I am totally bought into the fact that recovery from CFS is possible; I whole heartedly believe in the link between the mind and the body and a holistic approach to recovery. I have been moving towards wellness for a while but I am not fully recovered so I decided The Chryslais Effect Recovery Programme is just the extra support I am looking for.
I was so excited when I pressed ‘sign me up’. I printed off the first session with such enthusiasm. I even went out and got myself a new ‘recovery’ notebook, folder and journal.
But within a couple of days I had some coldy thing with a side helping of excruciating headaches. This is not how it was supposed to go – more time on the sofa. You kidding me?! But what can you do but laugh? The universe doesn’t care that you’ve got an excellent plan, sometimes things just happen outside of your control. So I had a good chuckle to myself and put together plan B: take extra care of myself, don’t panic, relax into it and focus on doing all my new well being exercises, trusting that my body would come through the other side.
Then a couple of days later the universe poked even more fun at me; I woke up and realised the heating hadn’t come on. I looked round and realised actually it was a bit more serious than that – there was no power. I did all the obvious checks and discovered it wasn’t just me. I made a call to get someone round to fix it convinced at this stage it would be sorted in a couple of hours. So I made myself a coffee, got back into bed (thought I may as well be warm) with my inspirational reading material, my journal and my recovery notebook. I may not have been able to have a shower but that wasn’t going to stop me working on recovery! ‘ (As it turned out, the power didn’t come back on until 8.30 pm. Thanks universe!)
So as I reflect on my first week of my new treatment programme, I can safely say it didn’t go as I would have hoped; it was more a life on hold week than a get your life back week! But I was proud of myself for taking everything in my stride and for staying positive. And I used my extra sofa time very productively: DVDs, trashy TV, magazines, day dreaming. Sorry, did I say that out loud. I meant to say: meditation, writing in my journal, listening to recovery stories. Okay, I did both. Recovery is after all about balance!
Session one is all about getting you to think about you relationship with CFS. It challenges you to think about how much time you spend thinking about your symptoms, how much time you spend talking about them (in person or on line) and encourages you to re focus that energy on positive and inspiring thoughts and activities. You are also encouraged to do a daily guided meditation session and to start a well being journal. And although these topics and activities are not new to me, I have found that approaching them with an open mind and heart has allowed me to get so much from this session. Most significantly for me, I’ve had some really enlightening moments in my journal writing. Accepting that I still have areas to work on makes me very happy – because it means there are still areas of opportunity to improve my health.
And taking extra care of myself has paid off. The coldy thing has gone (as have the headaches so I guess they were linked) and I have not crashed. I made it out for lunch on Saturday to celebrate my best friend’s engagement (ahhh…) and to the cinema on Sunday. (We went to see The King’s Speech: what a wonderfully inspiring film. The King overcomes his stutter by an array of unconventional methods, relaxation techniques, accepting there is a link between the mind and body, the power of belief and managing stress. What perfect timing for seeing a film, which showed so beautifully what it is possible to overcome.)
I am back on track and week 2 promises to be more what I had in mind. So nice try universe, but it’s going to take more than that to dampen my enthusiasm!
How do you handle it when the universe pokes fun at you? Or if you have recently started the programme and would like to share your experiences, it would be great to hear them…x
If you would like to read more about my adventures you can visit my blog: www.sofaandthecity.blogspot.com
