Following the theme of taking time to rest and repair from December newsletter I was taking my own advice and pausing to catch-up on some reading over the holiday season when I came across this quote:
“Being unstoppably on the go is considered to be the behavior of responsible adults; therefore, we usually resist the interludes offered by ill health.”
(from Practice Changing Your Mind by Wendy Beall)
This totally resonated with me as I so often hear from clients and friends about how they had this cold or that flu, but didn’t have time to take off and just had to carry on. This is of course totally reinforced by marketing practices; I also spent some time watching TV over the holiday season and I became aware of how much advertising encourages this unhealthy practice. All sorts of medications are available to help us continue and get back to work when we are feeling unwell. So rather than using our sick days to stand still (or more realistically to lie still) and take some time out to think and explore where we are in life and how we feel about ourselves, we either refuse to take time off or we rush back to the treadmill as quickly as possible. When we could be recognizing a cold or a flu as a sign that we need to slow down and turn inward, we often instead feel compelled to soldier on. So rather than acknowledging the usefulness of an illness or injury that temporarily incapacitates us, we restlessly insist upon keeping on going.
From the holistic perspective, holistic coming from the Greek word “holos” meaning “whole”, that is acknowledging that body, mind, spirit and emotion are all integral parts of who we are, ill health is always a message. It’s a message from the body to the mind saying “slow down”—a message from you to you! Unfortunately so many of us rush to ignore it and get back into our busy routines as soon as we can in order to avoid that time with just ourselves. This leads to imbalance in our lives and a sense of life just rushing along. We lose the joy and beauty in the everyday unless we slow down. Ill-health is a reminder to slow-down and be. When we take that time we often reconnect with our creative aspects. I.e. During the holidays I pulled out my art supplies and actually took time to draw and paint. Something I’m always going to do “when I have time” by slowing down I found the time and nurturing my creative aspect became a priority. Sometimes it can be even simpler—don’t suppress cold symptoms! When your head is full of mucous—do you want to keep it in or get rid of it? Sometimes we actually need a cold to clean out our body!
Taking time to rest and repair may also allow us to put parts of our lives into perspective. Are the deadlines we put on ourselves real or imaginary? A good friend of mine helps me with that. David Anderson is a Registered Piano Tuner (and very talented musician). He said to me one day “Have to go-there’s a piano lying on the floor bleeding!” When I get caught up in deadlines and emergencies I catch myself and check if it’s real or exaggerated-life or death? I don’t think so!
So, this winter if you catch a cold or go down with the flu take time out to look after yourself. Drink plenty of fluids, eat lightly and take time to rest. Not only will your body appreciate it, but also so will the other aspects of you-mind, emotions and spirit.
Jacqueline Fairbrass
[…] whether you are waiting for your body to tell you to take a time-out by getting sick, or whether you want to circumvent it: I’m suggesting that […]