Thanks to a whole bunch of massage therapy (Yay for Renee!) as well as a combination of rest, stretching, and curation of my activities, my neck and back are feeling a lot better than they were two months ago.
In fact, I spent the last week at the Storytellers of Canada- Conteurs du Canada conference in Halifax – plane rides, lifting stuff, sitting for long stretches of time during concerts, meetings, and performances, telling very animated stories during my workshops, sleeping in a dorm bed, and walking for long distances with a backpack – and I had very little trouble with my back or neck.
The view from my dorm room in Loyola Residence at St. Mary’s University – a very comfortable place to stay, by the way. Image description – a photo of the view from a window on the 19th floor of a building on a sunny day. We are looking down on several university buildings with lots of windows as well as the tops of a lot of deciduous trees with glimpses of buildings and houses here and there.
All of that has really convinced me that I’m ready to get back into more strenuous exercise on a regular basis.
I’ll be careful about it, of course. I don’t want to have any sort of avoidable setbacks and I think the key to avoiding trouble is to only take on activities that let me control the intensity and duration of my efforts.
Overall my capacity for exercise has slowly increased as my back and neck have been healing and I had noticed that walking the dog was feeling easier over time and my new habit of ‘walking to work’ has been very straightforward, exercise-wise.
Then, while I was away, I really enjoyed my long walks, even though they were sometimes difficult. I liked the purposeful feeling of striding* (sometimes ambling!) along to get where I was going and it felt good to be the kind of tired that comes from solid exercise.
I think that longer walks could be a good way to take things up a notch without wearing myself out and possibly putting my neck and back at risk.
Maybe I’ll start with 1 or 2 longer walks per week and see how that feels.
More reports as events warrant.
Image description: a photo of a white paper zine cover that says “The Stories We Wear (a workbook) Presented by Christine Hennebury at the SC-CC Annual Conference – Halifax, 2025” and is decorated with stars, spirals, and dots.
Yes, you’re right, it probably would have been better to share a photo of someone telling a story or of myself leading a workshop but I somehow didn’t take or request any of those – too caught up in the moment, I guess – but I am really proud of how the cover of this little workbook turned out so I am sharing that instead. Meanwhile, to be transparent about it, I couldn’t actually get to the photocopy place before it closed so my fun workbook is going out to the attendees after the workshop instead. During my workshop they answered the questions in their own notebooks.
*Meanwhile I suspect that part of the reason I enjoyed those walks so much was because I had moved walking from the ‘exercise’ category to the ‘transportation’ category in my brain so I’m going to see if I can make that happen in my regular life as well.
When I was in my 20s I was asked in a job interview (to be a casino table dealer) if I prefer various or repetitive tasks. I knew the best answer was: you say “both.”
But…turns out it’s not true: while some ppl take comfort in it, I struggle with repetition. I don’t usually take pleasure watching the same movies again and again. I get bored eating the same food. I have little interest in returning to the same vacation spots year after year.
That’s all fine. But when I pick up then drop exercise classes, sports leagues, or health routines, I can be critical of myself. It has become part of my self-story that I can’t make good habits. Some days, I even tell myself I am lazy; as evidence of my half-efforts to stick with stuff, I point to a closet of barely user gear.
Then, last week, someone I know described themselves as a novelty seeker. And I thought, hey, me too. ME. TOO.
Novelty seeker positively reframes all my negative self-talk. Recently, I went line dancing, I disc golfed, and I played scrimmage soccer in one week. I am taking up cycling in mid-life. I run around making things. Truly, rather than focus on one sport or type of exercise, I have always sought various ones.
Being a novelty seeker means that I trade off becoming really good at one or a few things by doing them over and over for the joy of experiencing many new things all the time. It means I am not less active, just differently active.
I still seriously admire all the people I know who run long distances, lift weights daily, or play pickleball 5 times a week. And I can appreciate that there is likely great variety within these activities that perhaps I don’t notice (because I haven’t stuck with them long enough).
Perhaps ultimately it is less about the number of favourite sports and activities we have and more about the mindset we bring to what we do. The idea of novelty-seeking works for me. What works for you?
Composite of multiple sports balls from Wikipedia is CC0.
Things are getting a bit easier in my brain and in my muscles and while it’s tempting to jump back into my regular routine, I am determined not to fall into that trap.
