Lincolnshiregirl

Today I’ve felt really positive and with the type of optimism I’ve not had for quite a while, not sure what has caused this but guess it might be the unconscious realisation that things will work out ok in the end and having to slow down a bit while being ill as well as seeing the progress we made in the garden too.

I was meant to go back to the gym this morning but my sleep was really restless so decided to have a slower morning, I meditated again since I lost my daily streak last Thurs and felt good to be back in the groove with, I’ve kind of missed it the last few days but not been in the mood to do it.

I met a friend for coffee today which was lovely, I always feel buoyed up and energised when meeting friends especially now that it’s been a long while since we’ve been able to see people in person due the pandemic.

When I got back from the gym two new books had arrived, I’m a bugger for buying books and then not reading them or reading the first few chapters and nothing more and they sit on my book shelf gathering dust! These books are by Yung Pueblo, an author and poet I’ve followed for a while but didn’t realised he had published books! His first book is called inward and all about self love and his recently released books is called clarity and connection with is about relationships with others. And I know that I will read these books as both are written in sort poems, saying and paragraphs. I can’t wait to get started.

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I’m determined to get back to the gym in the morning now that my cold has 95% gone and as I’m back working at the uni tomorrow I’ve done quite a bit of prep this evening ready to take all the stuff I need with me, it’s amazing how effortless this feels when you’ve got your motivated/productive head on…long my that continue!!

Today I woke up feeling more like myself, most of the cold symptoms have gone and just the cough is lingering.

I was able to sit at my desk and actually do some work, the first time in about a week where I’ve felt my brain at working at it’s usual pace which is a relief as I’m quite behind with some work so will take some longer days the rest of this week and the weekend to catch up.

Although I’m feeling a lot better than I was a few days ago, I’ve come to bed quite early, as I feel ready to start reading my personal development books again and as the evenings are drawing in it’s nice to snuggle down in bed and read.

In the coming days I will sort out the other spare room again so that can be my reading space rather than my bed! Nothing wrong with reading in bed, however, when I’m doing personal development stuff I prefer not to be in bed if I’m honest as my mindset is very different! I’ll will make is snuggly and warm too so I’m not tempted to use my bed!

I’ve also managed to do some cleaning today and get all the dishes done in the kitchen, not a big thing I know but it does get me down sometimes when I walk into the kitchen and there are always jobs to be done.

The other big thing I’ve done today is make a doctor’s appointment, well try to anyway. At my doctor’s surgery since the start of the pandemic they have moved to an online system where you put some of your symptoms into a form on a secure website and then wait for them to call you back for the next steps.

I’m not anti western medicine, however, as a nutritional therapist I do tend to explore holistic options and treatments to find the root cause of what might be going wrong and then look at ways to fix this. However, having spoken to a few friends who also take this root and doing some reading I’ve decided to get another point of view around my sleep issues.

From what my mum has told me I’ve never been a good sleeper (well there’s a fixed mindset problem waiting to happen!!), anyway I digress! And for as long as I can remember I’ve never slept through a whole night without waking up, I probably wake up 3 or 4 times a night. When I say wake up I mean I am conscious that I am awake and think I’m awake, and tell myself to go back to sleep. Sometimes this awake period is seconds long, other times it can take me a good while to get back to sleep. I track my sleep with my Fitbit and although it says I fit into the “normal” range for a female my age, I never feel rested and wake up just as tired as I went to bed.

So I’ve been researching possible solutions other than sleeping tablets and one thing that keeps coming up is melatonin. Melatonin is a chemical we naturally produce and helps us to regulate our circadian rhythm. I’ve actually often recommended it to clients to assist them with recovering from jetlag. Research suggest that having a course of it in high dose may help to reset your body clock to improve sleeping. You can buy melatonin in the UK but it’s not regulated, much of what I have found is quite low dose & could be anything the manufacturer wants it to be so the only option really is to on prescription, hence the need to see the doctor.

If I can crack my constant tiredness then I’ll feel I can achieve more and attempt to deal with some of my brain/mind blocks rather than be consumed with the need for rest.

Here in the UK, today is a bank holiday and I’ve basically gone from my bed to the sofa and now back to bed, still suffering from my cold and my cough has really taken it out of me.

Today was always going to be a rest day to allow my body the time it needs to fight the cold, however, it’s very unlike me to do so little even on a rest day. I don’t feel like I’ve really got up today as I haven’t showered or changed out of my PJs, some might baulk at this and it’s not something I do very often, in fact I can’t actually remember the last time I did it, just felt like I needed to expel as little energy as possible today.

This morning I mostly spent dozing on the sofa, I simply couldn’t keep my eyes open and this afternoon I’ve been reading the Sunday paper I got yesterday but didn’t have the brain capacity to read it and now I’m back in bed writing this post.

Mentally I do feel less foggy and have started to think about this transformation and getting back on it with guts and determination, making a start on the garden has helped me feel like this as well as reading a few blog post and listening to some very inspiring people who have overcome adversity to triumph and conquer their demons and so shall I.

What a difference a week makes, this time last week I was buzzing from getting back into my exercise routine and still feeling the high from my cold water swim, tonight as I type this I’m already in bed as my cold has now turned into a cough – in a way this is a good sign as this is what happens when I’m getting better from a cold I get a cough for a couple of days and then I’m right as rain!

However, having this cough and doing some more gardening today with a friend has truly wiped me out and I can barely keep my eyes open and one thing I hate doing is falling asleep on the sofa in the evenings, I’d rather just come to bed early so here I am typing on my laptop in my bed.

There were tears today when I said goodbye to my friend, she is a relatively new friend but we’ve grown close and have a real connection, her kind words of encouragement about the garden and my challenge and I guess my cold, tiredness & that certain time of the month all lead to tears!!

