Did you know that it’s world health day?! I didn’t until I meditated with the guidance from my calm app! Tamara Levitt inspired me to write this post.
I feel like I have talked about this quite a bit but I will repeat myself because it is so important, this was my “health turning point”:
Today, it is April 7th, 2018. Let’s go back in time to the second half of 2016, beginning of 2017.
- I was working 40+ hours a week, for not enough pay at an extremely stressful job where I was basically responsible for everything in a very small company. I am the type of person that will do everything and anything for you. All you have to do is ask. (I am working extremely hard on changing this!) This was my downfall at this company because the boss was extremely good at asking and asking and asking. Lets face it, I am a giver.
- I was only exercising once a week atsoccer or ringuette.
- I had moved out for the first time and was responsible for many new tasks.
- I didn’t eat very well at all. I would come home and crash after a long day of work and basically eat cheese and crackers and then do takeout. I tried my best to eat well but it was extremely hard for me to plan meals, grocery shop and eat all the food before it went bad (I was eating by myself). I did have a boyfriend who helped me tremendously. I don’t think I realized how much he helped me until we broke up.
- I wasn’t able to spend as much time as I would have liked with my roommate since we were on such different schedules.
- The kicker: I didn’t know that I had ADHD.
February 16th, 2017 I had my appendix removed. In hindsight I think that this was my body screaming at me “stop being so mean to me, take care of me!!” Unfortunately, I didn’t listen.
I ended up taking minimal recovery time and heading back to work.
August 2017 (if I have the date right) I decided enough was enough. Everything piled up on me and I toppled over. I had just moved into a new apartment, the crazy job had just moved to a new location for the 3rd time in a year, my boyfriend and I officially broke up, I was so overwhelmed with work that my anxiety was sky high and I was starting to become depressed. I was SO OVERWHELMED and I was so upset with myself because I was quitting yet another job and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I also felt so incredibly alone and like “I didn’t belong anywhere”. I really needed the support of my friends but I don’t think that they understood what was going on and I especially didn’t. I was basically alone at an apartment for months. And this sounds like I’m exaggerating and I know that I am but that is exactly what it felt like. I needed someone to come down to my level and just be with me. The only way that I was able to spend time with friends/family is if I made the extremely difficult effort of getting off my butt. When I was out and making an effort I still didn’t feel like I belonged and I felt like I was trying too hard to be somewhere and do something that I didn’t even want to be doing.
You’re probably asking “what does this have to do with world health day”? I have spent my whole life neglecting myself, my body and doing and being what everyone else wanted me to be. This is the opposite of health. I know this also sounds extreme but I literally didn’t know how to make a decision for myself until I moved out and realized I would have to. All my decisions would be based on what someone else wanted. I didn’t want to be unhappy anymore, I needed to learn how to make decisions and be who I wanted to be. Listening to Jessica McCabe’s video “Failing at Normal” has literally changed my life. After watching her video and rea
lizing that what she said completely resonated with me, I asked my psychologist (since the doctor route didn’t work so well in the past) about it and I was diagnosed!
MY ADHD DIAGNOSIS WAS A HUGE HUGE HUGE STEP IN THE HEALTH DIRECTION.
My whole life I felt alone; I never understood why I felt so bad all the time and I honestly felt annoying because I was always complaining about my health and how I had another headache or how my jaw was killing me bla bla bla.
Ending the negative talk here. How have I helped myself in the health department?
- By getting support for my ADHD (starting a support group and this Missleadingly ADHD blog, Facebook page , support group and Instagram account) I have now started to understand my brain so that Ican accept myself.
- Signing up for ADDCA and starting my journey to become a coach. Let me just say that I did not expect to learn this much about myself! I am starting to understand my brain so much and I have explanations for things that I didn’t even realize were part of ADHD.
- I exercise daily and am on the path to exercising twice a day. This does not mean that I workout for an hour straight twice a day. Nope. Right now I am doing the Beachbody workout once a day and about 10 minutes on the elliptical in the morning to get my body going!Side note: I did not expect this whatsoever but the beachbody workout is helping me soooo much with my posture!! I have been getting headaches because it is activating muscles that I haven’t used but I am pushing through it because I can feel my body getting stronger and I feel a lot better (minus the headaches, of course!).
- Meditation. Now, I am absolutely brutal at meditating. I am probably concentrating on my breath and following the instructions for 2 minutes out of the 10. That said, I am getting so many benefits out the the 2 minutes! I feel so grounded when I start my day with meditation! Imagine what would happen if I was actually meditating for 10 minutes!! I want to also point out that I have no hope in hell of meditating if I attempt to do it before I exercise!
- Gluten free/dairy free diet. I do not follow this to a T. For those of you that don’t know me too well, I am absolutely obsessed with cheese and bread. It has been extremely tough for me to cut it out. I have noticed a few changes in my body: I do not crash nearly as hard when I stick to the diet. How do I know? When I do eat gluten I crash and I crash hard.
I also noticed something else that is really interesting: I do not understand how both dairy and gluten have the same effect but this is what happens: my hands, feet, shoulders, area near the bone underneath my eye, and my eyebrow bone all become irritated and they feel stiff. I usually notice this the most when I wake up in the morning. Also, on these occasions I usually wake up in the middle of the night feeling super anxious. - Baths with epsom salt, candles, relaxing music and bubbles! I used to hate baths because I would be so bored and I felt like I should be doing something else. Now, I love them! They really help me to relax my sore muscles and ground myself.
- Essential oils. This has changed my life and I cannot wait to learn more about essential oils!! I am obsessed with Lavender oil and Peppermint oil in particular. Lavender really helps me to fall asleep and let my body know that it is time to get ready for bed. I want to also point out that I have tried a few brands and I have not found one that compares to Young Living. I have a very sensitive nose and I can tell that these oils are nothing but pure! If you are interested in learning more, yes I sell them. I am going to try my best not to use this blog to advertise myself as selling them. The tricky part is that I find them so amazing and hard not to talk about!!!
- The most important thing that I have done for myself is for the first time I am actually listening to my body and respecting myself enough to ask myself “what do I want to do?”, “what direction do I want to head in?” and “will saying yes to this align with my values and what I want to be doing?”. Abig piece of this is first learning about yourself, what works for you and then with those in mind moving towards what you want to do.
I was raised to ignore all problems. Health issues are also seen as problems. Opening myself up and listening to my body is the hardest thing that i have ever done. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to address the way that my body is feeling and reacting but I know that this is my path to healing.
What do you do for your health? Is there anything that you ignore?
