In this series of blog posts, I share you my personal effort towards sustainable change. To get caught up, read Week 1: Cyber Purging, Meditation and Exercise and Getting Healthy Week 2/3: Listening to my Body and An Early Reveal of a “Before” Picture.
For me, it was time to listen to that little voice in my head that was speaking the truth. Here is one thing I know for sure:
When you do not listen to that little voice in your head, your body will scream at you in some way.
You might get a flare up of back pain, regular migraines, fatigue, hives or if you are like me it might manifest in sore throats and psoriasis. Your body will let you know! In some ways, you are lucky that your body does this because you can see what you are doing to yourself and hopefully wake up. I share this blog post with you because I want you to know that you can absolutely set intention and make changes in your life. When I ended 2012 with the intention to make change, I focused on diet (eliminating wheat and coffee), exercise (barre3 and yoga) and sleep. I ended up making the best change of all in the end. I started somewhere and ended up in an unexpected place with truth and peace in my heart.
In 2009, my sister went into labor prematurely with triplets at 23 weeks gestation due to a detached placenta (exactly four years ago today). She had been to the emergency room for abdominal pain a couple of days earlier and was sent home with “gas pains”. When she started bleeding and was admitted to the hospital, she was faced with the decision of how to terminate the pregnancy. Something in her blood levels miraculously changed and she was given the option of delivering the babies via C-section. Babies are not usually revived before 24 weeks but they made an exception for her babies born one day short of that marker. My sister was on the operating room table for hours and almost died. She had about 8 pints of blood transfused into her body. When I heard the news on the phone that she was having the babies I cried, “It’s too early!! Mom, they are not going to make it!”
My grief was palpable and intense and I was stunned into emotional paralysis. I called a neighbor to come over to help me find a flight home. My husband didn’t know what to do with me. I just cried. That flight from Oregon to New York was so sad.
My sister delivered Amelia, Veronica and Benjamin at 23 weeks, 6 days and they weighed barely over a pound each. I remember watching them through the NICU window blinds. I had seen surgery before in my time as a hospital intern in college but never had I seen surgery on such a small being and on someone I loved dearly. There were so many questions regarding brain bleeds, respiratory weakness, and heart problems and on and on. Amelia passed 20 days later as my sisters and dad watched her tubes get unplugged. I can’t imagine having witnessed that.
Benjamin and Veronica miraculously pulled through. They were (and still are) little miracles. They turn 4 this year!
Veronica at 11 weeks in the NICU
2009 was a hard year for me. I had already had problems sleeping since having kids but on that trip back to NY my insomnia got worse. I also developed walking pneumonia (in Chinese Medicine, grief resides in the lungs so this makes complete sense). It was the same year that I was opening up my clinic after having been in practice for 7 years. My boys were 4 and 2. I lived 3000 miles away from my family in NY. I had no choice but to plough through.
In 2010 I had 7 incidences of strep throat and developed an odd form of psoriasis called Gutatte Psoriasis that is mysteriously related to strep. My body was covered in dry, scaly patches. For Halloween, I dressed as a banana with only my face showing to hide my embarrassment. I promised myself that if I ever got rid of the patches I would show off my legs once again. My June 2011 the skin issue was mostly resolved after months of herbs and a lot of happy Zumba (I always say that I danced through 2010). I started to feel like myself again.
Why do I mention all of this? In 2009 I started a bad habit of taking an Advil PM before bed or some form of the antihistamine diphenhydramine (Simply Sleep, Excedrin PM, Benadryl- they all have it). Everything out there says that it is not habit-forming but I completely disagree! Over the next 3.5 years I took some form of it almost every night, most of the time only a third of a tablet but I still continued to take it out of fear of insomnia. That is the weird thing about insomnia: The fear of it in itself creates it! I noticed that if I took more than a half of a capsule I was very moody the next morning and I was thirsty all night (which did not improve my sleep). But the fear of no sleep outweighed the nasty side effects. I am sure the dryness it created made the psoriasis and the sore throat incidences worse.
Over the last 3 months in my effort to gain even greater health, I finally weaned myself completely off of the shit (excuse me but I am from NY and cursing is a natural extension of expression). And I replaced the habit with a healthier ritual. It took three weeks of prep. It took three weeks of adding herbs in from my Naturopath, listening to meditations every night before bed, and doing things like removing my iphone from my bedside. I have continued this for three months and now and when I get ready for bed, I feel safe. I know that my new behaviors will help me get to sleep easily and I won’t be groggy in the morning. My dreams are back in full force (Hey, Prince Harry it was nice to meet you the other night!). I made a choice and I changed the residual nasty habit that I had been embarrassed about for over three years. Halleluiah! I have heard that it takes 21 days to break a habit. I would say that I have to agree with that in this case.
Is there anything that you know you need to change? Are there any habits or old stories that you are holding on to? I hope my story inspires you to start somewhere and get the help you need to change. Do you have any habits that you began at a time that was hard in your life? Are you still in the same situation? What behavior do you engage in that you feel bad about? Is there a habit that you can bump out and replace with a healthier ritual?
Benjamin and Veronica 2013 😉
From Habit to Ritual is written by Liz Richards, L.Ac.