I have mentioned in previous blogs that we are doing all of our shopping online and getting it delivered. We have just noticed that it takes us far less time to put away the shopping when it’s delivered than when we shop ourselves. So far we have not worked out why this is. When the shopping arrives it can either be loose in crates or inside a huge plastic bag in the crate. We either lift the bag out and return the crate to the doorstep or take the shopping out of the crate and put it on the floor so we can return the crate. It’s all very slick, no contact with the driver and although it is way more expensive than shopping ourselves in Aldi or Lidl it is safer or at least feels safer. Bit puzzling why putting it away should be quicker though.

The other thing about shopping online is that we do the order the day before the delivery, adding anything to the cart or removing it depending on what we need. What this means is that by the time the delivery arrives I have forgotten what we ordered. This plus the fact that there may be substitutions or missing items means every delivery is a surprise.

Since the start of the lockdown we have been blessed with dry sunny weather, not over warm most days but great for getting out in the fresh air in the garden or for a walk. The last two days though it has been cold and wet and I have realised that I do not feel like doing anything much. I know in theory that we feel better when the sun shines but this is the first time I have noticed the direct affect it has on how much I want to move around and do things.

Luckily the cold and wet didn’t last long and yes, the desire to move and do things returned with the sunshine and relative warmth. I have gone from someone who didn’t like getting soil on her hands and always wore gloves while gardening to someone who has had dirt under her nails. I should say here that that isn’t because I don’t like getting my hands dirty but because I don’t like slugs and worms. The new found dirt is only potting compost but it’s a start 🙂

Outside in my workspace I was drawn to pick up a set of Soul Coaching cards by Denise Linn. I rarely work with cards so when I am drawn to a pack then I know there is a good reason for it and the message is likely to be an important one. The card I drew was Simplicity. I was then guided to find the book Soul Coaching which is a 28 week course working with the elements, that I have worked through before and found useful. On opening it I found the first few weeks work are with Air and the first week’s work is on Simplicity 🙂 Reassessing, clearing out, simplifying things are the key messages so even though at the moment I am not planning to work through the whole course it seems there are clear messages for me about working with Air and doing some clearing out to simplify my life at the moment which in so many ways makes complete sense. It is after all a time where everything is stripped back and less complicated than it has been for a long time but it seems I still have more to do here which is completely ok.

Journeying this week found me burying something in a white box and I had the real sense that even though I couldn’t see what the box contained, I was burying a part of the past, a part I no longer needed which again would fit with the idea of clearing out and letting things go. This is a good thing, whatever it is I am to release as it makes space for something new to come in which is always exciting.

This week brought the beauty of the last Supermoon of the year and unlike during the previous one, one had fairly clear skies and a beautiful view of the moon both in the evening and at dawn the next day. By some miracle I woke for dawn and actually saw it for real. As always I went straight back to sleep but luckily my husband stayed awake and took pictures of the moon and the dawn. so I could experience it virtually  🙂

   

We have eight more days of the present lockdown and then on 18th May things should relax a little more. Whether this happens or not depends on the number of cases in the next few days. Deaths are thankfully falling as are the number in ICU but unfortunately  each day brings large numbers of new cases still. The sooner testing the general population starts for real and some proper contract tracing happens the better. It’s the only way that a true picture of how we are doing will emerge.

Although I am walking and still working out a little with resistance bands and light weights, made from water bottles filled with stones, I am clearly  not doing as much as I was in the gym and at Zumba as I have noticed that I am losing muscle tone 😦 I guess this isn’t that much of a problem in the scheme of things but it is interesting how quickly muscle tone can go and maybe an indicator that when this is all over I will actually need to get myself back into the gym instead of playing at it here. Unless that is, by then I really won’t care. As I am writing this I am wondering if maybe this is what I need to let go of and leave behind after all I am not getting any younger and by the time I can safely get back into a gym I will be even older of course. I am sure with the help of Air I will discover this over the coming days or weeks now.

 

The Strangest of Times – Stay at Home Week 5

I had a tough few days last week for some reason, maybe it was the weather as we had thick sea mist, low visibility and sometimes rain, although this doesn’t usually bother me over much if it’s relatively short lived which this was. Maybe it was the way ‘the future’ is being spoken about in the news, no end in sight, talk of 2021, 2022 or even never. If I was a decade or so younger I don’t think this would bother me the same way but in my mid 60’s with a husband a few years older, taking one or two years away from us seems huge. There are all kinds of implications regarding our health, fitness, both physical and mental, and our ability to continue doing what have always loved to do which is to travel long haul to explore and have adventures. I actually resent the fact that this may never happen again and that what is left, what we have now, as good as that is and as lucky as we are, may be as good as it gets. I have toyed with the idea of shifting how I am feeling which I can do relatively easy but for some reason to feels important to experience this fully. No doubt at some point I will realise why I need to do so. Right now the purpose escapes me so I am just going with it for the time being. I have since discovered that a lot of people were feeling the same way around this time, seems we all ran into the same wall.

OK the doom and gloom lasted until I did a Reiki distance swap with a friend who was feeling the same way. We both described seeing and feeling a huge cloud being lifted from us which was amazing. All good again and back to normal now 🙂

I actually think we owe it to ourselves to be able to have off days, days where we feel low or overwhelmed and to acknowledge these for what they are. To have light we must also have dark, there is always duality in everything and if we force down or hide the dark times and try to always be in the light, to pretend everything is always ok, it can have a detrimental effect on us. The challenge we all have though, is to keep from getting dragged down into the dark, to accept it, to acknowledge it for what it is, to let it stay while it needs to and cheerfully wave it goodbye as it leaves.  I am obviously not talking about real depression here which is something else entirely, but the ups and downs of living through a period of uncertainly which can be stressful, even for those of us who usually shake off the stress. It is ok though not to be ok.

