My Restoration System: A Plan in Place to Create Health and Space
I have been pondering a lot (a lot a lot) in the last six month about personal responsibility and my own health. And wowza, take a moment to define the word ‘health’ for you as it comes in all shapes and sizes with different words and vibrations for every single person. And I truly believe that in order to create practices or connection to even a word like health, we have to know what it means to us first to create choice and clarity - while also checking in to see if someone or some social ideal has defined it for us.
Health as defined by me in my body, in this life, in this home, is: my mind, body and spirit are in a space to respond to illness, injury or pain from a space of stability and a state of being naturally well. This is a working definition as my focus for 2022 definitely is around stability so you will most likely see it in all my definitions I share.
I cannot say in reflecting back on the last year, the past 360ish days, I have been in the best health. I’ll leave it at that as the paragraph of woes I began to write annoyed me so I deleted it.
And yet, this was my time to go to that dark side. This was my experience to grieve and grow and grieve again and surrender and even stand still for a long time so that I could honestly feel it all. I cannot say I resent the time (anymore) as this truly is being human in all of our evolutions.
As we know, hindsight is always 20/20 and I can see where I had to ask for help, I had to let go of a lot of what I did and who I knew myself to be. Oh wow did Chris step up and truly take on being the most incredible parent when I needed to book a flight at midnight and leave the next morning or when the thought of doing bedtime was not even a glimmer of hope in my mind’s eye.
This week I have been contemplating how I care for myself in times of uncertainty (cough, this time we are living in now for sure - but isn’t it always somewhat uncertain?). My teacher often speaks to an insurance plan and I feel it better rolls off my tongue and into my psyche with the language of a restoration plan. This is when you begin to spiral and can create a conscious plan to bring yourself back to a space of stability. I have once coined it a shift list, too!
My restoration plan includes the following (in no particular order because some days I need one thing and others days I need about 8 of these):
Hot Bath with a book (any time of day)
A walk outside with fresh air for a fresh perspective
Dance (I love my online membership to The Class)
Phone a friend
Cold Shower / Ice Bath plunge (when not pregnant)
Cry (almost a must and a daily for me)
Water, drink the f*cking water
In bed asleep before 10:30pm MST (this is new for me)
Vacuum (I have a Dyson and damn I love seeing the lines on the carpet)
A hug (they work, they really do)
Writing (check out morning pages from Julia Cameron’s ‘The Artist Way’)
….
This is a great start for me and I do recommend a longer list, one that includes some actions that can be done in 30 seconds and others might take 30minutes - this creates choice for what you can actually commit to amidst a spiral - as they usually happen in the middle of a workday, during a conversation with someone or even right when you get out of bed in the morning.
I find even having this list available, visible somewhere allows me choice. I want to be clear that this is not about distracting or avoiding when you’re in a slump, funk or sad. It is more about bringing myself to the present moment back into my body so I can honor the current emotion/feeling versus losing myself to it. It was in the chaotic spiral that my health took a turn - mentally, physically and spiritually. And that will happen. And these plans are just like that note ‘tell God your plans and watch her laugh’ as I recently read again in Anne Lamott’s book ‘Bird by Bird’. And yet I find a plan can feel like soul salve to create choice in the moment and even explore the question of what do I really need right now to feel, to heal, to be present?
An offering.
An idea.
An exploration.