Every so often life offers us wake-up calls.
Yesterday was one for me, and I did need to be shaken, I think, in order to jump tracks and make a new pattern for myself. My self-talk of late has been unkind.
I’ve done this before, getting stuck in an ongoing hole of self-loathing, tunneling along through each day barely surviving, frustrated with myself and so angry I feel like there’s a warrior swinging her sword around inside me.
But I’m swinging at myself, and that isn’t working. That’s not how I want to live.
If I want to be strong, I need to stop undermining myself.
I have to shift my mantras from ones of self-destruction to ones of nurturing and connection with something that grounds me and helps me remember I’m more than this body, more than this human experience.
Like I said, I’ve done this before, and I had a decent handle on it. That was in the years when I was studying yoga intensely and teaching, before twins.
I need to stop comparing myself to who I was before children. But, you know, I’m still grieving. Guess I should take that to the fire.
I have been focusing on self-care lately. A lot. It’s just really hard to do when my kids want my attention all the time and there are two of them and they never shut up.
But they’re amazing! Like, yesterday, when I was leaving with my friend to go to the hospital, leaving my kids behind with my friend’s daughter until their grandma got there, telling my boys how much I love them, one said, “I’ll always be sending you love through my third eye, Mommy, even when I don’t see you or if I don’t tell you.”
I love them so much.
Still, I think being a mother is about the most vulnerable thing you can be. There is strength, for sure, and I’m mama bear all the way, but the roller coaster of emotion is wicked.
So what happened yesterday, anyway?
Right. Well, it went like this:
In the morning, I was trying to do my new physio exercises to work on the diastasis recti (separation of abdominal muscles) that I’ve had since having twins. I’ve been working on this for over four years, and I’ve made progress, but I’ve never been a patient person.
And me not having patience with myself means I have less patience with my kids while they interrupt my workout and yoga time, which makes me madder at myself.
At one point in the morning, before lunch, when they needed me for one more thing and I just wanted to finish my goddamn yoga so we could eat and go do something fun together, I blew up. And I wasn’t mad at them, I was mad at myself.
And directly after yelling, my vision went weird, like a crack across one eye with a strobe-like effect, and it didn’t go away when I laid down and closed my eyes. It lasted about ten to fifteen minutes, then faded away. Scared me silly.
I talked to a nurse over the phone who told me I should go get it checked out within the hour to be sure I wasn’t having a stroke or something serious. So I sat on the floor crying and called my friend, who is also my kids' godmother, and she showed up at my door eight minutes later with her daughter to watch the boys. Meanwhile, their grandmother started headed this way from a few towns over. I am so grateful to have that support.
I spent a good part of the day at the hospital, mostly being moved from one waiting room to another, but everyone was very nice and the whole thing was finished in about four hours.
There is nothing like being in a hospital to remind me how healthy I truly am, and how good I have it. I am grateful for my body. It’s beautiful. I am beautiful. Why is that so hard to say? I’ll keep practicing. It’ll get easier. Anyway…
The CT scan came back normal. The doctors and nurses were all kind and thorough. They sent me to an optometrist, who got me in at 4:15 on a Friday, and confirmed that it was almost certainly an ocular migrane.
I still have to go see a couple of specialists for follow-up (hey, I’ve never met a neurologist before), but all-in-all it seems like a gentle nudge from the universe to get my anger issues in check by switching gears.
What now?
I need to find a mantra that feels good and get it stuck in my head. Replace sharp words with nurturing ones.
I need to ask for help and leave my kids with other people so I can get out into nature and have time to myself.
I need quiet and music, writing and movement. There has to be balance.
I need to not look at screens so much, or get glasses that reduce eye-strain or something. Is that a thing?
I need to remember that not all of this is a mental game, and find a way to get out of fight-or-flight mode. I jump at the sound of the snow falling off my roof and hitting the ground two stories down. My cortisol levels are chronically high, which means I need more parasympathetic-nervous system action, but who has time for restorative yoga?
I guess I better make time.
Mostly, I need to breathe, relax, and remember that Emotion = energy + motion, and it is constantly changing. I have to find a way to flow with it and let it go, along with my ego, and whatever vanity I’m still clinging to.
I turn 41 in a couple of months. I am far gone from maidenhood, walking the path of the mother towards the wisdom of the crone. May my path be blessed. May I walk with grace.
Self-kindness.
I know I’m not alone in navigating life with anxiety and depression, which is why I’m sharing this. It’s okay to feel. There are ways to make it better, even if changing those patterns isn't easy.
Self-care and self-kindness are key.
Please be kind to yourself. I'll do my best to do the same.
Thank you for reading.
Whatever happens, keep singing your song!
Peace. @katrina-ariel
Photos mine unless otherwise credited.
Author bio: Katrina Ariel is an old-soul rebel, musician, tree-hugging yogini, and mama bear to twins. Author of Yoga for Dragon Riders (non-fiction) and Wild Horse Heart (romance), she's another free-spirit swimming in the ocean of life.
