I was sick for 3 days this past week which made for an interesting case study on my motivation level. Though I obviously didn’t enjoy the experience, I was able to remain fairly zen despite it. Here are some brief samples from my journal:
DAY 15
I completed a 50-mile bike ride this morning carrying a 30-lb backpack full of clothes, water, and my laptop! It was incredibly exhausting, but I did it! It took somewhere between 5 and 51/2 hrs. The rest of the day was interesting.
DAY 16
I noticed a lack of desire to do my 15-minute segments in the afternoon. I believe part of this was due to being more physically tired than usual, part due to my tendonitis pain acting up, and part due to wanting to spend as much time with Benj and Marina as I could.
DAY 17
When I got home just after 11AM, I felt physically sore but not particularly fatigued. This was a big change from Saturday! What this also meant was that I was able to jump right into my priority hierarchy and have a very productive rest of the day at home.
DAY 18
Getting up this morning was a little bit tough, as I still felt pretty sore and also itchy several places on my body. However, my morning routine worked like a charm and I sit here typing this feeling very excited and optimistic about the day.
DAY 19
I woke up sick this morning! Headache, low fever, achy feeling all over. I took some ibuprofen mid-morning, which helped, though I still felt incredibly sluggish. On the bright side, my motivation stayed strong and I didn’t suffer any noticeable loss of productivity. This is huge for me!
DAY 20
Though still sick today, I treated my symptoms more than yesterday and enjoyed a productive and mostly pleasant day. I had a back pain spike after a couple of hours of lessons and piano practice. Normally, I would want to apply my TENS unit, but no one was around to put it on for me. I didn’t panic and instead opted for laying on my acupressure mat, which worked wonders. I am definitely starting to trust my motivation more now, which is both incredibly exciting and anxiety-provoking.
DAY 21
I am writing this as I reestablish equilibrium after a crisis. I was cropping photos and started seeing a lot of pictures that included me. The more I saw, the more I hated what I saw. I hated everything about that representation of my body I was seeing in those pictures – my back, my hair line, my neck, my smile… you name it, I hated it. The more pictures I cropped, the more disgust I felt at what I saw. The action of cropping photos is not something my back likes when in a neutral emotional space; adding intense disgust on top was a recipe for mounting disaster!
Thankfully, I remembered my contingency plans. As I lay down on my acupressure pad with my head still swirling with emotions, I remembered self-compassion. “This is exactly what I need,” I said to myself. I began using mindfulness to create space between myself and my emotions, and then texted a ‘HELP’ bitmoji to one of my brothers and chatted with him for 15 minutes. My motivation is weak right now, but I have restored confidence in myself.
This last journal entry reminded me of my self-compassion pain mantra:
“This is a moment of pain.
Pain is a part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion I need.”
I try to use this whenever I am dealing with a physically or emotionally painful situation. Just saying the mantra several times can put me in a much better head space to deal with the situation from a wise-mind perspective.
Namaste.