Instead, I am working bit by bit on creating more ease for myself in my day to day actions.
And, like the title says, creating ease isn’t easy.
This ease was actually fairly easy to create. Image description: a drawing of the word ‘ease.’ Each letter is capitalized and is a different colour (blue, yellow, purple, dark pink) and the background is all kind of overlapping sets of concentric circles.
Creating ease means doing gentle yoga and stretches, breathing deeply, relaxing when and how I can and, it means spending a lot of time and energy paying close attention to how I am moving, how I am sitting, how I work, and how I do a variety of tasks.
My ADHD brain is ok with the first few things but it is not a fan of the latter part of that list – in fact, even the thought of paying that kind of attention to those details is tiring.
But I do want to feel better. And I know that unless I make some adjustments, it’s going to be a) harder for my neck/back/shoulders to heal and b) I’m going to keep having some of the same issues over and over.
Right now, I am working on two things that I hope will prevent me from exacerbating my current issues AND will help me avoid some other issues in the future.
Here are my current practices:
1) Getting up and rolling my shoulders/doing a few neck stretches every 20 minutes or so.
I already like to use the repeat timer app throughout my work day so I have a better sense of time passing AND so I don’t feel like any given task is going to take forever. (I have given myself permission to change tasks whenever the timer goes off)
Now, I don’t just note that time is passing, I use the chime as a reminder to move and stretch. It’s not perfect – I sometimes inadvertently ignore the timer – but I definitely have a higher success rate than I would without it.
2) Practicing holding my head differently when I am drawing, writing, and using my phone.
Since a lot of my leisure time is spent doing one of those activities making this change will really help.
Instead of spending so much time with my head down and my neck jutting forward, I am taking Katy Bowman‘s advice about how to hold my neck:
A video called ‘Hold Your Head Better When Using Screens’ from the Nutritious Movement YouTube channel. The still image shows a woman in a purple shirt standing in profile holding a phone in her right hand and holding her left hand up to the back of her neck.
Since I can’t necessarily put my drawing/reading/writing in the same place I would hold a phone, I am also using the same movement to take breaks during my drawing/reading/writing sessions – here’s a demo in this Facebook video of hers from a few years ago.
Between these two movement elements things, the yoga, the massage therapy, and all of the being-careful-but-not-coddling-myself, I am hoping to keep inching towards more ease in my body – especially the muscles of my neck and upper back.
Creating ease isn’t easy but it will be totally worth the effort, right?
As I work towards healing the muscles in my back, neck, and shoulders, I need to do a certain amount of movement to keep the circulation up, to create ease, and to maintain mobility but I can’t do too much or I will end up hurting myself and have a setback.
How can I tell if I am doing enough or doing too much?
It’s a conundrum – there’s actually no way to tell, it’s something that everyone has to kind of figure out for themselves.
I hate that for me because I really have NO IDEA how hard I am working at any given time – even when I am not injured – so I can’t compare how I am moving now to how I moved last time (even if ‘last time’ was 5 minutes ago.)
I’m sure you can see how that makes it very challenging to take a ‘do what you can, evaluate, then make adjustments next time’ approach for this healing process.
I know a lot of people with ADHD mention having issues with this sort of thing – a lack of perception regarding our efforts – so it seems to be one of those challenges that everyone has but is often exacerbated by ADHD.
The whole ‘how much is enough/how much is too much’ is really an unanswerable question loop so I’m really just going to hope for the best.
Conundrum #2
I woke up on Sunday morning with the sort of panicky thoughts that usually only show up when I am having the sort of migraine that doesn’t involve any actual headache. I thought that was odd until I sat up, my stomach turned and I realized that I *was* having a migraine.
I took a migraine pill, slept for another few hours, and then felt pretty ok until about 9pm on Sunday night when I suddenly stressed myself out about something and my stomach turned again. Next thing, I was lying in bed with my migraine hat on , listening to cello music , putting an ice cube in my mouth, holding a hot water bottle to my stomach, and trying to find some ease.
Did I actually have the same migraine all day but the meds in the morning put it in the background? Or did getting stressed out bring on a new migraine? Or did a pre-existing migraine make me more vulnerable to getting suddenly stressed out and the stress just brought the symptoms to the foreground again?
Is there even any point in asking myself these questions?
