The Truth about Truths: Embracing and Navigating Contradiction in and Beyond Recovery
Something I learned in therapy was that two things can be true at the same time. It can be that the way someone else views something may completely contradict the way you see it, but ultimately both views are true because both of you are experiencing it. This two truths concept also applies to thoughts and beliefs we host within ourselves.
A lot of the therapy I underwent for my eating disorder recovery focused on identifying and embracing these kinds of insistent contradictions.
For example, one truth I held steadfastly was, “I don’t want an eating disorder.” And another equally real truth I had was “I am scared to give up my eating disorder.”
The key to being able to navigate both truths is to embrace them both— NOT set them up in conflict to one another. The first step is as simple and as subtle as word choice when speaking or even thinking about them.
We tend to use “but” when comparing two things that seem to contradict one another:
“I don’t want an eating disorder BUT I am scared to give it up.”
However, something changes when you replace that “but” for “and”:
“I don’t want an eating disorder, AND I am afraid to give it up.”
The latter validates both perceptions but does NOT so planitively put one above the other.
“But” infers that the fear is stronger than the will to live without an ED. “And” allows the possibility to be afraid, but do it anyways.
There is a story about a warrior and his meeting with fear, taught by Pema Chodron. The ultimate revelation the young warrior comes away with from this meeting is that bravery is NOT the absence of fear; It is feeling the fear, BELIEVING it, with every cell in your body, and facing it anyways.
It is not: “I want to, BUT I am afraid.” It is: “I want to, AND I am afraid.”
Unlike the former, which almost immediately dismisses any action, the latter births the opportunity for both truths to coexist, and for the fear to be conquered.
I am not currently in therapy, and I’m not really “recovering” anymore, but I am still living in this place of navigating two truths.
A big one right now that I hold is: “I am so grateful to have made it this far in my recovery, AND I am sometimes nostalgic for the identity my eating disorder gave me.”
Another is: “I am proud of my body, and I love being healthy AND I often think I would be happier if I lost weight.”
Sometimes these truths are even more specific to a moment. Take this past week for example, when I took a spontaneous trip to a family cottage for some r&r by the lake. I was having repeating thoughts of “I really want to get a good sweat from a workout AND I want to relax and do nothing.”
And on a similar train: “I feel guilty and not hungry for dinner from eating so many appetizers on the dock AND I am still looking forward to eating more at dinner.”
It’s hard, honestly, navigating these two often equally compelling voices. Ultimately, the healthier one always drowns out the one I know instinctively is rooted in my ED neural pathways. That’s what makes it uncomfortable. Continuing to eat, and rest, and attempt to feel happy and at ease in my skin, and to NOT fixate on what I eat or how much I weigh, while simultaneously living with this feeling that I “should” be doing a lot of the things that I used to do (a lot of things that a lot of people without EDs do: opting for “healthier” options, watching what they eat, having a strict workout regime, etc.)
Sometimes, it feels like I’m driving backwards on the highway, trying to live up to the healthier truth.
Even though I am pretty good at this point at doing the right things for my mental and physical health, there are still moments when it seems like the wrong thing.
Restricting and exercise were always a quick fix for any larger stressor in my life.
Fighting with my family? Don’t eat dinner.
Feeling sad or lonely that I didn’t have plans on a friday night? Go for a run.
Realizing how lonely I am, feeling disconnected from all my friends? Try even harder to change my body, thinking if I looked the way I thought I “should” look, I would be more likable, more loveable, and regain those kinds of connections I had thwarted.
None of these quick fixes ever really fixed anything, obviously. They only led me further into my eating disorder and farther from the kind of connection and happiness I was seeking.
So I do realistically and rationally understand that attempting to change my body, or start actively controlling my food or exercise is NOT the answer to any of my concerns today. But (or and, as I should say), I still have fleeting thoughts that these behaviours will.
I’m writing this blog post right now to remind myself of this ultimate truth: two things can be totally contradictory and still coexist equally as truths. Feelings are real, and valid, but they do NOT need to dictate our actions. We can feel the fear, believe it, and face it anyways.
Hopefully this reminder might render itself useful for you too.
What are some conflicting or contrasting beliefs that you hold? How might replacing that “but” with “and” alter your perception of how to navigate them? Often the right path is the hardest one to take.
