Slow Down

I’ve been the girl with a fat day planner, each day notable for its laundry list of to-dos, all of them seemingly urgent. I've felt the near-panic pitch to get everything done, not allowing myself to see low-ranking items as any less important than high-priority ones.

For a long time, there was no room to slow down; there was only the need to pick up a heaving, gasping pace. I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform, and though it produced results, it also created a long stretch of nonstop stress and anxiety. Although I knew this wasn’t a sustainable way to work—or live--I continued anyway.

What changed everything was chronic illness.

Hindsight is always 20/20

Looking back now, I have no idea how I did everything I used to do. It’s like watching myself in a movie on fast-forward. Though part of me marvels at what I used to get done in a day, the other part of me is mostly horrified at the degree to which I neglected my health and wellness. I know I believed that attending my annual doctors’ appointments and getting regular exercise and a balanced diet was enough, but there’s something both passive and punitive about how I followed these practices.

My diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia (TN) changed everything. At the time, there was no way for me to understand why or how I would have to make lifestyle changes. I’d spent so much of my life believing I had to push harder that it didn’t ever occur to me to slow down. I never questioned if my schedule was causing regular overwhelm or if there was enough flexibility built into my days. If every single minute of my day wasn’t allocated towards something “valuable” (aka doing something active and practical), then it was a waste.

In living this way, I didn’t pay very close attention to my body, unless I was faced with something that I couldn’t ignore. Today, I still wonder if I misread or entirely missed signals my body may have sent me, warning me about the onset of my TN.

Flexibility

I was forced to slow down immediately at the time of my diagnosis. The first medication I tried, carbamazepine, made me so sick that it was impossible to think of doing anything besides lie down and pray for an end to the pain. The second medication I tried, on three separate occasions—oxcarbazepine--has less severe side effects, but I still struggled through fatigue, dizziness, brain-fog and dropping sodium levels; this, too, made it hard to do much besides rest.

The medication I’m on now and have been taking for almost two years, gabapentin, is relatively mild, but still has side effects like fatigue and dizziness. I don’t need to constantly lie down, but I do need the flexibility to rest when those side effects or the pain gets to be too much. That’s why on most days I need to take a nap.

Flexibility took on a whole new meaning once I started to learn about my “new normal.” Gone were the days when I could rigidly follow a daily timeline or expect to get through 20+ to-do items. I needed more wide open spaces that aren't time-bound. I needed more time to actively participate in my self-care and rest. I needed to relearn my priorities and recognize how to rank them.

I needed to accept and acknowledge my new limitations.

Judging weakness

In my work as a writer and creative coach, I talk a lot about working with and not against your limitations. But as the saying goes, you can never follow your own good advice.

Until the TN, I didn’t realize that I’d drawn a false equivalence between limitation and weakness. There are so many reasons for this, but I do place a lion’s share of blame on our societal obsession with productivity. With so much emphasis on getting things done, on the 24/7 hustle, on winning all the time, there’s a definite compulsive slant to how we value our lives—and how that value is complicated by choices that go against the grain of what socio-cultural norms dictate as rules to live by.

It wasn’t until I was confronted with a change in in my health status that I berated my new limitations as weakness. I judged myself for my physical weakness, even though I knew the sources were pain and medication. I also judged the psychological side effects of chronic illness as weakness when anxiety and depression are actually normal responses to a new, challenging situation. There have been times when I told myself I’m blowing this pain out of proportion; it can’t be that bad—this is probably the hardest self-judgment I recognize in myself.

But it was that painful. And it is.

Everything is finite

Limitations and weaknesses have nothing to do with one another. What really drove that point home for me was waking up to the fact that everyone has limitations. None of us has a never-ending supply of anything—time, energy, money, health, life. Once I consistently reminded myself of that fact, I was able to also see how I wasn't just ignoring my limitations, but I was also neglecting what they were telling me about my needs, and how to curate more ease and meaningful productivity into my life.

When I look at my life now, it’s hard to imagine living the way I did before the TN. And in all honesty, I don’t want to live that way again, even when I think I do. Life now is about flexibility, self-forgiveness and heavy doses of patience. Tasks are no longer allocated specific timestamps; I accept that it doesn’t matter when things get done, just that the important things do. I rest when I need to. I make more time for the people I love, but am transparent about my boundaries and limitations. I make more time for what truly matters to me. Each day begins and ends with the deepest, most nourishing self-care I can manage.

This is about you

My sincerest wish for you is that you pay attention to what your body and mind tell you. Don’t wait until things become overwhelming and untenable. Don’t push through the pain. Observe yourself with gentle curiosity and pay attention to what does and doesn’t feel right.

Life does involve a certain amount of discomfort, but that doesn’t mean that you have to plough on through with little regard for your limitations. Nor does it mean that you must suspend everything. I want you to know that all your limitations mean is that you have to find your evolving unique rhythm, one that allows you to live your life on your own terms.

Your limitations aren’t your weakness, but your inability to accept and acknowledge what they mean in your life is.