Since I haven’t ever been able to reliably predict my migraines there’s probably no point in going through the thought-loop but it would take a lot of energy to stop myself so I might as well travel the loop until it burns itself out.
Conundrum #3
After my Sunday night migraine, my Monday self felt pretty lousy but I also had a bunch of tasks that I needed to do.
If I had felt any worse, I would have just taken to my bed like a Victorian lady and called it a day but I wasn’t that kind of sick. It was a ‘take it easy’ day, not a ‘grind to a halt’ day so, basically, I was in the same kind of loop as the ‘enough/too much’ question above except with work and rest.
Rest is important, obviously, but my day wouldn’t be very restful if I couldn’t put those tasks out of my head, especially since I knew people would be checking in with me about them. (I never want to risk getting extra email.)
The best answer would be to identify the most important tasks and work on those but that brings me to a different challenge:
Prioritization is extremely difficult for me under the best of circumstances and a day in which I am very tired and recovering from a migraine was not the best of circumstances – especially since my ADHD meds are less effective when I haven’t slept well.
And if my meds are less effective, it not only affects my ability to prioritize, it also affects my ability to concentrate on my work so I am going to be slower and less focused.
So, I basically spent a good chunk of Monday putting a lot of mental effort into my attempts to prioritize/cut back on my work for the day so I could rest.
Conundrum #4
As I got towards the end of my day, I discovered another conundrum:
Am I too tired/out of sorts to take Khalee for a walk or will taking Khalee for a walk actually make me feel better?
Luckily, I quickly figured out the correct answer for that one:
And about 5 minutes after we got home, it started to hail (just a little, but still!) so I was really glad that my ‘Will a walk help?’ loop was far shorter than the others.
Conundrum #5
My final loop of the day was ‘Do I feel up to writing a post for the blog? What am I going to write about? Should I write about this loopy day? Will anyone want to read about that? Am I just being self-indulgent and whiny?’
And maybe I am being self-indulgent and whiny but I also know that I often feel better when I read posts like this. When other people write posts like this they always remind me that I am not alone in my frustrations, and thought loops, and in my efforts to make my way out of ordinary, fairly low-stakes conundrums.
So perhaps today is my turn to do that for you.
It’s ok to get caught in conundrums – thought loops happen to everyone.
It’s ok to struggle to balance things and lots of us find it hard to figure out how to rest.
There’s nothing wrong with you if it feels like AllOfTheThings are in your way today.
Please be kind to yourself as you make your way along.
If you work in any field remotely related to health care in the US, each week brings with it a raft of new horrors and abominations. Last Monday, The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) investigators were informed that the Department of Health and Human Services (led by Robert F. Kennedy) was cancelling their funding at the end of the fiscal year. By the way, their annual funding is just under $10 million a year, which represents a tiny fraction of US federal government spending on health programs and services– which in FY2024, was $1.9 trillion.
By Friday, however, an HHS spokesperson announced that there had been a reversal of cuts to WHI. HHS secretary RFK even called the Monday announcement “fake news”. However, WHI investigators have receipts, like this notice in the NIH reporter site.
But has the funding actually been restored? On the WHI government site header page as of Sunday April 27, we see this:
News crawl on the WHI page says “News: Reported reversal of WHI budget cuts remains unconfirmed.
While we catch our breaths here: What is the Women’s Health Initiative, and what research has it done? Glad you asked. Here’s info from this WHI site.
WHI was launched in 1991 to study the causes and prevention of heart disease, cancer, and other serious conditions. In the decades since, the WHI has made large strides in research on aging and heart health. The WHI has collected data from over 161,000 postmenopausal women from diverse backgrounds across the United States.
The WHI has three arms: (1) Clinical trials to study health effects of low-fat dietary modifications, hormone therapies, and calcium and Vitamin D supplements. These clinical trials are now complete, and the WHI has started an extension study to monitor the health of over 93,000 original participants. (2) An observational study to track medical histories or changes in health that might point to health problems. (3) A community prevention study to create programs that encourage women to eat healthy, exercise, and stop smoking.
The Women’s Health Initiative is the largest women’s health prevention study ever conducted.
Here’s what an article JAMA this week says about the WHI’s most wide-reaching research conclusions from their long-running randomized clinical trials.