Don’t sell yourself short by opting for the road that feels easiest in the moment, but ultimately never gets you to the place you wanted to get to in the first place.
Embrace the “and.” Do the hard thing. And in the moments where you fall victim to the contradiction, have the self-compassion and grace to pick yourself back up and carry on, because life is too short to live in debt to your own regrets anyways.
Love and light,
Jae
Tis’ the Season (for being sick) — some musings about resting to return back to health
I feel like some kind of omniscient game is being played on me. Looking back on my bullet journal from last december, it turns out the very same day I came down with the covid last year, is the very same day —- December 13— that a whopper of a cold hit me this year.
For the past 3 days I’ve been coughing my lungs out, nursing a headache and a fever, and not able to do much other than sleep, eat, watch TV, and occassionally fiddle with my knitting.
Perhaps even more karmic, is that this cold hit me right after I was beginning to feel some of the inklings of my usual pre-holiday anxiety about being out of my routine, subject to more food and indugences, and less opportunities to exercise, and how that might wreak havoc on my body, and my mind. It was the fist weekend of several from now until post new years— of holiday parteis and events with family and friends, with all kinds of boozy drinks and full dessert platters and and rich hearty meals.
It was a fabulous weekend— the Friday I was at my partner’s work christmas party, where we stayed well past midnight before heading back to our hotel only to carry on the party at the bar, and then the room.
Waking up late the next day, we were just in time to pull ourselves together and make it out for my family’s big neighbourhood Chritsmas party that night, where there were even more food and drinks to be had.
Sunday, was our family’s celebration of St.Nicholas day, essentially a warm up to christmas with a table of plates being magically filled with all kinds of small treats and goodies over night. Its another lazy festive morning in pajamas, lovely and lots of fun, but once again, out of my usual food and movement routine and after a two previous days of festivities, it was starting to feel a little uncomfortable.
The nagging voice in my brain started to pipe up again. I was acutely aware of how many days- how may hours— it had been since I had gone for a long “enough” walk, done a quad draining bike ride to class, or had a training session for pole. I also found myself becoming more and more aware and anxious about my body, and how it was changing (if it was. Are my thighs closer to touching? Is my stomach bigger? My arms feel like they arer flabbier.
In reality, it had been 3 days— not long enough to make any drastic changes.
And when I did go back to doing 2 pole classes that following Monday, I felt as if my body was instantly back to the way I wanted it. Obviously, not because a coule pole classes have that kind of body sculpting power, but because I never really changed in the first place.
It was just my anorexic, compulsive brain kicking me in loud enough to believe it.
Yes, it felt good to move after that rather sedentary week. I felt like I could exhale, already planning and lookig forward to resuming my fairly active routine up until gouing head to head with christrmas.
But waking up on Tuesday with a bad chest cold and the chllls it became evident that wasnt quite the case. I had come down with the same virus that took out a number of people at a party we went to over the weekend.
I was laid up on the couch for three days. Too tired and full of phlegm to exercise or even pole— even if I wanted to.
The funny thing was, my anxiety didn’t skyrocket being sick and sedentary (again) like i expected it to. In the past, when I was severely disordered, ity would have been practically impossible for me to have layed on a couch for three days especially after a weekednd of food and festivities.
The only way I probably could ahve coped owuld have been by eating as little as I could possibly get away with, thinking my bdy relly didnt need it if I wasn’t being active. I remember sneaking in squats and jumping jacks and situps in my bedroom if I was sick for more than a single day, and even quietly lacing up my running shoes to sneak out for a run, despite a sore throat and chest cough.
It wasnt even because I wanted to. It’s because I needed to. The only thing that I was dreadinfg more than the cold air in my inflamed lungs in that moment was having to be lying down for another minute, my mind being attacked by pulsating anxiety and shame over “what I was letting happen” to my body .
Being sick this year in a way was like a breath of fresh air. For three days, I didnt sterp foot out of my house, or even my pajamas. Even after my fever broke and I was feeling a bit more energetic on the second day, I still prioritzed rest,, and enjoyed watching christmas movie after christmas movie, knititng and crafting and puzzling in the glow of the christmas tree lights. Yes, I still felt small tremors of guilt, for choosing this kind of routine even when I probably could have braved a walk around the block. But these were just ripples, not the tidal waves that used to overtake me.
