A few weeks ago, the quote from Nina Leavins made an appearance in my blog. It’s time to revisit her wisdom:
“The Self Care Formula is simple. It is NITO(5R)…that is Nutrients In and Toxins Out in the 5 Realms the body works in (Mental, Emotional, Physical, Environmental and Spiritual). Unfortunately, we are doing TINO(5R) that is toxins in and nutrients out.”
My physical realm has been decidedly toxic for some time and each time it comes up on my radar, there’s a new creative excuse as to why it hasn’t been fixed.
Well, enough.
Each time I draw a mental picture of what I want in life, being healthy and balanced features somewhere in the top 3. Yet it is an aspect that is consistently neglected and time isn’t waiting for me to get on board. Aging waits for no-one.
Using the concept of 4 rooms, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, my mental room occupies most of my time. The emotional one is usually opened up to hurl a bunch of chaos into it and the spiritual room is barely a blip on the radar. The physical room is a train wreck.
Searching for balance feels like it’s been a lifelong quest; one I haven’t put much effort into if I’m brutally honest. Oh, I’ve thought about it plenty; it’s just never progressed beyond being the ‘well that would be nice’ phase.
With a family history of chronic medical issues ranging from cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems, some of which can be attributed to obesity, ignoring the physical realm is not something that can live on the back burner forever.
Everything in life is a choice; even not choosing. If we are not choosing health, we are tacitly choosing its counterpart.
Taking out the recycling and trash earlier brought home how much of a mark a single person makes. The scuba diver’s mantra of ‘take nothing but memories and leave nothing but bubbles’ pinged into my head. There’s definitely a lot more than bubbles going into the trash, never mind attempting to calculate the cost of what I’ve taken.
Exercising is the bane of my life; I hate it. Not even going to attempt to sugarcoat or deny that. So what alternatives are available to increase health and decrease weight?
Diet.
Willpower is not something I possess in bucket loads. Stubbornness, yes. Willpower? Nope.
So the challenge is on to find a simple way to rejig my diet that will not involve copious amounts of willpower. Cooking is my therapist, so time to make that therapist dish up a cure using Nina’s advice of NITO(5R).
It’s time to choose. Health? Or continuing to feel like this for the next decade?
A complication from a routine medical procedure landed my brother in hospital with life-threatening viral meningitis last week Sunday. It’s been a crazy week.
That life can change so drastically in an instant is terrifying. One minute you break a tooth on a piece of pizza, the next you’ve got a tooth infection and the medication has such a severe effect on you that it lands you in hospital hooked up to enough medication to floor a whale.
To the doctors and nurses at Rush Copley hospital, THANK YOU! You are truly angels; the same angels who took care of me last year.
To his boss who generously set up a Go Fund Me account to help out, you’re amazing!
To the friends and complete strangers who have made donations, I have no words. That complete strangers have cared enough to help in any way restores my faith in humanity and every penny has been gratefully received. You are all angels in this world.
Make time for the ones you love, cherish the time you spend with them, make family time a priority because at the end of it, it can change in a heartbeat and the chance could be lost.
He’s home now with a few more weeks ahead of recovery. My sister has once again been the rock in the storm, taking care of him and spending virtually every hour at his side to bring him through. He chose the best woman in you, Sis, and I love you to death.
The vow in sickness and in health holds true for them and it’s something I hope I find in my lifetime.
Sometimes trying to put feelings into words is like trying to nail jelly to the wall; difficult and more than a little bit messy.
Looking back over the week and taking stock over my 4 rooms, the score card looks a bit like this:
Emotional room: Train wreck
Physical: Quite a bit better initially. I started off great for 4 days then derailed for the end of the week.
Mental: Exhausted
Spiritual: Neglected.
Let’s start with the top of the pile, shall we?
Tuesday was an actual train wreck that ended with a body under the train during the commute home. Sitting on a train for a few hours thinking about the life that ended under it definitely gives a person pause for thought.