For postmenopausal women, the WHI randomized clinical trials do not support menopausal hormone therapy to prevent cardiovascular disease or other chronic diseases.
Menopausal hormone therapy is appropriate to treat bothersome vasomotor symptoms among women in early menopause, without contraindications, who are interested in taking hormone therapy.
The WHI evidence does not support routine supplementation with calcium plus vitamin D for menopausal women to prevent fractures or a low-fat diet with increased fruits, vegetables, and grains to prevent breast or colorectal cancer.
A potential role of a low-fat dietary pattern in reducing breast cancer mortality, a secondary outcome, warrants further study.
Where does the WHI stand today, given that their main research trials have concluded? Garnet Anderson, a biostatistician who runs the WHI coordinating center, was quoted in this article in Science:
WHI currently enrolls 42,000 women, who update the researchers regularly on their health. The contract cut will prevent researchers at WHI’s four sites from continuing to interact with the women in this cohort, which has enabled researchers to create the country’s largest data set on women in their 80s and 90s. “Our ability to understand what’s going on with those women will be severely curtailed,” Anderson says. “They’ve been dedicated to this process for 30 years and provide their data generously. They’ve told us they want to be followed. It’d be disrespectful not to do that.”
Now, to the big question: why in the world would anyone cut this program, which costs peanuts and stands out as a shining example of the power of medical research to improve the lives of women worldwide? After all, 55 million people in the US and 1.1 billion people worldwide are post-menopausal women. The WHI is the main research instrument used to investigate women’s aging and health conditions like cardiovascular disease.
My answer is this: there is no rhyme or reason to be found in the Trump administration’s deadly flailings-about, crashing programs, repairing some, promising restoration to others, and with no accountability on follow-through.
Take a look here at this article by STAT on “Day by day, Trump is roiling science and health”. You’ll see a chaotic and destructive pattern of cancelling programs for women, poor people, LGBTQ populations, health monitoring and international cooperation, and basic medical research. Some programs have been told that their funding would be restored, but we don’t know when or if or how that would happen.
This CNN article offers a bigger-picture view of the breadth of harms being imposed by the Trump administration’s attacks on health prevention and research programs. No state, however red it may be, is protected by these program cancellations. Health needs transcend politics, and we are starting to see the responses from health workers and patient groups all over the US.
Speaking out, following up, writing, signing, marching, donating, holding officials accountable, making people uncomfortable– it’s having effects, however small so far.
One thought that is making me smile: the idea of some percentage of those 55 million post-menopausal women marching, going on strike, taking to the airwaves and social media, reminding the administration and all their collaborators that we are out and about, taking names, organizing and voting.
My heart is not completely broken, but it definitely needs repairs. Back in January, I got what turned out to be bronchitis and eventually made the unusual (for me) decision to check in with my doctor. He heard a murmur and sent me off for tests.
Two echocardiograms and EKGs later, plus some bloodwork and a referral to the Heart Institute, it appears I have a severe murmur from a damaged mitral valve and it looks like I will need surgery to either repair or replace it.
The whole experience has been interesting. It turns out I am really bad at noticing (or admitting to) changes in my health. Also, answering subjective questions is hard! Do I feel tired? Breathless? Have swelling in my legs?
Answers: Compared to what? Under what conditions? How much do I take into account pre-existing things like the varicose veins I have had since I was a teenager?
Since being diagnosed I am noticing symptoms but again, I have questions: am I getting worse? Or allowing myself to notice what I have been ignoring for years? Or is it all psychosomatic?
The good news is that I am being encouraged to keep up my regular fitness routine. That surprised me, but the doctor says that cardio is actually good for my heart because my heart plumps blood out to my extremities, thus reducing the pressure on the heart muscle itself.
So for now I’ll keep up with my swimming and dance, and get back to cycling. Plus I am doing more walking – easy to stop if I get tired, and no worries about trying to keep up with a group.
There will be more tests at the end of May, and hopefully some decisions shortly thereafter. The pool where I work is closing for six months so I don’t need to worry about missing work if I get scheduled for surgery soon. I do worry about whether I will be able to return at all. That would be heartbreaking.
In the meantime, I’m going to try not to borrow trouble, and spend time with friends and family.
My son and daughter-in-law with my grandson when we were out for a walk last week.
Grab a cup of tea and a snack, this post will be long.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here and there on the blog but I’ve been having extra trouble doing things for a while now.
