Everything hurts. I crawl down from the upper bunk bed and try to loosens some of the stuff muscles I didn’t even know existed. I can barely lift my left leg. My hip flexor, or whatever that muscle is called, is totally overstrained. My neck is stiff, my head hurts.
Wow. Clearly, a rest day.
That’s the worst. After the emotional whirling yesterday, nothing would be better than doing something. Keep on moving and distracting myself. But no, I have to sit and rest. With all thoughts.
Restlessness. A sign for inner work that needs to be done?
I shuffle to the self-catering kitchen and make myself a good coffee while everyone else is getting ready for their ski day. Shuffle is the best description I have to the way I currently move. I drag my shoes which would make my mother give me a look and a comment. “Lift your legs while walking.” Not today. Somehow I enjoy the shuffling.
I sit for a moment and look outside the window. Then I make myself another coffee. It’s still cloudy but I catch a glimpse of pink over one of the mountains. What to do with the day and myself. I fill my tumbler with hot water and get dressed for outside.
The air is beautifully fresh. I find a shelter on my short walk and sit down. I sip on my tea while people are passing by on their way to a hut or just a day trip.
I open the breathwork app on my phone.
Breathwork is one of the things, like yoga and meditation, that has been recommended to me, prescribed to me, over and over again. But I could never do it. I mean, I did the exercises physically, but it never felt good.
In 2024, I took a course about nervous system regulation and that’s when it started to make sense. Practicing things like meditation and yoga can be beneficial, but they are more like step 4 or 5 on a health journey. If my nervous system is out of balance, I have to focus on its regulation first before I have the capacity for something like breathwork to actually help.
Since my diagnosis with MS in April 2024, I am on this journey of regulation – to get back into physical and mental strength and balance. Food and an anti-inflammatory diet was the first step. Cutting down on work. Being able to hold a ‘no’. Moving my body regularly. Surrounding myself with a quieter, healthier environment – why we’ve been in Sweden quite a bit over the last two years.
It took me until the end of January this year, after another deep therapeutical session with my doc, when breathwork suddenly became a thing. I could finally fully sit with it and experience the benefits. It’s not at all comfortable but it now feels like my work and work I want to do.
Your journey is your journey. Only you can set the course and speed, no one else can or should do this for you.
I look at the mountains and I am not annoyed anymore that the trip was cut short. I pick a random session that sounds right and press play.