Wednesday was dinner with the folks and a hard goodbye. I never realised how much it meant seeing them regularly until I waved goodbye and they weren’t there for dinner on Friday. The house that’s been my 2nd home since I arrived here is now someone else’s home.
My brother and his family have taken over the house and while it looks mostly the same, it feels different. It’s their space now and the freedom to come and go through that space is no longer there for me. Something as simple as the sofa being pushed all the way against the wall has left me feeling unsettled because it’s clearly no longer my parents’ home. It’s not my safety net. That has left me feeling strangely devastated.
Physically I made better choices regarding my diet this week. Well, let me clarify that; I did until Thursday. Thursday, Friday and today were less planned and as a result, definitely unhealthier.
Not having made time last weekend to properly stock up my fridge for the week ahead got me through to Wednesday but derailed me for the rest of the week. Putting non-essential shit too high up on the priority list left the last half of the week in a mess. The first order of business in the morning is to restock my fridge with the things I’ll need to eat right for a week. Sanctuary would be better sought in my spiritual room rather than in beer and Scotch.
Mentally I’m fried. Work is taking too high a toll on my sanity at the moment and Wednesday had me at the end of a very short rope. If I’d had my passport in my bag my commute home might have taken me to O’Hare airport. Finding a handle on work is going to take some creative problem-solving on my part and to be honest, I can’t be arsed.
The urge to go back to Scotland is drowning out my will to do anything else other than count down the days until I can send in my visa application. Please can I just go home to my mountains…? My Falcon’s Eye is still next to my heart every day, reminding me to go home.
Flags outside a pub in Savannah, Georgia. It was one of those days when I was looking for a sign and turned a corner to see the Saltire smack in the middle.
The spiritual room didn’t even get a second glance this week.
Life is starting to feel decidedly like one of those hidden object games where you need to find a specific item in one place to use in another place, which unlocks the thing holding the clue you need to solve a problem somewhere else.
Maybe the solution to the mental & emotional upheaval is in the room I didn’t go into this week.
Time to log off from the endless Netflix reruns, put on some soothing tunes, light some incense and get under my blankie with a book.
Tomorrow is another clean slate so draw a line under today, leave the failings at the door and get some rest.
Every Tuesday & Friday I have dinner with my family. When I was religiously logging my foods on Myfitnesspal, Tuesdays were always a gamble calorie-wise. As a result, I nicknamed it Trainwreck Tuesdays. Could be a good day, could be a train wreck.
Today Trainwreck Tuesday turned into an actual thing. Yesterday was a late one and I missed 3 trains home so to make up for it I decided to miss 3 trains in to work but I still left on time. The 3:18 train out of Union Station.
Our train hit a pedestrian about 10 minutes outside of Chicago. It was a fatal accident and we spent 3 + hours sitting on the tracks while the Fire Department and police did their thing. The evidence technician had to do his thing; the engineer was relieved and a replacement engineer brought in; the train had to be inspected to ensure it could continue safely.
I didn’t realise at first that it was our train that was involved as all trains were stopped but as other trains started passing us after a while, it was clear we were the ‘incident.’
Thankfully the passengers in our car were reasonable but passengers in other cars were losing it and cussing the conductors. Yeah, we all have somewhere to be but for the love of God, there’s a body under the train.
Yes, we’re hungry, we need to pee *I used the loo….. dear Lord, it was a biohazard zone*, we all have somewhere we need to be. As the one conductor calmly pointed out: we all get to go home. Slower than planned, but we get to go home.
Perspective.
Sitting on the tracks was frustrating initially but the sun eventually set and it was a beautiful sunset. The man under the train never realised yesterday was the last sunset he’d ever have the chance to see. He’ll not see another one.
While people are losing their shit with the conductor, there’s a family somewhere getting a phone call that someone they love won’t be coming home. Someone’s life just got shattered while we sat there counting down until we could move again.