Everything has been just a little harder. I’ve struggled to start things, I’ve struggled to finish things and there have been some tasks that just felt impossible – tasks that would normally be well within my capacity.
Unfortunately, because of the stress of the past few years and because of how ADHD categories things for me, I didn’t realize how much this was happening.
I’ve been struggling with exercise, including Taekwon-do. I’ve been struggling with writing projects and other creative activities. And I have had trouble summoning the energy to do good planning for a lot of different areas of my life.
I had put this all down to various kinds of stress, ambient stress, grief, and the kind of work-juggling stress that comes from a combination of ADHD and having taken on a few too many projects.
Oh, and, of course, the kind of stress that comes from feeling like you have been making too many excuses about too many things for far too long (even though there have been SO MANY OBSTACLES one after the other.)
Recently, though, I have discovered that there may be an underlying cause contributing to my frustrations over the past six months.
I tried to write a post about it several times in the past week, but I couldn’t pull my thoughts together the way I needed to.
So yesterday, on World Creativity and Innovation Day I decided to take a different approach and I made a zine instead.
I actually thought doing a zine would be quicker but as I wrote page 20, I realized that there was no way to make this story short.
I have photos of each page of my zine below and I’ll put a image description with each one, but if that’s all too long to read scroll way down to the bottom and I’ll put a summary of the whole thing.
Got your tea?
Let’s go!
A photo of the cover of a black-and-white zine called Well This Is Frustrating – a scene about an unexpected answer to a mystery by Christine HenneburyA photo of a black-and-white page with the following text “When you have muscle pain and stress and anxiety and brain fog and extra migraines and low energy and it keeps getting harder and harder to start stuff and to keep doing stuff or to even think about starting or doing stuff” Some of these words have been sort of illustrated. The word brain is huge. The word fog is made in sort of wiggly letters that kind of look like fog and next to extra migraines there is a picture of a person’s head in a vise. There was a black arrow after the word stuff.A photo of a black-and-white page with a drawing of a confused looking robot next to text that reads “it can be really tricky to figure out why?” Why is written in block letters and running vertically on the page instead of horizontally.A photo of a black-and-white page that features a pill bottle with eyes and a frown, and the word Concerta printed across its middle and it has its little arms crossed. A speech balloon next to it says This isn’t my fault. The text on the page reads “First I wondered ‘Are my ADHD meds failing me?’ That would explain the stress and anxiety and brain fog and the low energy and the trouble getting started…”A photo of a black-and-white page that reads: “but it doesn’t explain why a few minutes of exercise feels like an hour. And it doesn’t explain the muscle pain, especially in my neck and shoulders, and usually my ADHD fights me on getting started, it doesn’t usually prevent me from carrying on, so maybe it’s…” in brackets at the bottom of the page more text reads “I’m 52. Can you guess what is on the next page?”A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “perimenopause” in big letters and right underneath it says “or even full on menopause?” On the bottom left is a black-and-white witch’s cauldron with bubbles and steam rising from it, and the cauldron is labeled “(peri)menopause may contain brain fog, anxiety, muscle aches, mood issues, low energy, and more!” Next to the caldron is text that reads “I thought: OK maybe but it doesn’t exactly fit. It doesn’t feel quite right.”Black-and-white text that reads “You know what? The worst of it wasn’t even the symptoms. It was how I had been gradually (and unbeknownst to me) narrowing my life to deal with them.” At the bottom of the page are four speech balloons: 1st speech balloon says – I don’t want to write about that. It takes too much energy. 2nd speech balloon says – Maybe I’ll feel up to that next week. 3rd speech balloon – OK Khalee, maybe we’ll take a shorter walk today. 4th speech balloon – I don’t know if I’ll go. I feel tired just thinking about it.A photo of a black-and-white page with text reading: “I adjusted my meds. I got lots of rest. I reduced my stress as much as possible. I tried taking teeny steps toward more exercise, but still, I found myself here” There’s an arrow from the word here that is pointing to a drawing of the top of a person‘s head underneath a stack of boxes that read 1) I just cannot 2) task initiation issues 3) lack of motivation 4) fatigue 5) muscle aches 6) nope 7) brain fog. The person is saying ‘Glerg’ to all of this.A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “and this all seems like part and parcel of the same big problem from this perspective. But when it was developing, and when I was living it, it kind of snuck up on me. Each piece seemed like