It’s official ; I’m a quitter
Lets begin by explaining the little detour I have been on the last couple of weeks which will also give reason to my lack of writing/podcasting and working in general.
It all started with a headache, some flu and has ended up in an overhaul I’ve needed to make, but didn’t quite realise how much.
So lets call a spade a spade here, I sit here on my throne of holiness, speaking the game of living in a soulful led space, and walking around with my sound bowl, clearing the energy, Feng shuiin’ the sh*t out the house and preaching to women how making time for you is paramount. but guess what? she’s a hypocrite. Because do I do that every day? Do I balls. I am firmly entrenched in a motherhood era, creeping into a menopausal state with an eldest in GCSE’s and a youngest who can’t yet wipe his ass properly and let me tell you, it has me wondering whether I’m a genuine mentalist who puts an enormous amount of pressure on myself, a hormonal mess or just a big fat ba*tard that can’t stop eating, and I am exhausted. Strangely so… although I have been this way my entire life. Since I was little, my parents speak of my ‘wall’. I’d keep going and going and going like a Duracell bunny, for weeks and weeks on end, then smash. I hit the wall, and it floored me. Took me weeks to recover, and I’m still exactly the same now. “But Laura, you have 3 boys!” I hear you say…. yes, this is true and it is mind shatteringly draining, to my bones, but still…it seems the more I take rest, the more tired I become and lately, I feel old. So old.
Now don’t get me wrong, I take care of myself. I eat well, I sleep not great but ok and bar a couple of pounds up and down, have weighed the same since I was 16. Anyway, I digress, 2 weeks ago I got the flu.. and it floored me and one morning, I was pushing against my lack energy and decided a bed needed to be moved… so I began to push, and had the biggest and most sudden onset of a headache I’ve known. In the evening to follow, I couldn’t seem to think clearly, or get words out properly. I left it a day, like you do, and started to think… maybe I need to speak to a doctor. Long story short, I went in, he said I was a red flag ( how dare he?!) and sent me straight to hospital as he was concerned I had a bleed on the brain.
Now, that journey.. as I drove my car to the hospital, alone.. was a bit of a an eye opener, let me tell you! I DID pass by my house on the way, to cook the kids homemade pancakes, before I left - what can I say, a glutton for punishment.
I had all sorts of tests, and a CT scan, luckily no bleed, well, 98% sure. But! she said ‘Mrs. Basnett, we have an incidental finding… you don’t have a pituitary gland’. As these words filtered into my barren brain, flashes of A Level PE class ran through, ‘Hmmmm a pituitary gland, I am pretty sure I need one of those’ .
Turns out, these 3 little treasures that cause chaos and carnage daily in my life, are quite the miracle. The fact I’ve never really had any issue whatsoever, is quite outstanding, and thank god I wasn’t born Laurence… but it could have deemed me impotent! But it does turn out, that my lifelong drama with migraines, dizziness and headaches and my lack of energy is down to my poor ability to level my cortisol. So if you throw in 3 coffees a day, the enjoyment of alcohol at least 3 days a week ( being modest) and a penchant for a Pastel De nata .. I’m on a rollercoaster, putting pressure on adrenals like there’s no tomorrow.
So I sit here, with chia seeds in my teeth, on day 7 of no caffeine and only 2 small glasses of red and I’m a new woman. Well, I’m not. But my days, I didn’t realise how much caffeine and sugar affected may ability to think clearly, and now I don’t have god awful crashes by 12pm. Have you ever seen Jim Carrey in ‘Yes Man’.. when he stays up all night drinking Red Bull, then crashes severely the next day? Me.
I have also been really intentional about going slow, in everything I do. I use to speed clean, speed wipe (I've just read this one back,and to confirm, I mean surfaces, not ar*e), speed wash.. everything was fast, why? Next time you go out, just notice how quickly you do everything… and sit back and people watch. Then watch those people rushing about, everyone is doing everything so fast these days.. why? It’s like we are completely conditioned to rush and never just take a moment.
So there we have it, I’ve quit caffeine and I’ve got through the excruciating 5 day cold turkey that makes you feel like a total heroine addict, rocking back and forth in the corner of a dark room and I am out the other side. Feeling brighter, clearer and my body and cortisol levels are thanking me kindly. In this process, I have also cut out majority of sugar, eating whole foods and i’m just now an even more annoying person to be around, all I need to do now is start making my own clothes out of hemp sacks and I’ll be close to Jesus himself.
If you take anything from my ramblings today, just slow it down. Be mindful, time isnt really real anyway - but don’t get me started on that one! ( look into the Ethiopian calendar, it’ll blow your mind)
Laura xx