I don’t know if the timing of this onslaught of sickness was pure;y coincidental, or if there was a greater universal intention behind it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter. The universe, or God, or consciousness, or however you might phrase it, has a way of granting you something you need, whether you want it or not. Of course I didnt need to be sick. But I needed something to break me out of the anxcious and destructive throught patterns that I was beginning to fall into again. I needed to be reminded by something with some force, that rest is sometimes neccessary, and breaking routines on occasion is more than okay.
I was also reminded of how far I’ve come, being able to actually allow myself that rest. To be able to hole up on a couch alll day with christmas movies and crafts was something I secretly craved, and yet could neverallow myself to do.
The few times I tries to enjoy a movie midafternoon, I couldnt hear the TV over the blaring voices in my head screaming at me to get up, go for a run, you have to burn some calories to deserve this.
This year, coccooned in a blanket watching Netflix at noon on a wednesday, all was quiet. And it was bliss.
Merry Almost Christmas,
Don’t forget to rest and enjoy it,
—Jae xoxo
A Very Covid Christmas (again)- and 10 Things I Learned in Isolation
This Christmas I officially joined the covid club. I still have no idea where I got it, although between teaching in person and a busy social life, there are several possibilities. I am very lucky, in that my symptoms were mild. I had a scratchy throat, and a light cough for a few days, but in all honesty if it was not covid times, I would have felt guilty taking off any more than a day of work for it.
It started with feeling tired , and as a new teacher I didn’t really consider that a symptom, as much as an unavoidable way of life. But then my throat started feeling weird. I thought I was just dehydrated. It wasn’t so much sore as it was scratchy. Honestly it was only as I was sipping a beer in the distillery, feeling as if lacerations were being lit up as I swallowed the carbonated liquid that I started to make the connection. However, after two bouts of pretty bad colds/flus already this fall, I wasn’t super concerned it was covid. I really just didn’t want to be sick in any kind of way in these weeks leading up to christmas.
I went home, went to bed , thinking a good sleep would help. Instead I was up half the night feeling feverish, hot and cold at the same time, with a pounding headache, and achy as if I had arthritis in my hips. At 4:30 that morning I sent an email with my principal with typo laden plans explaining my absence that day.
I woke up feeling much better. My fever was gone (did I even have one in the first place? I wondered). My throat felt much better, and my headache was mostly gone too. I did have some phlegm and a cough, but it was much milder than the cough I had the last time I was sick, and that was not covid.
I somehow miraculously did not infect any member of my family, despite seeing them over the weekend and on the very day I started having symptoms, and for that I am eternally grateful. I did, however, land my lovely roommate with Covid for the second time. And unlike me, who luckily gets to leave my isolation the eve before Christmas eve, she only started having symptoms a few days ago and must spend Christmas on her lonesome until the 27th. She isn’t holding it against me, and I’ve been showering her with early Christmas gifts including a delivery of Craig’s Cookies and an UberEats gift card, but I still feel awful to have thrown a wrench into her family Christmas plans.
The most distressing part of this whole debacle is that I have to suffer the inconvenience of 10 days of isolation during the week of excitement and anticipation leading up to the 25th. I missed several Christmas events, including the annual Christmas reunion dinner with my high school friend group, and our family Christmas on the 19th with cousins who live in BC was cancelled completely. My hopes of sipping (chugging) mulled wine with my cousins watching our parents get equally as toasted were dashed.
But as I am continuously reminded, it is just the times.
I feel like I’m going through the ultimate 2020 rite of passage having covid. In a fucked up kind of way, receiving my positive result from a PCR test almost felt like a golden ticket to Wonka’s factory-- something I had heard about, and always knew was a possibility, but never quite believed I would ever be the recipient. It felt as if I was just hearing the term “Omnicom” and gossip about Covid becoming a big “thing” again, when all of a sudden I had it.
People are continuously fascinated by Covid. It has this air of intrigue composed of both awe and fear around it, the virus equivalent of “He Who Must Not Be Named” (AKA Voldemort, for the non-potter-heads). When I got my test result, I contacted all the people I had seen the weekend leading up to it. The owner of my pole studio sent out a message to those I had been in class with me letting them know they had been in contact with “a positive case.” “Don’t worry! The owner assured me. I didn’t say it was you! I Kept it anonymous. It was very kind of her to do that, but also, why do we have this attached shame complex to a positive test? Its not as if anyone conspires to get covid and then spread it to as many people as they can. Its a virus that as a world, we are all fighting together.
