‘Your body has taken the car keys away.'
I am part of a group called Rest, Repair, Recover. It is for people like me, who live with Long Covid, and it was set up by a coach and yoga teacher called Suzy Bolt. I found it in April this year when, after nearly a year of my health being like a rollercoaster, I knew I needed to do something to get myself back to stability. Initially, I'd hoped to carve out an hour or 90 minutes of my day every Tuesday and Thursday to join the Zoom classes, move gently, have some conscious rest and chat to fellow long-haulers. But meetings and work commitments soon eroded that time, and I was snatching quick half-hour slots when I could and promising myself I'd do the classes on catch-up.
At that point, I was on the upslope of the rollercoaster. I'd been on a walking and birdwatching holiday and had managed to walk nearly 10,000 steps some days. I had done my first in-person workshop at work since September 2022. I'd even managed to go to Jamatkhana for prayers. But as I climbed the heights of recovery, the demands accumulated. An onslaught of work projects. My sister's upcoming 40th birthday. A 2-day training programme for leaders in my religious community that I was designing. Making the cake for my friend's wedding. The usual round of domestic duties. Friends who were in tough places in their lives. Trying to carve out time for meditation, prayer and movement. My long-suffering partner who got the scraps of my time and energy that weren't going on work.
By June, I was clinging on by a thread at work. My carefully constructed veneer of competence was crumbling. Emails went unanswered, reports delayed. I found myself looking at a report that I could have edited in my sleep, and couldn't find the will to edit even a single word. One of my leadership team colleagues was already on sabbatical and another was due to go in September. I felt obliged to push through. 'Once I get this done, it will be better.' 'Once my new line report is more established in her role, I'll have more space.' 'Once I kick myself up the arse, I'll be able to tackle all the things.' I was going to bed thinking of all the things I had to do, and couldn't do. I was getting up the next morning telling myself that it was my own silly fault I'd had poor sleep, and that was no excuse not to get on with it.
My sister's 40th came and went. I made a slap-up afternoon tea for close family and friends, scones and all. We ate the leftovers for three days. My friend's wedding was the following weekend. I'd taken the whole week off. Thursday, I baked cake layers. Friday, I baked more cake layers, took the tube to the Ismaili Centre for the religious wedding ceremony, had coffee with a friend, stayed for prayers. Saturday, stacking and icing the cake, with a pause for lunch with my parents. Sunday, the wedding. The final touches to the cake went on at 11:30. At 11:40, my sister called. "I have a dent in my head, I can't come to the wedding!" It turned out she had fallen from a stool and injured her head badly enough to need stitches. By 1pm, I was in a taxi on the way to the wedding and she was in an ambulance. She was stitched up, and went home. I read a Rumi poem about love and toasted my friends with sparkling water. By the time I left, the dancing had only just started and there was almost no cake left.
Monday and Tuesday were spent in bed.
Still I did not learn. Back to work I went. I took a sick day each week. I went to an in-person bid interview. We did not win. I went on a weekend retreat and gave myself no recovery time either side. I spent my evenings training up the delivery team for the 2-day training. I kept telling myself that I wasn't enough, I wasn't doing enough, it wasn't good enough. I still needed to do more, be more. I was falling further and further behind. The rollercoaster, by now, wasn't so much on the downslope as derailed and heading for the skids.
When the crash came, it started almost imperceptibly. I had the merest suggestion of a cold. A half-day sore throat and nothing else... apart from fatigue that kept me in bed and as non-functional as I'd been in the first days of Covid over a year before. A day off work became a week, became a request to be signed off for two weeks. I spent a tearful weekend going back and forth in my head, and in conversation with my partner, about whether I could go back to work, and how I was going to deal with the huge backlog when I did. By this point, conversations happened in 10-minute increments, as I was too breathless for more.
The following Thursday, I shared my dilemma in the weekly question-and-answer session that followed our Zoom class. "Your body has taken the car keys away," said Suzy. I could no longer be trusted to look after my body, so it wasn't going to give me the option any more. I realised I had no choice. I had to make space for my recovery and health, and that meant something had to give. That something was work, or so I thought. I was signed off from mid-August until the end of the year. And almost from the moment I made the decision, my body finally began to relax. I could rest without ruminating. I slept deeply and without dreams. I shambled out of the house for stuttering 10-minute walks in the late August sun without guilt for all that was left undone. I prioritised breathwork, gentle movement and rest. Slowly, 10 minutes became 15, became 20. The first day I baked again, for pleasure, not obligation, was pure joy. I could pay attention to my friends again. I could be fully present with my partner.
I was still sometimes tempted to do too much. I still found myself saying 'but I have to do this.' I still found myself driven by the fear of disappointing people, of not being enough. But under the surface, a new way of being was starting to emerge. I was starting to pace myself. I was starting to set boundaries. I could say 'please have a backup ready in case I'm too ill to do this,' or 'I'd love to but I'll have to let you know on the day depending on how I'm feeling' or 'thank you so much for thinking of me, I'm flattered that you would ask, but I don't have the capacity to take this on.'
More importantly, I was starting to prioritise differently. Rest, breathwork, gentle movement and meditation became increasingly non-negotiable. Naps were planned into the day. I focused on the things that brought me ease and joy. I re-prioritised my spiritual practice, from which I'd been increasingly disconnected. I kept reminding myself that treating myself with kindness was for the benefit of all beings, that I am not separate from the world I so deeply want to heal.
Perhaps most of all, I am starting to see the possibility of letting go of the story that I am not enough. I am starting to wonder what it might be like to let go of being driven by the fear of disappointing people. I am starting to consider how it might be to step off the treadmill of always pushing through because I am scared to let people down.
And in the space left by the absence of that story, perhaps
more can emerge. There is room for creativity, to write for myself, not for
work. There is room to consider how I truly want to live and what I actually
want to do with this one wild and precious life. There is room to go to the
dark places and not be afraid of them taking away my functioning. There is room
to be deeply with my friends, my partner and myself. There is room where the
Divine Presence may, in time, once again make itself known in my life. There is
room for gratitude, and generosity. There is room for not-knowing. And finally,
there is room for healing.
