Giving Myself Credit

When I look back on my teaching career, and my fibromyalgia and early retirement, I sometimes feel like people think that I didn't just push myself enough. I was reading a book today about the happiness mindset and it talked about several celebrities with chronic conditions who have found ways to manage their conditions while staying positive and happy and I thought, shoot, I did that for 30 years!

I managed it. That is how I pushed through it. I went to bed early so I could get through the next day. Sometimes early meant 8:30. Sometimes early meant 6:30. I rested all weekend so I could make it through the week.

At different times I did yoga. I did walks. I got sun-simulation lamps.  I got massages.  I meditated during my lunch break. I researched homeopathic remedies. I read. I went to movies. I swam. I went to the hot tub.

I spent my summers resting on the porch making lesson plans and organizing my ideas so I had things ready for the year.

I spent 2 weeks in July cleaning and decorating and organizing my classroom so it was ready for the year because I knew I couldn't do it in a day before school started when things were already packed with other tasks.

I made routines for my lessons that benefited my students and also allowed me to have a rhythm and a rest every hour so I could get through my days. I needed pacing.

I still managed to add creativity, fun and variety to my lessons all the way up til the day I couldn't do it anymore. I always loved my job and my students. There just came a time when all the managing in the world wasn't working anymore. My body just wouldn't do it. It couldn't keep up.

Putting me down with shingles or ear infections or stomach flus or muscle spasms to force me to rest wasn't cutting it anymore. Going to bed at 5:30 every night wasn't enough.

So if people think I didn't push myself, I can't worry about that. I know I did. I managed and pushed myself for a long time. And I managed to be pretty positive and happy all that time.

I have to remember that now when I'm managing and pushing myself in different ways in my next phase of KBuddah life. I get in trouble when I focus on the past or the future. When I focus on the now and the present, the world falls into place the way it should.

I'm Two KBuddah Winters Old

Tomorrow we're supposed to get a little April snow. But I've made it through two winters now with KBuddah! And they've been the easiest winters I've been through in forever!

Winters are really hard on me. I remember saying those exact words a lot to myself in the past. Winters are really hard on me.

The darkness. The cold. The grey. It's not that I don't like winter. I never thought I minded it. I like snow sometimes. It's pretty. I like hiking in it even. I like fleece clothes and cozy fires and hot chocolate. I like cozy in general.

But something about winter is hard on my body. I get tired. I get really tired. Really, really tired. My pain was always worse. 

These past two winters seem to have gone by so easily. I've been tired. But that's not going anywhere. I'll get to that in a minute.

I've been tired, but I have gone out of the house to the gym at least 4-5 times per week and done workouts at least 3 times a week.

I have been overwhelmed at times, but for the most part, I have been able to keep up with my laundry and housework at home and with what I want to do to help at the gym and even take showers after every workout day. 

When I used to be overwhelmed, I'd have to take days and weeks off to catch up. Now I can catch up in a day or two or over a weekend.

Things like taking showers and doing laundry and dishes likely sound like things normal people do all the time, but for me, those are things that were very difficult to manage when I was working and in pain and exhausted. 

As spring arrives, I feel the next level of KBuddah training arriving as well. My surface pain and the radiating pain that was non-stop, has essentially disappeared. That happened really quickly after I started training. That was a huge surprise to me. I never expected that to happen.

It's a difficult pain to describe. It was a dual pain. There was a skin pain and then there was a pain that was a little deeper that was like the aches from the flu or the soreness from working out that was there all the time. 

All the time. It was nagging and relentless. It wore me out physically and emotionally. I still have back pain, but that's different and separate.

Underneath that skin and aching pain was a really deep and sharp muscle pain that was almost in my bones. That pain is more like the deepest part of a black bruise. Like when you hit your muscle on the sharp corner of a table. But I feel that pain from just pressing on my muscles. 

That pain is still there. It's still underneath my skin. It's still deep in my muscles and between my ribs. Deep in my thighs. In the knots in my shoulder blades. Under my armpits. It hasn't gone away. I just don't feel it all the time. But it's still holding onto things. It's still wearing me out. 

Khris has started a stretch and recovery class. This class has started to dig deeper into the muscles and let out something. When I first started training, I'd have emotional releases after training at random times.

I believe that was my body releasing pain and tension and stress that my muscles had been holding for years. I believe that's how the pain started leaving my body. 

Now it's time for this deep pain to start to release. I don't know if it will ever totally let go, but I'm ready to put in the work to see what happens.

I'm grateful to have a partner like Khris who will push me and push my muscles and not worry about the tears that come. He only worries about the progress that will come by the time I'm Three KBuddah Winters Old.