Friends reached out with the same questions:
How are you?
What are your symptoms?
How did you get it?
My not very exciting responses were okay, fine, and no idea. They were relieved I was okay, but at the dame time there is a sense of disappointment. Like that’s it? This is what we’ve been hiding from for close to 2 years?
I get it. But still, I am grateful that this, for me, is all covid was.
My isolation companion, Jaeda
10 Things I learned in Covid Isolation
Covid feels like a mild cold (and I thank being vaxxed for that.)
I’ve been sick three times this fall/winter already, and each time my symptoms were much more severe than this. Other than a short bout of feeling feverish in the middle of the night when I first started feeling off, covid felt no worse than a mild cold. I had a scratchy throat for two days, and a very light cough and not a ton of energy for a few more after that. However, by day 4 or 5, I would’ve been back to my regularly scheduled life if what I had wasn’t covid.
I know some people might take this as proof that covid really isn’t a big deal, and that there are unnecessary precautions and restrictions being made out of fear/ corruption/ ignorance etc… But I am pretty confident that being double vaxxed probably had something to do with the very mild and manageable experience I had. And, for what I am very grateful, keeping my parents and family, and students from not getting infected by me, considering I was in close contact with many people right up until the night I had my fever. Yes, I got covid, BUT it could have been MUCH worse.
2. It's very convenient to isolate in walking distance to family.
This fall, my grandfather moved into a care home, leaving his house right next to my family home empty, Even before I got my official positive test result, my parents invited me to do my isolation in this empty house so I would have room to sprawl out and also be nearby for them to help me out. I know I am beyond lucky to have this convenient set up, but it was honestly a life saver. And every home cooked meal that was lovingly delivered to my door did not go unappreciated.
My Grandfather’s empty house where I spent the past 10 days in isolation
3. I will never again take for granted the opportunity to grocery shop in person.
Grocery delivery services and Instacart are very convenient, and during my 10 days of isolation, they kept me well fed and well stocked. But as a grocery shopper, I am much more of an in-the moment impulse buyer of what looks good versus writing a list. I swear I spend longer navigating the instacart website, trying to rack my brain for what I want to eat for the next week versus walking the aisles and buying what looks yummy at a good price. I also felt denied the experience of food shopping in the days before christmas… Meandering the festive displays of chocolates and oranges and fresh figs as Christmas music blares through the aisles. People watching the festive folk grocery shopping in Santa hats and holiday sweaters , carts filled with things for entertaining like wheels of brie, giant panettone, and cartons of egg nog. Maybe I am a bit of an odd duck, missing food shopping in this way but there's nothing like being locked indoors for an extended period that makes you miss these ordinary experiences of being human.
4. I am more introverted than I thought
At first, the prospect of having to isolate for 10 days sent me into a spiral of dread. I hate being alone, I thought. I am an extrovert! I need people. Turns out I can be pretty content on my own with a puppy, a home pole studio, and a puzzle. I was able to get lots of writing done, make several gifts for family, friends, and their dogs (hello, hand sewn bandanas) and watch anything I wanted without compromise. Actually by dat 9, I was kind of wishing I had one more day of isolation to get a little bit more done before my time was up and I was thrown back into the mayhem of a family christmas.
5. I still remember the majority of every Taylor Swift song
I love to sing, but living in close quarters with a roommate, I never subjected her every often to my belting it out musical theatre style impromptu concerts. In a big house on my lonesome, with Taylor Swift playing on my spotify, I didn't hold back. Turns out I remember the obscure lyrics from obscure tracks on Red and 1984 just as well as I did back in 2010.
6. Christmas cookies taste better when you can share them
Near the end of my isolation, when I figured I was mostly noncontagious, I started christmas baking, making dozens of beautiful cookies. It felt nice to bake, but when you are sharing the finished result of a perfectly shaped sugar cookie or lightly whipped aquafaba meringue with none but yourself and your dog, the joy falls flat just a little. I could've eaten oreos with my hot chocolate after that day of baking and been equally as satisfied, and created much less of a mess.
