There are two sides to the Miss Cranky Pants side of the She Loves and Trusts Her Body energy. They look nothing alike. But they come from the same place.
Well, as I mentioned in yesterday’s episode, I’m very familiar with the cranky sides of She Loves and Trusts Her Body.
The first type of cranky energy here is override mode. Your body tells you, clearly, to stop. You feel it. You push through anyway. Then you call the exhaustion discipline. Your determination points you at the wrong target, and you keep trying to prove something instead of listening to your body.
For years, decades even, my default mode was override. I had three babies in just over three years. We had no family nearby. I was new in our little city. It was basically just me and my boys for the first stretch of their lives. I was married, but to put it kindly, my husband was not a baby person. The current term for my life back then is “single parent while married.” I quit my job and stayed home with my babies. They were my job. All day. All night. Every day. Yes, we fought, mightily, about this. That’s a story for a different day.
I pushed my body so hard and ignored her when she told me to stop. I felt like I couldn’t stop, because I had a job to do. I walked around telling myself, “nobody ever died from lack of sleep. They got stupid, but they didn’t die.”
When our youngest was eighteen months old, I got the flu. I’d never had the influenza before, but man, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I had about as much strength and energy as a wet washcloth. It was Christmas Eve. We had friends over for dinner. By the time they left, it dawned on me that something was really wrong. But I had packing to do. We were leaving early Christmas Day to spend the holiday with my in-laws, and there was no way we could not go.
Winter in Wisconsin. We headed out. After a five-hour drive, all I could do was crawl into bed. I couldn’t ignore my body anymore. Two days later, we took a trip to the emergency room. Influenza. IV fluids. Then, time to go. But before we left, the emergency room doctor really reamed out my husband. He needed to help more. I was really sick. He needed to handle the littles so I could recover. The doctor was so stern that my husband was shaken up. On the drive back to his mom’s house, he asked me, “Am I really that bad?” I didn’t have the energy for a comprehensive answer in that moment. And then the moment was gone.
The other kind of cranky energy in She Loves and Trusts Her Body swings the other way. You entirely disconnect from your body. Or you swing hard in the opposite direction. Overindulging it. Numbing out instead of nurturing.
On a lighter note, I’m usually a pretty good eater, mindful of what I eat and how much. But every now and then, yikes. I’ll start on my snack of the moment, let’s say potato chips. I’ll have some chips with my sandwich at lunch. The sandwich is long gone, and I’m still eating the freaking chips. And you know what finally stops me? When my stomach is going, “no more, no more.” Long after my body was already telling me we’d had enough. This doesn’t happen often, and honestly, it happens less often as I’ve gotten older, but I was so good at ignoring what my body was telling me she needed. Here’s a clue. It wasn’t potato chips.
Underneath all of this, you’re thinking, “I don’t have time to stop right now. There’s too much depending on me.”
Find your happy. Love what you do. Make a difference. Come back to me safely. See ya!
