Recovering Just in Time for Storyville on Sunday

After a three-week bout with illness, I'm back in the land of the living.  This has been a time of relearning how to give control over to a higher power.  I am once again committed to my own personal practices of meditation and of the 12 twelve steps.  Thank goodness for sponsors and divine intervention. 

My anxiety has been so high lately that I cannot help but see the cracks in my recovery... especially in my ability to release control.  Trusting is difficult, but nothing helps me understand how to trust like a period of time when my body--something I am particularly close to--behaves in ways I don't understand and can't seem to control.  My body is miraculous.  Its healing power is phenomenal.  I am repeatedly amazed.  My body's resilience reminds me to trust it more, rest it more, and not to push it in order to distract myself from emotional turmoil. 

I am now forced to face the tough anxiety and emotions I've been having this year.  I cannot force-feed my body or over-exercise it to make feelings of physical discomfort replace the deeper emotional and mental discomforts.  It has been a difficult time, but it has consequently put me back on track.  I am trusting every minute--for healing and for joy.

And it's a great thing, because I have an important event this weekend.  Storyville, the jazz group I sing in, will be at The French Corner on Sunday at 8pm.  Read more about it on my Upcoming Gigs page.  This is a major concert we've been working toward for a while.  I'm excited to share the interesting things we do vocally with an audience.  If you are in Houston, come out!  I'll be happy to talk with you about all the craziness that has been happening lately.

"When it rains, it pours," they say.  For me, when it pours, it's never all bad or all good.  It's always a mix of a bunch of everything.  And I'm proud to say, I can take it... and give it back over to a higher power ;)

Sickness Is Healthy?

Sometimes, circumstances thwart us from doing what we want or hope to do. This happens on large and small scales, but no matter what is at stake, those situations can be incredibly frustrating.

Right now, I’m a bit under the weather, and as a result, many things I would like to do are out of my reach. I get bursts of energy during which I can do a load of laundry or clean the kitchen, but after about thirty minutes, I’m dragging again. I could take this as an irritation and inconvenience, but instead, I’m choosing to see it as an opportunity to think beyond my usual schedule.

Incapacitations lead to creativity. When a human can’t do something one way, that person usually finds another way to do it or is led to another interest. Sicknesses and inconveniences are essential for me because I tend to get so bound up in routine; only something at least moderately severe can break the chains of my own tightly-controlled regime.

Illness works for me because it slows me down. I get in much better touch with my body and my emotions during illness. Eating disorder thoughts lessen because my notions of food start to center around what will get me better (or what will help me survive, if I feel that terrible). Sickness is a good thing (at least under my usual, non-terminal conditions). Funny that I spend so many borderline obsessive/compulsive moments scrubbing things and washing my hands to avoid it ;)

I can even extrapolate this perspective when looking back on my entire history with eating disorders and recovery. I would not be who I am without that struggle. My inability to “fit” in certain ways has led me toward new ways of living.

In this moment, however, my aching body needs to rest, and I’m doing to jump on the opportunity to adhere to that early bedtime I’ve been trying to move myself toward for months! My to-do list is no match for this kind of exhaustion.