7. The truest friends don’t forget about you when you are MIA (out of sight out of mind)
Despite my new discovery of an introverted side, it was really amazing to hear from friends throughout my isolation. I totally get out of sight out of mind, and I hate to say I often fall into that pattern of interaction, especially with friends and family in different cities and provinces. So when I was dropped off a covid care package from my extremely thoughtful long time friend, I felt loved and appreciated and cared for, and I think that itself made the entire isolation experience so much more endurable. Even something as simple as the texts I received from various friends and family checking in on me, or saying hi in just a sentence or less were beautiful reminders of the connections I had in my life, and the friendships I do not take for granted.
covid care package from a dear friend <3
8. A walk does not need to be 5 kilometres
In isolation, technically you are not supposed to leave yourself. In a very quiet street in the suburbs, I made an exception twice a day (morning and night) to venture out to walk my dog (masked) and keeping away from people. My dog is 13. We do not go far and we do not go fast. The furthest we ever go is barely 2 kilometres and it takes close to 45 minutes, with lots of breaks for sniffing things. Usually however, it's closer to ½ a kilometre, to the park to walk through a woodlot and back .
Before getting covid, I had a pretty ingrained habit of getting at least 5 km in a day. Sometimes it was all at once. Sometimes it was a few kilometres to school, a few back, and then another few over lunch. Anything less felt well-- lazy. After 10 days of slowing down to Jaeda’s senior citizen pace, I realize getting out for just a slow walk around the block can do just as much for my spirits and energy as a speedy 7 km loop around the city. Also, I think having a dog as company on these walking ventures is also a big factor in the happiness level achieved.
9. It's okay to walk zero kilometres a day.
Expanding on the last point a little more. There were some days in my isolation where Jaeda was sore or the weather was rainy and miserable where it made no sense to break covid protocol and venture outside. And while the first day this happened I felt pretty anxious , I did it and (obviously) nothing bad happened. If anything, it felt freeing. As much as it was a downer getting covid, especially at christmas time, in a way I am thankful that it forced me to face this very deceptive compulsion I have continued to hang onto. As healthy of a habit of walking every day is, the fact that I was doing it pretty compulsively was important for me to break.
10. After a long time of not being around other people, it starts to matter less what they might think.
In isolation I didn’t wear makeup for the whole 10 days. I also did not wear anything but pajamas (and pole shorts) for most of that 10 days either. At first, the exception was putting on a pair of leggings to go walk the dog. But in the latter half of my isolation period, I found myself not caring enough to get up and change out of my pjs and would simply throw on a coat over my fuzzy plaid pj bottoms before leaving the house. After doping it once, I did it every time. I didn’t even feel silly. I just felt like a girl walking her dog in her pajamas and I owned it.
I came out of isolation on the eve of December 23rd, just in time to celebrate christmas with my family. In some ways, it was a very convenient circumstance of covid. But I am still happy its over.
Out of isolation, Christmas morning. Jaeda was happy too.
How was your covid christmas?
xoxo
Jordan
Spring Growth Challenge (an Inner Spring cleaning to grow your mindset)
#MayGrowth30 :
30 Days to a Healthier, Stronger, and Clearer Mind
I love spring. There is something about this season of growth and renewal that has always sparked inspiration and excitement in me. I suppose its seeing the changing of seasons, the melting of snow, and the slow invasion of green, new life life that makes me feel empowered to take undergo some of my own change and self-growth, and come out of the winter dormancy that so many of us find ourselves in.
Over the past several months, I have found myself in a bit of a mental rut. I’ve fallen into less-than-helpful patterns and habits. I stay up too late for no real reason, wake up feeling tired and lacking energy to face the day, and spend too much time in front of my computer, consuming content rather than creating it.
I have also found myself feeling more stressed and anxious over little things that really shouldn’t get to me, and in turn, becoming so wrapped up in my own problems that I am not always able to respond to the needs and feelings of others around me.
I value being a generous, kind, and compassionate person, and when my own mental health is suffering, I am not living up to this version of me.
And so, I am dedicating this month to spring cleaning my mental health.
Just like spring cleaning of our homes inside and out is a common occurrence with the end of winter, shaking the cobwebs off some of the goals and resolutions I have made for myself earlier in the year just seems to come as a natural inclination as soon as the days get longer and warmer.
Especially this year, where once again, we find ourselves in lockdown here in Toronto in these early days of spring. It feels counter-intuitive to what spring usually inspires in me: to be holed up by myself up indoors, cancel plans, and put off all the activities and gatherings that usually fill me with a new energy this season.
