Overthinking when ill - Universe’s prank?

Photo by Madison Inouye from Pexels

I’ve been absent for a while as have been improving my songwriting, something that has completely turned my world around, I’ve loved every second of it.. then I’ve only just had my second covid jab, the AstraZaneca Oxford one.

First time around think my body decided to react to it in every possible way; nausea, fever, elevated heart rate, migraine, sore body, freezing cold.. this time round; nausea, sore body and migraine.. so thankful for less of a reaction. Thing is.. I’ve noticed for quite a few years now that when I’m not feeling well, it’s the perfect time to think of everything that isn’t going well with my life like some one woman pity party! I mean.. enough, thank you! I don’t need to add to not feeling well by making myself feel worse and it’s certainly not the time to address any currently standing issues in my life, is it? Anyone else do this? Then why do we do that? Usually our thinking, movement and reaction times are delayed by illness so quite frankly it couldn’t be a worse setting to try and do just that.. but i certainly don’t consciously think, ‘I have a life issue to sort out, hang on love, wait until you have a fever to tackle this’!

For the record I’m not a massive over thinker. In fact, I tend to get bored thinking about the same thing over and over.. but that feeling of being helpless adds to other situations in life that we also feel as helpless about. Not that it’s a perfect time for it but our minds drift to a like-minded scenario.

It is also a time when life has made me finally stop.. and it’s usually when we all stop that we can address situations in our lives that, really, we should have addressed ages ago. We all have those dancing around our heads like a little bunting of doom, flapping about in the wind, poking at you every now and then, reminding you, ‘I’m still an issue you have’.

So what do I do to get out of this situation? Well.. when we’re ill, we’re ill and there’s not much we can do other than just go with the flow and succumb to feeling out of control for once. But what you can do, and what I have done for the past two days to get over the vaccine, is sleep plenty, watch Disney+, eat as healthily as I can, drink plenty of fluids, self-soothe and self-pamper. By this, everything above is part of that self-pamper, but what it mostly means to me is listen to what my body needs and be mindful of it. I’m not going to force myself to watch a movie when my eyes are smarting and my head is pounding but that’s on a small level. Meditation for me is going for a walk.. but what would take me 1.2hrs to do 6 miles it took me 30mins just to walk to the end of my road and back.. so a lot of that is knowing that things will get better and I will feel better.

So most of self-care is also a positive mindset to help get better while getting better and making the most of the gaps of feeling ok to when I’m not well enough. I don’t particularly adopt self-pity.. by the time I get to the point of feeling overwhelmed with life and all it throws at me I tend to disappear from social media and address this myself on the quiet. Let’s face it, we all have days like that and however you address those less than shiny days that works for you is good. I just have a super stern word with myself, remind myself that there are worse things going on in the world without having to address my full blown pity party.

Gratitude is the other part of positive mindset. Glad I’ve had my home to get through the last few days and a bed. Glad I had food and that slowly day by day I feel incrementally better.

Today I managed to get a little further with my walk and did 4 miles. Took me the best part of two hours excluding a 30min sit and recover I had to do before returning home. Absolutely shattered but.. being around nature was just what I needed today. I looked like Mr Cool Dude with baseball hat & dark glasses wondering around the neighbourhood but it certainly kept my migraine at bay a little. But it was medicine for my soul.

I also found this Brontosaurus on my way home from my walk, poised, watching the traffic go by. For such a little suburban area I do find some funny things. So I gave him to the local school to carry on reign in 2021’s Jurassic Nottingham. Also reminded me how we are here today then we are someone’s plastic toy, centuries old, outdated and outmoded. We are here so briefly, blink and you’ve missed it; whether you’re ill, well or bloomin’ marvellous so why not make it marvellous through it all.

What do you do to self-care when you’re feeling ill? I hope that whatever you feel like today that there is sunshine where you are, that the weekend ahead is filled with healing and happiness to fill your heart!

Happy Fri-yay!

Love and Light☀️