Thanks Jonathan for writing about this - shingles can be such a horrible experience to go through, for me anyway. I hope you can recover well.
Over the last year I’ve found myself struggling with the term self care. And perhaps it’s exactly what you mentioned - we cannot self care our way out of bad situations/relationships.
In the Irish language, we say grian stad for solstice. Literally, sun stop.
When the sun starts moving again after three days I’m planning to do less, & do it with more intention. At least that’s my hope anyway.
If you never had small pox in childhood, what illness would your body have used to signal the overdrive mode you were in? Would it have had the same excruciating and devastating impact as Shingles?
I believe that self-care that reaches certain threshold of obsession is being used to mask some other lifestyle defects. Guilt could be a powerful driver of excessive compensatory behavior.
Lastly, personality is destiny and I don't mean this in the sense that you cannot change certain patterns but that you cannot pull off a permanent change in behavioral patterns that upsets or that's in opposition to the structure and integrity of your personality. At least not consciously, not voluntarily. There are definitely mechanisms by which such impossible changes can be effected but none of them are amenable to conscious and voluntary manipulation. So I'm not surprised you're drifting back to the old baseline and you'll always struggle with this drift until one of the involuntary mechanisms for effecting such anti-personality change comes online.
I love this. It's more useful than "there's too much, it's all too much" - which is true but all a bit hopeless. I have been stuck there in a toxic work situation and crashed. Now, I am in a place where I can choose when and how to proceed.
There will always be too many real demands and too little support in my work, and so little aligns with my view of the world.
So, in a mad, sad work reality I can leave or demand to do fewer things better.
My health and worthwhile work well done - both supporting each other - not what can I carry ... bear ... survive. I have put it down and will not pick it back up.
In a state of madness, these words are like a revolution.
Fewer things, and trying to give myself grace for it. I’ve been learning to adjust the work to my level of energy and realising that if I push too hard, I will need time to recover, so I might as well do it right the first time round.
MISALIGNMENT in a CORE area of your life is a BIGGIE . Have felt my wheels spinning around a certain relationship and wondering why each time I land back in the same place of feeling Dis regulated. Because I am failing to address the areas of misalignment that a a soul level I KNOW TO BE FACT .. Alarm bells ringing and lights flashing as I almost want to say ..DUH ..to myself . Thank you 🙏🏽
Finally learning what is “enough” is what shifted things for me. I don’t want my body to crash again to let me know I’m off track pursuing things I don’t actually need. Many ppl can’t slow down or rest tho bc of systemic issues and hyper-capitalism and that has to change.
Hmmm… for me, self-care encompasses body/mind/spirit/life balance. I totally agree that veggies and meditation can’t undo stress and depletion from overwork. AND, I’d love to the definition of self-care expanded so that each and every one of us is attuned to all of our needs and is empowered to do what it takes to care of ourselves.
I had a case of shingles two years ago, and I also got me thinking. I was a poster child of healthy living. I even coached people on it. How did that happen? That's why I resonate with what you wrote here so much. Much later, I realized it had to do with a "fundamental misalignment" in my relationship. I wasn't happy the way things were going but didn't exactly know why. Turned out that my partner at the time was cheating on me. In fact, the shingles appeared when he was meeting his affair partner overseas, and my body knew it before my brain did! The body doesn't lie, and it's the most accurate gauge we have. I've since learned to listen to it, and will continue to do so.
Yes! I needed to hear this today. Thank you. It dismays me how much self care has been hijacked by the productivity junkies, as in ‘ self care lets you/ your employees be more productive’ but I fall into that way of thinking myself too easily. I’ve been working with a coach who summed it up as ‘less doing, more being’.
Unless I only have about 10 years left on me, shingles is not just for those in mid-life. I, too, had it on my face, near my eye, during a time when I felt happy & not particularly stressed. BUT I was struggling (& had been for years) with endometriosis which may or may not be an autoimmune disorder. I had just left the toddler phase with 2 kids under 2 & we were struggling financially. Emotionally, I had let a lot of this go & was learning not to worry but physically, it was still a lot for my body.
This was years ago, maybe 5 or 6 now. But I still have a scar on my face & occasional twinges that remind me!
Such a good post, I can relate to this currently! I remember something you shared a while back about the idea of working in parallel vs. one project at a time… feels like a lesson to be reminded of on a regular basis.
💜
Thanks Jonathan for writing about this - shingles can be such a horrible experience to go through, for me anyway. I hope you can recover well.
Over the last year I’ve found myself struggling with the term self care. And perhaps it’s exactly what you mentioned - we cannot self care our way out of bad situations/relationships.