So this May, I have decided I need to take kind of internal “spring cleaning” into my own hands. I am giving myself a 30- Day Spring Growth Challenge (#SpringGrowth30).
I know that challenges especially these short and sweet month long endeavours are all over Instagram, TikTok and every other social media platform. A lot of them focus on our physical fitness or body goals (just Google Chloe Ting and you'll see what I mean).
And while people may find some benefit out of these fitness-focused challenges, the kind of change I am after is more holistic than that. I am trying to achieve mental, spiritual and emotional growth.
More simply, I am trying to be a better human; a stronger, kinder, more resilient, more content, and more productive person.
This is not an easy task, and it will require a lot of rewiring and retraining my brain to think different thoughts and form new habits. It won’t happen overnight. It likely wont even happen in thirty days.
But I am committed to making a good start over this next month, and making the necessary first steps to lay down the foundation for the kind of lasting change I want for myself.
I want to level-up my mindset.
Here are my goals for this challenge:
Goals:
Shift my mindset from scarcity to abundance
Gain clarity on what passions I want to pursue
Be more productive (ie. get more done in pursuit of those passions)
Strengthen my relationships
Foster my creativity.
Without further ado, here is my 30-Day May Growth Challenge.
May Growth Challenge
Everyday, I will:
Do something creative (writing, painting, dancing, etc)
Wake up the same time every morning (one hour later on weekends)
Write down three things I am grateful for every morning and every night
Do one act of kindness
And, most importantly,
5. Post on Instagram my daily updates about this challenge.
That last part of the challenge is *key.* I will be keeping myself accountable through posting what I am grateful for each day (twice a day!), what time I woke up and went to bed the night before, and whatever creative outlet and act of kindness I may have done.
I have also been beating myself up over not blogging or writing more. So forcing myself to post about this challenge everyday on my seedling of an account @dayslikeblankpages will also work towards my goals of becoming a more productive person.
So if you are curious on how I do, and how I (hopefully) grow in the next thirty days. Follow me there. Better yet, join in this challenge with me!
Maybe you will share the same goals I do, and maybe you have unique goals of your own, and will make your own version of this challenge, whether its getting outside every day, drinking more water, being more spontaneous, or being more organized, you can craft your challenge to meet your own unique goals and values.
Day 1 starts tomorrow. Stay tuned, and let’s GROW.
(pun intended; you can take the teacher out of the classroom, but cant take the classroom out of the teacher!)
How are you challenging yourself this month?
xxoo
-Jordan
Everything Happens For A Reason (A Story of Blood and Granola)
I have gone through enough life to start to recognize that nothing happens for no reason.
Even the most difficult, trying, and painful situations, that may seem impossible to make sense of at the time, always seem to have some unexpected truth borne from the ashes- even if it is years later.
Life is mysterious, unpredictable, and chaotic. But I still believe that there is significance and silver linings in every seemingly unexpected turn of events.
My experience of life thus far is relatively short. But I can still recall several occasions where life threw something at me that felt like a blow, but ended up being a gift that I didn’t know I needed.
The walking boot I had to wear for most of Spring 2019
One such gift was a severed extensor tendon in my big toe.
It was May 2019. A couple years since in the worst of my eating disorder, and well into recovery… Mostly. I was eating regularly, flexibly, going out with friends, not over-exercising.
However, my brain was still “hooked” on several compulsions and behaviours, and I was still operating under a huge fear of further weight gain. I managed this fear through movement.
While I was no longer working out for hours at the gym or running for kilometres on end, I was making every effort to maximize my activity everyday. I was walking everywhere, taking the long way whenever possible, and even running a couple kilometres if the distance was longer than fit my time frame. I was doing yoga every morning, and often some other form of conditioning or strength training exercise in the evening if I wasn’t out walking.
It was never excessive in time or intensity, but the discomfort of being too sedentary in a day remained a lingering attachment of the days when it was.
The injury resulting from a jar of granolaI was frustrated. In so many ways I felt “recovered”- except this need to walk and move. And I was still not getting a monthly cycle, so my hormones were not up and running properly yet.
However, spring and the sunny weather was just ramping up, and the urge to join the legions of walkers and runners taking over the sidewalks was only mounting.
