For fast acting relief, try slowing down.
Lily Tomlin
The Call to Slow Down
She laid awake on a late fall morning waiting to start the rush of getting the kids off to school. It was a day like most days but today her body was forcing her to slow down. A crushing feeling was in her chest. Her breathing was becoming labored. In her head she began a checklist. Chest discomfort – check. Shortness of breath – check. Pain in the shoulder – slept wrong? Fatigue – always. She calmly asked her husband to get the kids off to school while she tried to convince herself it was nothing. A google search or two later she decided the only decision was to go to the ER – just in case.
She was lucky that morning. The triage nurse jumped her ahead of the other patients waiting their turn and rushed her into a room right away. Seconds later another nurse was there to hook her up to a machine that will test her heart rhythms. She was told to sit very still as the tears began to stream down her cheeks – fear setting in. She doesn’t know how long that test took – an eternity is how it felt – but the results were good – she was not currently having a heart attack. Whew. On to the next test.
A blood test would tell her if, in fact, she had a heart attack that morning. As she waited for the results she began imagining what her life might look like from this point forward. Positive or not the results of that test would not change her mind. Big changes had to be made in her life. Mid-life was fast approaching and it was time to get healthy and slow down. She wasn’t going to ignore this call.
The results
The doctor came in and assured her she did not have a heart attack. Thank goodness. After an audit of her personal history and a discussion about mental health it was decided it could have been one of two things: anxiety or indigestion. Both of which could have been brought on by the intense amount of stress she had been under. The doctor and her settled on a plan. He gave her a prescription for anti-anxiety medication and she promised to return in 3 months to follow up.
That woman is me. Thirty-seven years old. A heavy drinker. More than a few pounds over healthy. Two kids finding their footing in their teenage years. A marriage struggling to stay whole under the stresses of life.
How it started…
My life as a whole didn’t look too stressful from the outside. I had been a stay at home mom since my kids were born. It was what I was “meant to do” and I was good at it. I was fully confident that I could create a “Pinterest-perfect” life and everything would be easy. If I could just plan my way through life, I could avoid it’s “hiccups” like financial stress, teenage rebellion, and marriage problems. What I had inadvertently created was a time bomb inside of myself and it was about to go off.
This was my wake up call to slow down. A call to stop living the life I imagined I “should be” and start living the life I really wanted. A life that did not focus on how much I could do or was keeping score on if I was actually contributing enough to the world. I was beginning to realize I had been proving to myself (and my family and the rest of society) that it was okay I didn’t work outside of the home because look at all the stuff I am doing at home like homeschooling, cooking from scratch, building my own house for goodness sake!
But I was no longer doing it out of joy. It had become a chore. I had begun counting down the days until I could finally slow down and put myself first (whether that was when the kids went off to college or when I could finally feel free of society’s expectations to “go back to work” at age 65).
The Transition to Slow
That December was a fog. My new medication had me struggling to stay awake in the afternoons and was forcing me to slow down, no matter what. All the “should do’s” quickly fell off my list. I was lucky to get the Christmas tree up and decorated and a few Christmas favorites baked. We were living in a construction zone and all I needed was a small Christmas-y corner of the living room that was painted and perfect. Read more about our experience building our own house.
The New Year came and I made the decision to quit drinking, once and for all. If I was going to actually try to get healthy and be successful, my daily glasses of wine and beer were the first thing that had to go.
While in my early days of sobriety, as a crying lump in bed in the middle of the afternoon, I googled Wellness Retreats near me. I had an urgent need to get away. I didn’t actually think my search would be fruitful but just a hop, skip and a jump away was a center calling for people who felt stuck in life and unsure of where they were headed. If that wasn’t speaking directly to where my head was at then I do not know what would. I booked my spot for a retreat that was 6 weeks away and used it as my first goal post to staying sober. Read more about my first 100 days sober here and my experience at my first wellness retreat here.
How it’s going…
2024 has brought a lot of change in me and my mindset. I have begun journaling again, reading self-help books and listening to podcasts. In reading other peoples calls to slow down, I am amazed at how much their experiences resonate with me. I am becoming more open and honest about what I am going through when talking with my family and began therapy with the aim to slowly diffuse the bomb inside of me and get me to the point of getting off my medication.
Today, I am feeling a lot more like my old self now. The me who was eager to start her day and who could go about it not only without resentment boiling to the surface but with actual joy.
As I learned more about myself, self care, and mental health I decided I couldn’t keep it all to myself anymore. I needed to share all I was learning with someone – anyone. So came The Thoughtful Thicket – a place I can share the things that are helping me and a place you can come for an honest look at learning to live authentically from someone who is finally going through it herself.
So come along as I share journaling prompts that I love, my experiences trying new hobbies, ways I have found to keep things simple, and my era of self care after neglecting myself for what might actually have been my whole life.
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