This was the first time I’ve been in a train that hit someone. It wasn’t how I imagined it. There wasn’t an impact and a sudden screeching to a halt. The train just slowed down and stopped. When we did, I knew there’d been an accident because that wasn’t a place we normally stopped. I didn’t know it was us. It’s hard to explain how you feel a life ending without tangible evidence of it; their energy merely departing. Maybe I’m just funny that way. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Tonight was someone’s first death. There are 2 more awaiting him in the distant future.
The change of the seasons brings the predictable gift of allergies and general germ infestations. *that’s a technical term for colds and flu.
My London buddy has been plagued with flu for the better part of 2 weeks and is still feeling like shit on a stick *his words. Because of the way his company works, each employee is awarded some arbitrary score based on number of sick days blah blah.
So is he currently in bed, looking after himself and giving his body what it needs to recover? No. Of course not. There’s a penalty if he does, so instead he’s dragging his germ-infested arse into the office and spreading the love, never giving his body the rest it desperately needs to recover.
When did that become the norm? When did self-care get shelved for profitability? Our value has been downgraded to the point where we are cogs in the profit machine and work we will! No matter what. You feel like shit? Too bad Honey, you’re on duty making money for the machine. Get to it!
I’m generally very good about making sure I leave work on time. I work 7 am to 2:45 pm; those are the boundaries I set from the start and for the most part they are respected. The past few weeks those boundaries have been more of a suggestion and I’m feeling the effects of it.
Coming home too late too cook anything meaningful so I resort to quick and easy. Yeah well, quick and easy comes with consequences and my body feels sluggish and mentally exhausted.
That we constantly sacrifice our self-care at the altar of someone else’s profit is something that seriously needs to change. This just isn’t cricket. My life doesn’t have a dollar value thank you very much!
It’s enough. Our collective sanity has gone down the crapper and for what? How productive can you be when you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck? It winds me up sitting on the train sandwiched between people sniffling and hacking up a lung. Why do the rest of us have to be covered in germs because your boss is a dick?! GO HOME AND REST FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
I came across this quote today and it sums it up pretty neatly:
“The Self Care Formula is simple. It is NITO(5R)…that is Nutrients In and Toxins Out in the 5 Realms the body works in (Mental, Emotional, Physical, Environmental and Spiritual). Unfortunately, we are doing TINO(5R) that is toxins in and nutrients out.”
― Nina Leavins
This ties in quite neatly with the 4 rooms philosophy I’m testing in my life. Nina adds in a 5th element which is crucial: Environment. The 4 rooms exist within the 5th so it makes sense that it all needs to be viewed holistically. Attempting to balance 4 rooms within an unbalanced Environment isn’t going to have optimum results.
Take an inventory of what environment you’re trying to balance yourself in because at the moment my environment is going a long way to throwing my 4 rooms out of whack in spectacular fashion. There was time to meditate tonight which is something I never do. It was definitely a much needed deposit into my spiritual room and it needs to become more regular.
This is going to be trial and error but it’s a start. At least the errors mean we’ve tried for something.
In the words of my old boss, ‘We’re going to eat this elephant one bite at a time.’
It was definitely my Monday mantra today in between the madness and mayhem. Some days all you can do is one thing at a time.
My mental room felt like an F2 tornado did a number on it and on the train ride home I decided it wasn’t worth the headache. If ever there was a good time to start making sanity a priority, it’s now.
Today step 1 was putting a time limit on the mental room. The madness doesn’t need to catch the train home at the end of each day. 7 hours is more than enough time to be spinning around like a Whirling Dervish. Work stayed at work and the train ride home was spent on a good book.
Step 2 was making time for the physical room: time to pack a breakfast and lunch for work; time to walk, even if it was only 10 minutes at a time every other hour; time for self-care.
For step 3 I’m going to use that slice of time I spend tossing and turning trying to fall asleep to be still and reflect; a bit like a mini-meditation. I don’t think my brain would hack a significant period of time meditating just yet. Baby steps here!
Time to switch off the devices, hydrate and hit the sack with a good book. Just once in my life I’d like to master the art of zen.