Then came a freak accident involving a jar of granola. After a late night of dancing and drinking at a wedding, I was at home, starving for breakfast. Wanting something fast and easy, I decided to throw together a big bowl of fruit and granola.
Somehow as I was grabbing the jar of granola off the shelf it slipped out of my hand and went crashing onto the floor (yes, I was hungover).
Somehow, a piece of glass had broken in one very long shard, that landed diagonally across my foot as it shattered on the tile. My foot was swimming in blood, glass, and granola.
I’ll skip ahead a bit.
At the hospital, I received 14 stitches to repair the severed tendon, a plaster cast, a set of crutches with the orders I could not bear weight on it for several weeks. I was told that if I applied too much pressure that the stitches could break and the tendon would sever again.
Suddenly, I was faced with one of the greatest challenges I had yet in recovery: I was being forced to be sedentary. My fear of not walking enough had become a reality of being unable to walk at all.
Who knew granola could be so dangerous?At the time, I couldn’t understand why the hell this was happening. I blamed the freak nature of the accident, cursed my clumsiness, and moped in misery and frustration.
However, I was told repeatedly by doctors to continue to nourish myself well, and how I still needed ample protein and energy in order for the tendon to strengthen and repair.
So I had no choice, but to eat as I would normally, even though I was doing no movement that helped my brain justify the calories.
And it was hard, the first week.
But then it got easier. I realized I could eat, and rest, and nothing drastic happened.
After a few weeks I started to enjoy being able to sit around and chat with my roommates instead of walking across the city after work.
It was freeing to read a book out on the porch, and still have a snack before dinner.
And for the first month since the New Year, I got my period. My body was functioning even healthier than it was while exercising.
Yeah, the recovery process of healing that tendon sucked. But now, along with the scar on my toe, I have been left with a greater sense of freedom regarding my relationship to movement, to my body, and ultimately, my intuition.
I still enjoy being active, but if there is a day that it doesn’t quite fit my schedule, or my frame of mind, I can go without.
While stillness is not always my first choice, it does not instill me with the same fear or dread. I know I can allow myself to rest, and more than that, periods of rest are healthy.
In all honesty, If I hadn’t been forced into those months of stillness, I probably would have never been able to sit long enough to start this blog.
It’s hard to dedicate time to hours of writing and posting when you’re compulsively walking everywhere.
I still have the scar.
I’ve heard there are creams and oils to put on it, to make it disappear. I have yet to use any, because I really don’t mind it. It remains a nice little token of the lesson I had to learn through a mason jar of granola.
This is just one story of how life gifts you with something you need, even if you don’t know you want it. And the more of life I am living, the more I am realizing how often even the most uncomfortable or seemingly unfortunate of events ends up gifting us with some golden lesson or opportunity down the road.
Maybe what that is becomes apparent in the next month, or week, or year. Or maybe not until after you have lived your life time.
But it is comforting to think that in this big wide universe of ours, there may be some reason or meaning behind the chaos. I am not claiming to know anything.
But I will continue to embrace the idea that whatever life throws at me, I can handle it— and I will be stronger for it.
What lessons has life thrown at you?
xoxo
-Jordan
The Parent Trap: The Challenges of Quarantining Back at Home (as an adult).
During this pandemic I have been quarantining with my family at my parents’ house in the suburbs for the past six weeks. While I am grateful to be with family during this time, and not being completely isolated, it brews a whole other pot of challenges. The last time we were all living together under one roof for a substantial period of time was over five years ago, while we “kids” were all still in school. With each of us having spent a couple years out of the nest and in our own independent routines, now coming back together around the dinner table, sharing bathrooms, and claiming work space has caused some tension to say the least. More than that, is the added challenge of dealing with some of my own emotional shit that seems to have resurfaced with coming back to my childhood home.
finding a quiet workspace while quarantining in a house of people is challenging.And I know that I am not the only one. Our family, and our homes, can be a place we feel comfortable. But there is a fine line between “comfortable” and “comfort zone.” Right now, many of us are being tested by our living situations, with repercussions both on our own personal well-being, as well as on our relationships.
So let’s begin by digging in to some of the greatest challenges I’ve been facing since being back home.
Challenges about Quarantining at Home with Family:
Food disappears. Those leftovers you put away last night, thinking they would be a great lunch the next day? Well unless you’re getting up to eat them at 7 am, they’re gone.
