How do you listen to your gut and not your mind?
I’m not too sure, let’s find out together…
I’ve been a bit sad and grumpy over the past week. My mood seems to drop when I’m unwell, and then I worry about being off work too much. I returned to work last Monday after pretty much all of January off with a virus. My immune system is suppressed to prevent rejection of the kidney transplant, that my brother donated to me in July 2022. I sometimes feel sorry for myself that I have a ‘suppressed immune system’ but then I quickly remember that it’s much better than having kidney failure. I always wonder how suppressed my immune system actually is. Is 50% supressed? 49%? 90%? Is it useful for me to know? I’ll just be living my life thinking “Poor me, my immune system is half of yours”.
Anyway, over the weekend just gone, I’ve been thinking “I’m not going in to work Monday, because I’m just going to make myself worse if I keep pushing myself” That is perhaps true. But how much of that is anxiety around being ill rather than being ill? I find myself feeling more stressed when I am ill, but notice that when I stop for a moment, and just sit with it, often, my mind is making me feel more ill. I still have a heavy chest, I still have a cough, I still have a headache, but it takes the edge off when you really stop to notice what’s happening with a settled mind. As always, it stems from childhood, we get more attention from parents and loved ones when we are sick. I can feel the remanence of that today when I’m sick. This is why I like reflecting, you can call yourself out on your own BS, then feel slightly smug about it, which is odd, as it’s all in the mind.
All of that said, I do feel rubbish, I’ve had a virus since my brother’s funeral on 5thJan and I do feel somewhat sad that I’m not feeling 100%. I feel like I need some deep rest, which is seemingly hard in 2023, but only if we don’t prioritise it. We’re all guilty of being martyrs and pushing too hard, doing too much and not prioritising rest.
What was my point?
Oh yes, well, I came into work this morning, and I started to feel better, the fog is lifting and I’m not coughing much. I feel it in my chest but it’s the best I’ve felt for a while. I just felt my mind say “Well, wait until the afternoon, you usually start feeling rough then” We’ll see. The internet is down at work this morning, it’s down for the entire region. Some colleagues can still connect which is strange, but I am writing this draft in MS Office so I can paste it into Substack later, when you read this, it’ll be in Substack of course.
I don’t really know if I have a clear point, I just started writing about what’s been going on, and then calling myself out on a few things. Let’s see:
Your low mood can make you feel more ill than you are.
The childhood need to be taken care of and still rears its head as an adult when we are ill.
The mind can be a pain in the ass and you don’t really know if you’re coming or going.
We love bullet points, they make words feel clearer and truer, don’t they? Well, I love them anyway.
Bullet points feel like clear facts.
Bullet points are good for summarising.
Why am I writing this?
Update: I’m writing this just over two weeks later and it turns out I did push too hard! I’ve had this persistent cough so I did an online GP appointment a couple of days ago. They said to go to the emergency department in our local hospital. This felt strange for me, I was unwell, but didn’t feel that it warranted an emergency appointment. Anyway, I attended and it turns out I have pleurisy! That explains the persistent horrid cough, pain and wheeziness. So I’m signed off work again for now.
I’ve always liked the idea of ‘listening to your gut’. But how do we know what is your gut or what is your mind? I can’t really give you a clear answer on that. All I can give you is what I saw on reflection.
What I have seen is this: There’s all of this anxiety and guilt around being off sick, saying you shouldn’t be sick and you’re judging yourself for being sick, or you're not as sick as you think you are so you just push through, or others are sick and they just carry on. All of that noise is probably your mind.
That feeling behind the noise, beyond words, that you’re not feeling right, that’s most probably your gut.
Maybe if I did listen to that 2 weeks ago I wouldn’t be so sick now.
That’s all I have to say for now.
Love to you all,
SLART
"Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice." - Steve Jobs
Damn. Feel better.