What I had lost sight of over the last few days had been living in the moment. I had been looking ahead which I realise now is fatal. I will be trying as hard as I can not to make the same mistake again. Taking each moment at a time, each day at a time, is really the only way I am going to get through this. Just for today do not worry is a Reiki principle to really try to live by in these times it seems.

As is show gratitude and today I am grateful for

• insight
• awareness
• someone to swap distance Reiki with
• the sunshine and warm breeze
• walking in the fresh air
• the apple blossom in the garden
• bees

 

 

 

• my new camera
• springtime
• new life 

 

One thing I have noticed this week is that when I get stressed it seems to be by things that wouldn’t bother me usually such as our online shopping arriving an hour and a half after the booked time, my computer only working when its plugged in or my headphones working on my husband’s computer but not mine. This is possibly something to do with not having an alternative, the need to be reliant on others and things that are out of my control. I suspect the further we go in to this, the more not being in control will come up for me. The whole situation is outside my control though, so yet again I am back to the need to live only on the moment, letting everything else go.

A new thing I have realised this week is that I am not really reading books which is completely unlike me. I can easily read one in a day or two and when I get a new Stephen King have to ration my reading to make it last. I can only put this down to my attention span being much shorter than usual. I am flitting between things, not staying anywhere long and so concentrating to read a book is much harder than say reading something online.

We should have been in Singapore now celebrating my husband’s birthday with afternoon tea in Raffles hotel. As we can’t be there, or anywhere come to that, we are celebrating with an afternoon tea at home instead. I ordered a small birthday cake from a local baker and having collected it this morning have to say it looks delicious. There are home made savoury chou pastries, and eclairs, shop bought cakes and I will be making some finger sandwiches – smoked salmon and proscuttio await, plus there are strawberries and champagne. I’d say we will be more than ok 🙂

The Strangest of Times – Stay at Home Week 4

 

I keep coming across the idea that having a routine is important when we’re stuck, safe at home. I was talking to a friend online the other day about this and she was saying how important having a routine is to her. This got me thinking about my own routine or rather lack of it, for about the only routine I have now is to sit and enjoy a coffee first thing in the morning followed by checking in to see how I feel and what, if anything, I need to be doing that will help with this. Feelings and emotions seem far more important to me at the moment than imposing a routine upon myself or those around me.

Maybe the need for routine depends on what we were doing before all of this and as I am self employed I was already working from home so probably already had a more flexible routine than others. I also balk at the idea of knowing what I am doing too far in advance after years of having had a full diary. I still enjoy the spontaneity of not having anything planned and even though I have no-where I can go I still enjoy the sense of having a ‘free’ day…….. every day 🙂

This enforced lockdown has really emphasised to me how lucky I am, for as a therapist I have all kinds of resources I can call upon to help shift any emotions quickly as soon as they arise. As well as this I have Reiki which I can use to support me at all times. I am very aware that by working on myself I improve the energy in the space around me i..e in my home, and so improve the health and wellbeing of those I live with too.

I also have Reiki friends who support each other and with them I am part of a WhatsApp group that joins with other groups around the works to send healing to the Earth and to each other at 8pm every day. It feels as if the longer this goes on the more important support networks of every kind are becoming.

I have been doing some distance work with a friend this week and so have been using my workspace to work rather than as a gym, which is a bit of a novelty at the moment. While I was out there I found myself drawn to a set of cards. Now I don’t work with cards very often but my favourite ones are the “Osho Zen Tarot’ which are not tarot in the strictest sense but are more to do with self awareness and self development. Drawing a card from this pack I got the card No-thingness. I drew it for myself but the summary of the card feels very fitting to share here as it is all about being in a space where there is nothing, no plans, no sense of direction and no idea what may lie ahead. A void if you will and like all voids it is full of potential, full of infinite possibility. It was a good reminder to me to just relax into this space,  to treasure each experience here, and to be aware that amazing things may come out of this time and space. In other words to make the most of it.

This week we ventured out in the car for an essential visit to the pharmacy 11 km away and a slightly less essential visit to the garden centre. We are lucky as the garden centres and hardware shops have been allowed to re-open since the Easter weekend, as long as they adhere to social distancing etc. The visit wasn’t strictly essential but was as far as our patio tubs are concerned and we came home with bedding plants, potting compost and some lettuce and rocket plants.  Enough to give us something beautiful to look at over the summer and something to supplement our online shopping, as long as we can keep the rabbits from eating them that is.

It’s felt a longer and to some extent more difficult week than other weeks have been. I had a couple of days where I felt really rushed and pressured. This was how it felt from my perspective anyway which was a crazy way to be feeling as there is nothing to be rushing for nowadays in any way. The feeling passed and I have had one whole day where I have done pretty much nothing at all, almost as if I needed to make it up to myself.

The weather isn’t helping at the moment either as the last couple of days have been been much cooler, darker and rainier.  With the sea mist rolling in, visibility is down to very little and so it feels as if everything is closing in, not back to winter but towards it anyway. We are even back to lighting the fire in the evenings which in itself is a little depressing. I know though that as soon as the sun shines and we can see the sky this will all change again.

I try to only read the news in the morning for a quick catch up and then check in the evening to get the latest Covid19 figures for Ireland. It is though getting increasingly hard to stay optimistic and positive through all of this when hearing that the lockdown is likely to continue for a long time (today I read the UK are suggesting a year) for those with underlying conditions and/or over 70. At the same time we are also being told that there doesn’t seem to be very little if any immunity for those contracting Covid19 and that the chances of finding an effective vaccine are low. I am really getting to the point where I need a little light at the end of the tunnel now and suspect I am not alone in this. If this is my life for the foreseeable future I don’t like it one bit.