In the Irish language, we say grian stad for solstice. Literally, sun stop.
When the sun starts moving again after three days I’m planning to do less, & do it with more intention. At least that’s my hope anyway.
If you never had small pox in childhood, what illness would your body have used to signal the overdrive mode you were in? Would it have had the same excruciating and devastating impact as Shingles?
I believe that self-care that reaches certain threshold of obsession is being used to mask some other lifestyle defects. Guilt could be a powerful driver of excessive compensatory behavior.
Lastly, personality is destiny and I don't mean this in the sense that you cannot change certain patterns but that you cannot pull off a permanent change in behavioral patterns that upsets or that's in opposition to the structure and integrity of your personality. At least not consciously, not voluntarily. There are definitely mechanisms by which such impossible changes can be effected but none of them are amenable to conscious and voluntary manipulation. So I'm not surprised you're drifting back to the old baseline and you'll always struggle with this drift until one of the involuntary mechanisms for effecting such anti-personality change comes online.
Fewer things better.
I love this. It's more useful than "there's too much, it's all too much" - which is true but all a bit hopeless. I have been stuck there in a toxic work situation and crashed. Now, I am in a place where I can choose when and how to proceed.
There will always be too many real demands and too little support in my work, and so little aligns with my view of the world.
So, in a mad, sad work reality I can leave or demand to do fewer things better.
My health and worthwhile work well done - both supporting each other - not what can I carry ... bear ... survive. I have put it down and will not pick it back up.
In a state of madness, these words are like a revolution.
I want to do fewer things better.
Clarity ! Succinct clarity. Thank you.
How does a person know if they have a "fundamental misalignment in a core area of your life", and what it might be?
After reading this I immediately made an appointment for the shingles vaccine. Thank you for bringing awareness to this.
Fewer things, and trying to give myself grace for it. I’ve been learning to adjust the work to my level of energy and realising that if I push too hard, I will need time to recover, so I might as well do it right the first time round.
Love this. Well said.
That.. you CANNOT self care out of a fundamental
MISALIGNMENT in a CORE area of your life is a BIGGIE . Have felt my wheels spinning around a certain relationship and wondering why each time I land back in the same place of feeling Dis regulated. Because I am failing to address the areas of misalignment that a a soul level I KNOW TO BE FACT .. Alarm bells ringing and lights flashing as I almost want to say ..DUH ..to myself . Thank you 🙏🏽
“Relationships are one of those areas. If you’re tethered to a toxic person, you can’t meditate or journal that away.”
Yikes! 😓 that’s all I’m saying
Finally learning what is “enough” is what shifted things for me. I don’t want my body to crash again to let me know I’m off track pursuing things I don’t actually need. Many ppl can’t slow down or rest tho bc of systemic issues and hyper-capitalism and that has to change.
Hmmm… for me, self-care encompasses body/mind/spirit/life balance. I totally agree that veggies and meditation can’t undo stress and depletion from overwork. AND, I’d love to the definition of self-care expanded so that each and every one of us is attuned to all of our needs and is empowered to do what it takes to care of ourselves.
I had a case of shingles two years ago, and I also got me thinking. I was a poster child of healthy living. I even coached people on it. How did that happen? That's why I resonate with what you wrote here so much. Much later, I realized it had to do with a "fundamental misalignment" in my relationship. I wasn't happy the way things were going but didn't exactly know why. Turned out that my partner at the time was cheating on me. In fact, the shingles appeared when he was meeting his affair partner overseas, and my body knew it before my brain did! The body doesn't lie, and it's the most accurate gauge we have. I've since learned to listen to it, and will continue to do so.
Yes! I needed to hear this today. Thank you. It dismays me how much self care has been hijacked by the productivity junkies, as in ‘ self care lets you/ your employees be more productive’ but I fall into that way of thinking myself too easily. I’ve been working with a coach who summed it up as ‘less doing, more being’.
Unless I only have about 10 years left on me, shingles is not just for those in mid-life. I, too, had it on my face, near my eye, during a time when I felt happy & not particularly stressed. BUT I was struggling (& had been for years) with endometriosis which may or may not be an autoimmune disorder. I had just left the toddler phase with 2 kids under 2 & we were struggling financially. Emotionally, I had let a lot of this go & was learning not to worry but physically, it was still a lot for my body.
This was years ago, maybe 5 or 6 now. But I still have a scar on my face & occasional twinges that remind me!
Such a good post, I can relate to this currently! I remember something you shared a while back about the idea of working in parallel vs. one project at a time… feels like a lesson to be reminded of on a regular basis.