I know that I’m really hard on myself and rarely celebrate my achievements, successes or even acknowledge my progress so having someone else say something nice can be overwhelming for me, I’m getting better at accepting compliments and responding with a thank you but sometimes tears replace words.

Another mental/brain thing to work on I guess!! This part of the challenge, the list to be worked on is getting longer by the week as hard as this seems it’s actually makes me happy that I’m noticing these thought patterns and with awareness comes change.

Today has been all about the garden, as I’ve mentioned before the garden is very overgrown through years of neglect and this weekend was the weekend it started to get sorted.

A couple of friends had said they could come over to today so I got up quite early to bake a few sweet treats for them and to get all the tools out the shed. We started at 10am and finished about 4pm and got a far bit done.

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We managed to clear all of the stinging nettles on the left handside of the garden, along the back and made a good start on the raspberry canes. As well as mending the back fence which has lost a couple of panels & falling over.

As I type this I’m in bed utterly exhausted, I’ve still got my cold so this was quite a challenge for me today but glad I pushed through, I haven’t got a clue what I’ll with the garden once it’s cleared but least I’ll have a blank canvas so to speak and can start from there.

For the last couple of weeks, if you hadn’t noticed I’ve been feeling a little defeated by the challenge I had set myself so starting the garden has really helped me to see what I want to achieve in the long term and also a little help from friends can move you on faster than you can go on your own. NOTE TO SELF: As for help me!!

Yesterday I broke my daily mediation streak on the App Insight Timer! I’d got 122 days of meditation, with how I was feeling yesterday I just totally forgot as my morning routine these last few days has been disturbed so it just totally slipped my mind, I’m a bit gutted about this but know that sometimes things don’t go to plan.

As soon as I am feeling better and I get my morning routine back on track the meditation will happen again.

Today has been a bit of a write off really, I did a small amount of work but my head is just so fuzzy at the moment.

I popped to the shops to get some groceries as this weekend is a bank holiday here in the U.K. and after my social media request for help with my garden as couple of friends are coming over each day to give me a hand so wanted to make sure I had some food and refreshments for them.

This afternoon I also visited a friend and we went for a walk, first bit of exercise I’ve done since Sunday and it felt good to be in the fresh air, we had a great chat and helped me put a few things into perspective.

Bring on the gardening transformation…

Having felt rubbish yesterday I decided to have a bit of a slower day today.

I turned off my alarms so to wake up naturally, well as naturally as I can when I have a cat who is an early riser!! Thankfully she didn’t wake me up until just gone 6am, I fed her and went back to bed and woke up again at 7.38am.

Many tears flowed during the day there was reason for the tears, not feeling 100% and getting frustrated with some areas of my life has made me have a bit of a confidence wobble, I haven’t had one of those for a while but made me realise that this transformation is needed more than ever!

But for now, I’m going to be gentle on myself & be thankful for the good stuff I have in my life as there is lots of it I just forget sometimes as focus on the not so good stuff.

Today has been all about just getting through the day.

I woke up at my normal time just after 5.15am as it’s a gym day but on waking I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. I got up and fed the cat, cancelled my gym booking and went back to bed to sleep!

I was woken by a call from a client at 7.30am, they had called me accidentally I found out when I called them back.

I got up but have felt rough all day, a day off was probably needed but I had client deadlines to meet and a meeting with my accountant. So I powered on.

Have cancelled my gym bookings for the rest of the week and thankfully I can work from home the next couple of days so can take it a bit easier to allow my body time to deal with this cold.

I am making sure that I’m drinking plenty of fluids, eating nutritious food and taking my nutritional supplements to support my body.

Yesterday’s emotions have been playing on my mind today a little as they seem to come right out of the blue really or felt that way anyway.

Today I’ve had a working from home day which has been good despite the fact that this week was supposed to be my week off, I am on annual leave from my uni job but my business still requires me to work which in all honesty I don’t mind as I love what I do and this week two of my clients have got important food audits which I’m helping them with so taking time off is not really an option.

And I’m always really conscious that my business very much revolves around me and my knowledge so when I’m not working I’m not earning money!! This is something I want to explore in the coming months as it can be exhausting at times and having done it for 10 years it still makes me sad that people still undervalue someone’s time when they offer a service based business oppose to a product based business.

And probably doesn’t help that I undervalue my worth too so a double whammy right there.

Lots to think about!!

Today started off ok, I skipped an early workout to do some work before I headed to a clients for the day, I was reluctant to cancel the gym session seeing how well I did last week of fitting them in around the business, however, I got back later than I thought I would last night from visiting friends so didn’t got as much prep done as I would of liked and felt this morning I would have been rushing around too much and end up being late for both the gym and my client! To make up for missing the gym today, I’ve booked in for a session tomorrow, Tuesday is usually my rest day but I want to keep up the momentum I achieved last week.

Again I have over two hours in the car driving and thinking!! Even with what happened in the last 18 months, I’ve not done this much driving in a quite a long time, as much as I wouldn’t want to do it everyday (did that 20 years ago for a couple of years & it was tough going) I am really enjoying getting out and about.

This morning I was singing along to the radio, laughing with the presenter and everything felt good.

This evening was completely different, nothing had changed apart from a busy and intense day with a client, in fact is was a great day and we got lots done but I had an overwhelming sense of sadness not sure if this is tiredness, hormones or imposter syndrome rearing it’s head but soon after I got home the tears flowed.

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As I get older I know that allowing your emotions to flow is a good thing especially tears as this release can be really healing and there is no shame in crying and letting it out.

When I get a chance (I never get a chance, or the truth be told I don’t make time to get a chance!) I will sit quietly in the coming days and explore what’s going on right now as in all honestly things seem to be going well and have no real reason for this sadness!