a separate issue.” The word big is written in much larger and darker text. And the word separate has each letter in a box sort of like scrabble tiles laid next to each other.A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “I talked to my doctor about some of it, and I did some research on my own about other stuff and I kept meaning to call my chiropractor, but I kept forgetting.” The word Dr is wearing a stethoscope. There is a picture of a computer and some books next to the research sentence, and at the bottom of the page is a drawing of a person with their face enveloped in a cloud that says brain fog and there’s a speech balloon that says “what was I going to do?”A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “But then an idea arrived from an unexpected source. Last time I was at the hairdresser, she mentioned that my scalp was hard as a rock. I said. ‘Must be stress, I guess’ but it made me think if my scalp is so tight, what else is not working right?” And in brackets at the bottom, it says “good question hey?” On the upper left on the page there’s a very rough drawing of a hairdresser washing someone’s hair and there’s a note beneath that says “Please note that Hillary is not a ragamuffin. I don’t have the skills to draw her well.”A photo of a black-and-white page that says “and then I started having trouble with my neck. A knot on the right side kept recurring so I called a massage therapist. I mean, this was a specific issue that could be treated in a specific way. This was what is known in the field as a good idea.” In the middle of this page is a small drawing of a person‘s chin, mouth, and neck and there’s a large black spot on the right side of the neck. Notes next to the picture read “a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile”, and “in real life, I have hair and features.” At the bottom right of the page next to the word good idea is a light bulb.A photo of a black-and-white page that says, “and it was a good idea. During my massage, Renee said something like “You know, you have the tightest neck. One of the tightest I’ve ever massaged. My other clients with this tight of a neck have a constant headache.” At the bottom of the page in darker letters is text reading “Wait! Could a tight neck be part of the big problem?”A photo of a black-and-white page with dark text that reads: “I asked her some questions and then did some research about the checklist of things she mentioned.” In the middle of the page (enclosed in a box) is a checklist that reads “tight neck, tight shoulders, ribs tight enough to restrict breathing, tight jaw” and each item is checked off. Beneath the checklist is text reading “and yep! All of those things can add up to brain fog, fatigue, mood issues, lack of motivation, low energy and increased migraine/headaches/muscle aches…”A photo of a black-and-white page with large text at the top that reads “Maybe it’s ADHD….Maybe it’s menopause…Or maybe it’s neck and back related?” Smaller text below reads “That certainly would explain a lot. Sure, ADHD. perimenopause, and stress could be doing their part but maybe, just maybe, the underlying issue was more directly treatable? I love this for me. I mean it’s still a challenge, but it’s way more straightforward.”
A photo of a black-and-white page with large takes to the top that says “But wait! There’s more!” And then smaller text reads. “I was telling all this to my friend Cathy via text when she asked a key question.” In a Speech balloon is the text “So it’s all due to stress? You didn’t have an injury did you?” In larger text it reads “I went to say all stress and then I remembered one afternoon last October…”A photo of a black and white zine page with text reading: “I was lying in my circle swing in the backyard when CRACK the branch it was hanging on broke and down came baby (Me!) cradle (i.e. swing) and all. The branch landed on my hands and I landed on the ground.” The word crack is printed in big letters and there’s a crack running through each one – a little space between the top and the bottom of each letter. At the bottom of the page is a very rough drawing of what supposed to be a circle swing on the ground with me lying on it, holding a branch aloft.A black-and-white photo of text reading “I was shocked and I hurt, but not ‘specific injury’ and not ‘something’s broken’ hurt. It was more of a jangled nerves and ‘I feel jammed together’ situation. I checked for symptoms of concussion, but you know what I did didn’t check for?”A photo of a black-and-white page with a whip drawn at the top and the word WHIPLASH in large black letters. Smaller text reads “Now, I haven’t seen my doctor yet but can you guess what happens when you don’t treat whiplash right away? Yep, brain fog, breathing issues, muscle pain, anxiety, mood issues, low energy, motivation, troubles, headaches.” Text in brackets at the bottom reads: “You get the idea.”A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “And you know what else happened a while ago? I fell on the steps and kind of caught myself. So I definitely added to the whiplash or whatever happened as the result of my fall.” Larger text at the bottom reads “And the effects of those two unpleasant but largely unremarkable incidents have been compounding