Constant dishes. Before coming back to this house, my roommates and I used to run our dishwasher once every one or two days. There was never a pile up of dishes because we always did our own. Now, with six adult appetites in the house and family meals, our dishwasher is going at least twice a day… and still there is a pileup in the sink.
Staking out workspace. Everyone here is either working or studying from home right now, or both. We have a big house with multiple rooms. And yet still it seems there is a constant musical chairs of who is working where based on where the best light is, if there’s people making noise in other parts of the house, or if the wifis acting up. Which bring me to the next point…
Wifi hogging. Despite countless calls to our provider, our wifi always seems to be a little finicky, even before all of us were home. These days with six of us on multiple devices, we’re finding that we need to reset the router multiple times a day. It turns out we are all enslaved to internet in isolation: whether it be working on the computer, scrolling social media, on zoom chats, watching netflix, or playing online Catan, it seems there is never a time we are NOT connected.
Falling back into old patterns. This is the largest challenge of all, and the most difficult to overcome. What these old patterns or habits are will very from person to person. For my mother, it is feeling like she is responsible for feeding and cleaning up for everyone as if we were still young kids, and not full grown adults perfectly capable of feeding and caring for ourselves. For us “kids”, it is often reverting back into that role, and not pulling the same weight around the house as we were when living independently.
“Old Habits Die Hard”- Environmental Triggers and Wired Thought Patterns
Old patterns aren’t just in relation to family roles, but may also resurface as old neural pathways light up again, triggered by a return to a familiar environment. The first week I was back home I started to fall into some old unhealthy habits that used to define my days when I was living at home full time, and very much in the thick of an eating disorder. But after a few days of skipping lunch, and going a little overboard on exercise, and feeling totally unbalanced (and like mental shit), I recognized what was happening and committed myself to a more sustainable routine. It took me by surprise, because many of those thoughts and behaviours never crossed my mind living downtown. It was something about being back in the place where I was engaging in those patterns that caused them to resurface. However, the most significant change was simply awareness. Recognizing what I was doing as being counterproductive and not in line with the person I wanted to be.
Being back in your childhood home can often bring back old patterns of behaviours- some not so healthyFor you, it could be other kinds of thoughts or behaviours that are resurfacing. Maybe you are finding yourself less patient or picking fights or more critical of the people you are living with. Maybe you are finding that your room or workspace is getting more cluttered or messy, looking more like it may have when you were living in it as a teenager. Or maybe you are finding yourself sleeping in late into the morning (or afternoon) and staying up much too late without doing anything very productive.
Whatever your old habits may be, if you find them resurfacing during this time, don’t beat yourself up over it. Understand WHY it is happening, and commit yourself to rewire those neural pathways.
Have self-compassion, but don’t let your brain pull one over on you either. Make the changes, little or big, that you need to, in order to keep in line with the person you want to be.
For me, that meant making myself a schedule that had me eating breakfast within an hour of waking up each day, and then eating something every three hours to keep my brain from reverting back to that feast or famine mentality that I was operating in for most of my eating disorder. It also meant not doing the same exercise, varying the kinds and amounts, each day, so none became compulsive. Several weeks in, it still means deliberately choosing to walk LESS than the day before, or do a restorative flow instead of a core class, just to remind my brain that we aint doing that exercise obsession thing anymore.
Making little changes in your daily routine can make a big difference in your mental health So, think about your habits:
What habits are you happy with?
How might you be thinking or behaving that is NOT in line with the person that you want to be?
What tangible steps can you take to change those thoughts or behaviours?
I am NOT talking about drastic lifestyle changes. If you want to change sleeping in till noon and watching netflix til 3, Try setting your alarm for 10. Schedule a zoom call or a social distance walk with a friend for 11. The next week, set your alarm for 9. And so on.
You are the master of your mind, and in turn, you are the master of your actions. This time in isolation is by no means easy, whether you are isolating on your own or with family.
You have two options: (1) You can either just cope, ride out the quarantine with your eyes closed until its over. Or (2), you can use this place of discomfort to grow, to strengthen your character, enhance your self-awareness, and build your resilience.
And if you commit to that overall big picture of who you want to be, how you want your relationships to be, once this is all over, you will come out of this a stronger, happier person than you were going in.
Stay healthy, friends,
Jordan
Xoxo