Starved Rock – a little slice of zen hidden in Illinois
Rumer Godden once said: ‘There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms; a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.’
True story.
This quote made an appearance in my life a few years back then fell out of my memory only to resurface 2 years ago. It fell off my radar again and has recently resurfaced. Some lessons just keep reappearing until you learn them.
Cliches aren’t the only hidden cache of wisdom; proverbs rank up there in terms of overlooked wisdom but we’re all too busy to bother looking.
The past week has been draining mentally and emotionally. My priorities shifted from finding balance to wasting focus on external things that cannot be controlled and drama that wasn’t of my own making; the drain of other people’s expectations.
The past few weeks have seen me holed up in the mental room with enough snacks to feed a village for a month; neglecting the physical room to my detriment; God knows where the key to the spiritual room is and the only time the door to the emotional room was opened was to toss a whole pile of mayhem into it then slam the door shut quick fast and in a hurry.
Which room occupies the majority of your life? Are there some rooms you’ve never visited?
There was a time living in England when my spiritual room was in order. Religion and spirituality are not the same thing in my mind but that’s personal to each person. No judgements.
The physical room has left me depleted and depressed lately. Surgery has left a lingering presence which is not entirely unexpected but I’ve chosen to ignore that until now. Being up and about doesn’t necessarily mean the healing is complete and I’ve not allowed myself to accept that.
It turns out my body will have the last laugh in that conversation because it will do what it needs to do regardless of my opinion on the matter. There was a significant period of inactivity during recovery and that’s left its mark. It’s not irreparable but it’s not going to be a 5 minute job either. Listening to what my body needs hasn’t been a priority and it should have been.
My physical room is that barricaded door at the end of the cobwebbed hallway. It hasn’t seen the light of day in too long. The sheer volume of crap that’s been thrown into it is staggering. Nothing is as it should be. The interior is cluttered and grimy and it’s time for a serious renovation!
It turns out my sister had the spare key to my spiritual room; the door was cracked open a little yesterday. We spent the day together, catching up and reconnecting. I’ve pushed her away lately because I refuse to accept that she’s struggling with my move to Scotland. Instead of appreciating that it’s because my family love me that they will miss me, I’ve taken it as them not being supportive so I’ve distanced myself from them for self-preservation.
This during possibly the worst few work weeks in years. A time when having my family around me is necessary for my sanity, I’ve pushed them away. We had a good day reconnecting and talking about where we’re all coming from. She really is my rock and having a good cry on each other’s shoulders was cathartic. We found our link again and went and stocked up on some good vibes at a crystal shop in Geneva. The mental clarity from spending a few hours surrounded by crystals and good energy made a huge difference.
Yes, I know it sounds a bit new agey to some but crystals each have their own properties. Some things are true whether you believe in them or not. The stones I was drawn to all turned out to be things I need in my life right now. Clarity. Focus. Help with memory and repelling negative energy. Moving forward in life. Removing obstacles. Enhancing creativity.
Making time to meditate and be in my spiritual room will pull me out of the mental room that is currently the Black Hole in my universe. Hopefully the key to the physical room is in there somewhere.
As any good DIY-er knows, when tackling a major renovation you should focus on one room at a time. Renovating an entire house at once isn’t possible unless you have somewhere else to live during the chaos.
There’s no option to leave my body during this renovation so it will have to be one room at a time for a while.
Pick a room that would benefit you and spend more time in it. Don’t neglect the others but for now, we’re just airing those out. They will have their turn for a major renovation soon enough.
The physical room is the most terrifying at this point so while motivation is high and the urge is there, it will be the starting point. How, I don’t know but finding balance is part of why I started writing this blog. To find my way home. It turns out home isn’t just in Scotland; my body is also home.
The spirit within will show itself when you let it. If anyone has the instruction manual on how to do that, I’m all ears!
One of The Tree Spirits of St. Simon’s Island, GA. A few of the trees on the island have faces carved into them. They are called the Tree Spirits of St Simon’s.