for months.” Note: The words “I fell on the steps” are written as if they are a set of steps with a landing in the center.A photo of a black-and-white zine page with text reading “All of the yoga, all of the stretching, all of the bits and pieces of exercises? I couldn’t actually make progress with them, couldn’t get them to a new level. All of that effort was actually going towards keeping things from getting worse.” The word progress and the word level are written larger than everything else on the page for emphasis.A photo of a black-and-white page with text reading “And I had no idea. Yes, I knew about my frustration. I knew about my symptoms, but I couldn’t see the big picture.” The word frustration and the word symptoms are both written larger than the surrounding text and the words big picture are written very large and much darker than the other text and they’re surrounded by a rectangle almost like a picture frame.A photo of black-and-white text that reads “I didn’t realize that I had been limiting myself avoiding things that aggravated my injuries. I noticed that I ‘wasn’t trying hard enough’ and I was fighting the urge to be critical of myself about it.” All of that text is in large black letters, not capitals, but with emphasis. At the bottom of the page there is some text in lighter strokes that is in brackets and it reads” ‘You aren’t trying hard enough’ was my unmedicated brain’s favourite refrain. It still hurts to think it.”A photo of black-and-white text that reads: “And now I’m realizing that there was an underlying issue, something causing all the symptoms, something preventing me from trying hard enough. It reminds me of when I first found out I have ADHD I feel both sad (for the lost time) and hopeful for the future, but I have a question that haunts me.A photo of black-and-white text that is all in dark, emphasized letters: “What would’ve happened to me, to my life, to my ability to do the things I like doing, if I hadn’t figured this out?”
So, yeah, that’s where I am right now – trying to be kind to myself, trying not to aggravate my injury further, trying to stretch and rest, and working with my massage therapist (yay, Renee!) to help my neck, shoulders, and upper body figure out how to relax again.
Summary: After months of having a rough time with my physical and mental health, a visit to a massage therapist helped me realize that I may have injured myself more than I realized when I fell in October and then fell again back in January. I may have been dealing with untreated whiplash that has just been compounding over time. Whether or not it’s whiplash, I have been dealing with ongoing neck, shoulder, upper back and rib issues that have actually been physically preventing me from operating in my usual way and at my usual capacity. And I feel rather sad and frustrated about how long it took me to figure out what was going on.
While trying to strike a balance between overplanning and just kind of winging-it, my ADHD-brain often forgets that there are many options in between those two extremes.
I can have a tentative plan. I can have a list (or jar) of ideas to pick from. I can have a flowchart of if-thens. I can follow a plan and then adjust the pieces that aren’t working for me.
I can…probably think of eight million different ways of approaching the things I want to do.
However, all of the options between those extremes really come down to one thing: It’s always a good idea to be responsive to (and take care of) Today’s Me.
The me who makes plans often imagines perfect conditions for today’s me.
She forgets that I might be busy or sick or uncomfortable or upset or helping someone else or just plain unable to do the things she set out for me to do.
Changing my plans in response to Today’s Me’s needs is not slacking off, it’s not giving up, it’s not getting sidetracked.
Actually, since all of my fitness/well-being goals are really about taking good care of myself long-term, changing my plans in response to Today’s Me’s needs is actually getting me closer to those goals instead of further away.*
Giving myself room to change, adapt, or adjust Past Me’s plans is a vital part of learning to take good care of all versions of myself – past, present, and future.
And the same goes for you, Team.
The steps that lead you toward your goals will not look the same every day. Sometimes you will have the capacity to take bigger steps, sometimes your steps will be smaller, and sometimes you will need to rest. And, of course, the information you gather over time will occasionally lead to you taking a whole different path or choosing a whole different goal.
It only makes sense for you to respond to Today’s You’s needs so you can continue to support all of the versions of you going forward.
Being kind to yourself like this is really a life-long practice, hey? (Yeah, I know. I had kind of hoped I could just learn it once and then keep going, too.)
Here is your gold star for your efforts today whether you are able to respond to Today’s You or whether you are still figuring out what that might look like.
I wish you ease either way.
Image description: A small painting of a smiley-faced gold star with black pinstripes in the background is propped against a green background on my white desk.
