Chronic Fatigue/M.E./CFS

[Aigeann]

Lady and Shadowcat:
I wish I had the strength and energy to send you strong healing rays, but I, too, am at a low ebb right now. I live in a cold region (Michigan, USA) and since the snow has arrived, I've been housebound by choice. Some days I am such a slug that just hope no one comes calling to witness my inertia and lack of ambition. But I have noticed that I have much less pain if I stay warm and rested. I can calmly move around my house doing laundry, etc. and accomplish some things, but I have come to understand that this retreat from the world is necessary. Once I accepted my condition and quit expecting so much from myself, I have been given time -- time to learn what winter is really about. In another time, our hybernation would be accepted as a time to relax and replenish, a time to learn and contemplate. I'm rambling -- what I meant to say is that perhaps we should look at the positive side of this. Maybe we should emulate the bear more right now. As I write this I can feel some of the pain retreating. Maybe we should give ourselves permission to rest and just be instead of giving power to this disease. Never give up your sovereignty.

Beautifully put.

Candles lit for all of you!

[ShadowCat]

I wish I had the strength and energy to send you strong healing rays, but I, too, am at a low ebb right now.
(...) In another time, our hybernation would be accepted as a time to relax and replenish, a time to learn and contemplate.
(...) Maybe we should give ourselves permission to rest and just be instead of giving power to this disease. Never give up your sovereignty.

Well spoken. Your wish is enough, since the old saying "it's the thought that counts" is very much true in that respect. No need to expend your own energy, just wishing it upon others is enough. Thank you!

And yes, I believe that a larger amount of people come down with fatigue complaints this day and age because we no longer follow the seasons in our daily life. Even if you live conciously like most folks around there boards, the daily grind still asks you to show up for work come rain of snow, or to do your duties as a homekeeper, regardless of the seasons. We are ment to sit inside for long evenings, tell eachother stories, sing, rest, sleep more, and prepare for a new season of growth and spring.

Disconnecting from the ratrace is a bigger challenge then forseen for me. It's so easily said, but hard to do and to resist getting sucked in again.

- - -

I just want to get back on the cardspread I wrote about earlier. Writing about it somehow helps me put things in perspective. Yesterday afternoon I had an important courtcase where the judges even came out of the courthouse to work on location. It took from noon till well past 6 pm. I kicked ass (even if I say so myself) and yet, I got a lot of tension off it that came home with me. I decided to take a shower, just to wash of the stress and tension of other people. Then I meditated on this feeling and I realised that the tension that's robbing me of my energy is a very childlike feeling: I've done something good according to my own judgement, something I stand for, but in my childhood those things where often percieved as wrong by my family. So I still feel this tension of fear of being "caught" and getting this slap on the back of the head for being out of line. This so much ties in with the spread earlier yesterday I'm in awe of the way things can work. Recognising the feeling lets me defuse the tension, bit by bit. So I'm grateful for that insight.

[ShadowCat]

Dear friends,

just a little kick to this topic. I have to comment on the uncanny way the gwers interact with my lifepath at the moment. (Since this is a public board, I won't go into details here... see also the bardic boards).

That said, the well of murky water needing to be cleansed got deeper, when the reality hit home that because of repeated physical harm (both at home and outside of it) in the first 17 years of my life, I'm on my way to be diagnosed with PTSD. The chronic stress caused by the lingering yet unrelenting unsafe feeling is likely the cause of my exhaustion and physical ailments. The gwers and these boards, the inner and outer grove, are keeping me sane at the moment. Thank you all...

[Heddwen]

I wish you well, Shadowcat. The course can mirror our lives on so many levels so it seems. It can be a great focus when feeling under the weather, I find that its keeping me going at the moment and a useful diversion away from my own health problems. My main concern is not to rush it and to savour every moment that I have left and there's not too much of it to go before I complete it.

[Aphritha]

I find it ridiculous how well the course unfolds, melding with life just perfectly at all the right times... If someone had told me it was so before I took the course, I'd have thought they were pulling my leg...
I wish you much peace as you continue along with your healing.

[ShadowCat]

Oh my, Heddwen... talking about putting things in perspective... I read your words several times to make sure I read them right.
It made me realise that I'm still pushing forward, mainly thinking in terms of: "After I get this fatigue conquered, then my life will "begin", then I can do the things I want to do, then life will be good..."
That's really not the way I want to live.

Don't rush it
Savour every moment

I'm writing those down and will try to remind me of them several times a day.

Thank you...

[Heddwen]

You're very welcome

[ShadowCat]

I thought it would be nice to post a little update...

Since the lasts exchanges here I've been making a detour from the OBOD-course into courses of mindfulness, wabi-sabi and zen-meditation. Lately, the idea of Ho'onopono has come to that as well. Accepting the imperfection of current life is a challenge, yet brings it's own beauty. And in synchronicity with that, my acupuncturist has concluded that chi/lifeforce/whathaveyou is flowing more strongly in me. The fatigue is lifting a bit more every day. Last week she told me I came in at about 7% of normal life force in the way she registers it, and now I'm at about 20%, hell, I feel like jumping mountains somedays already, so I wonder what 100% would feel like.

On food, I've resetled on a paleo-raw-ish diet as that agrees with me the most. Not a "diet" really, more a way of eating that feels good to my body. I use some whole herbs as supplements but generally follow a less-is-more approach nowadays that seems to give my body some rest and room to assimilate the things I do put in it more efficiently.

Big hugs to all of you around...
Heddwen, how are you?

[LadyAoftheshire]

Thank you for the updates ShadowCat.Its fantastic that you have a great GP like that!
I am starting to feel a little better, in ebbs and flows. Work has slowed, but I was still not recovering well. I found a great chiro/osteo who said my adrenals were shot, so I've been working with that energetically and taking a homeopathic remedy and have been finding energy to be a lot more present with things and get things done. I'm also more able to recognise when I'm doing something purely on adrenaline (which is how I primarily operate) and attempt to slow myself down and take the remedy if necessary, before I find myself exhausted.

[ShadowCat]

Shot adrenals is something of a evergrowing problem in modern society. Our bodies aren't made to endure the chronic stress society puts on you. Not only negative stress, also positive excitement might be to hard on your systems. "to much of a good thing" is not a mere saying in that respect.

The recognision of "false" (adrenal) energy and true energy (inspiration/lifeforce) is a great step forward, for me it marked the turningpoint in learning how to recognise it and adjust my behaviour accordingly. There's also something truly bardic about that, as I wrote before, the relation between gwers and life is uncanny at times.

I wish you the best Lady!