allnewyogalife

My last blog was last May. How quickly a year passes. Its not been the best year if I’m honest. 2021 started with good health and the best of intentions… mainly a challenge to raise money for a different charity every month but also to live my best life regardless but also hoping to progress my Yoga training and restart Yoga classes. Everything was going swimmingly, I was using my health and fitness to raise money by cycling, walking, running etc and was preparing to head back into teaching…loving life despite the chaos of Covid. What changed? I got my first Covid vaccination.

My first vaccination hit me like a tonne of bricks. I was instantly ill. My temperature spiked, I had ringing in my ears and a head ache where I could barely move my head for pain and nausea. By nighttime I could hardly move with pain all over. I felt like I was on fire one minute and frozen the next and then there were hallucinations. This intensity lasted 5 days and then it gradually calmed, lulling into a string of headaches, temperature fluctuations, body pains, exhaustion and a chorus of other weird symptoms that continued for a further 6 months. Any boosters exasperated the symptoms so any slight recovery was sent backwards. In the last year I have hardly taught any classes. Barely managing my own yoga practice never mind the joy of teaching or any of my other loves like walking, cycling or swimming.

Each time I thought I was beginning to get back to some kind of reality I got ill again and this perpetual attack on my immunity left me open to get everything else going. At the same time my body was moving into Peri-menopause and where perhaps I could of coped with the changes I was going through (heavy bleeding, mood swings, bloating, hot flushes etc) on top of everything else my body gave up. Just before Christmas I ended up in hospital anemic and broken.

It has been a long path since then. If I led the kind of life where I could just re-cooperate perhaps it might of been easier but who has that! With a big family to love and feed and support and with normal family things that happen or go wrong…there is always drama or maybe that’s just my family? Don’t get me wrong though I have taken time to sit, watch the flowers grow and listen to the birds sing and here I am now writing this finally feeling like I’m coming out of the other side…a year later.

I am not rushing back to teach as there have been a few false starts where I have spoken too soon but I genuinely feel like there is a change in the air. Obviously I still have to traverse the minefield that is Peri-menopause but I am hopeful and my health and fitness are heading in the right direction. Where that takes me I don’t know. Nothing is set in stone. I am just so very grateful to have progressed this far.

N.B -I didn’t want this post to be about how ill I was it is more about how much can happen (or not happen) in a year. From being so happy, fit and energetic to days where I was really low because I truly did not feel like myself and did not like myself. Days where I wondered if there was ever going to be a change or if I could get my strength back physically and emotionally and now back to feeling stronger and ready for something new. Everything changes …sometimes quickly, sometimes it takes time. I recently watched a YouTube clip from an interview with Tom Hanks and several other actors.(watch it here) His was talking about his philosophy of ‘this too shall pass’. Nothing is permanent. It resonated with me and I have definitely learnt to enjoy the little moments more.