*As someone with ADHD, I need to take a close look at whatever Today’s Me wants because I know that the me-of-this-moment may not be great at prioritizing or at thinking long-term. So responding constructively to Today’s Me’s needs might look a little different for me but it’s still important to do it. (I know just how stubborn Tomorrow’s Me will be if I am unkind to Today’s Me!)
Last week I outlined my plans for April and I thought I made things pretty easy for myself.
And I kind of did.
But, apparently, not quite easy enough.
It turns out that a mindful cup of tea – clear break- in the afternoon is a lovely addition to my day.
My days have felt a bit calmer.
I have gotten to have tea with friends three times, including tea with my sister Denise on her birthday.
I just feel really good about making a point to stop for tea and a rest.
And I’m sure that yoga would have a similar calming effect and would feel great for my body and my brain…
If I could remember to do it.
I mean, technically speaking, I have done yoga daily because I did a few focused stretches and a little time in Savasana (corpse pose) before heading to bed.
But that wasn’t what I had intended to do each evening.
My plan was to do a 10 minute yoga video before bed so a few stretches and some time in Savasana was not the kind of practice I was seeking.
Instead, it’s the kind of practice I end up doing when I realize moments before bed that I don’t have enough energy to do 10 minutes of movement – even gentle, restful movement.
So, since the tea practice is coming to me fairly easily, I will just let that one roll along and I will focus on figuring out how to remember to do that 10 minutes of yoga before I am too tired.
This week, I’ll experiment with setting an alarm for 9pm and see if that makes things easier.
And once I’m done my daily yoga, I’ll probably even have another cup of tea.*
Image description: A photo of the edit-alarm screen on my phone. The background is black and there are settings for the time (9:00 PM), Repeat (daily), Label (Yay for Yoga!), Sound (Constellation), Snooze (option is on),This isn’t from this week, I just like this photo. Image description: a large glass mug decorated with stars is sitting on a wooden table. The mug is partially full of tea (a tea bag is still in the mug and the white tag is hanging over the side) and next to it is a green post-it note that has the word reminder at the top and below it is a drawing of a robot pointing to a sign that reads ‘Everyone needs to recharge!’
*Don’t worry about me drinking tea at 9pm. Mostly it’s ginger-peach tea but even if I have caffeine at that hour it won’t keep me up – this may or may not be related to my ADHD.
I’m starting April while on a school storytelling tour with my friend Catherine (not blogger Catherine, a whole other marvellous Catherine) so the month is truly off to a good start.
Storytelling is great for my mental health and the fact that I am taking a break from my usual routine AND hanging out with a dear friend compounds the positive effects.
And this tour has been good for my physical health too because Catherine is a big proponent of finding energy by getting outdoors. So there have already been several times when her choice to go for a walk has shifted me into a more active rest mode after a busy day instead of just sitting around.
(To be clear, there are times when sitting around would be the right thing to do but in this case the walk felt waaaaaaaay better.)
Since the month is starting on such a positive note I have decided to add more positive health elements.
1. I found out yesterday that April is Afternoon Tea Month which is definitely a made-up kind of commemoration but as an avid maker-up-of-things, I’m here for it.
I’m going to celebrate by taking an afternoon tea break every day.
I can hear my sisters’ voices as I write that, “Chris, don’t you already drink tea every afternoon?”
And the answer is “Of course I do!”
But my April plan to to focus on the ritual of it, the making of the tea, the clearing of mental space, the sitting down to drink it.
This isn’t going to be a ‘drink tea at my desk while working’ kind of thing, it’s going to be an actual break in my afternoon.
One of my favourite cups for tea (a gift from my friend Mary) Image description: a cup of tea sitting on a small mat on my table with my ebook slightly out of focus in the background. My cup has a blue octopus on the side (only part of it is visible) and it has an ice cream cone held in one of its tentacles.
So that’s a small April addition for my mental health, now on to my physical health.
2) I mentioned last week that I am following the Active April calendar so that is staying part of the plan but I am also going to really commit to evening yoga (again!) and I have made a YouTube playlist to choose from each day.
And since I know sometimes get stuck in the decision making process, I am giving myself the default that if I can’t pick one, I have to choose the video immediately after the one from the night before.
I have often done evening yoga before and I throughly enjoy it when I do but I have gotten out of the habit so this is as good a time as any to get started again.
