On Monday morning I got up and did some sun salutations. 1 round consists of a flow with the right leg leading and a second flow with the left leg leading.
I had a breakfast meeting to get to so I decided to start with one round on Monday with a plan to increment by one further round each day this week so that I would be doing 5 rounds by Friday, at which point I could evaluate how many rounds I want to continue with each day.
Although I only did one round of sun salutations, about 5 minutes worth, it woke me up and I felt good for it. I’m glad I have reintroduced the practice into my day.
The meeting I had was over in South Kensington and I decided to walk the 5 miles home afterwards. It was a lovely walk and as I crossed over Albert bridge I remembered how much I used to enjoy running along the embankment when I did my marathon training. I am going to plan some runs at the embankment for my long distance runs coming up over the next few weeks. I like running there because it’s picturesque by the Thames past all the bridges and the added bonus is it’s very flat – which is nice for long distance.
By the time I got home my left foot really hurt. I seem to have this ongoing issue with my feet being painful and I have been planning on getting to see someone about it all year. I really must do that! I walked the 5 miles in normal boots rather than trainers so that may have done it. However, because my foot hurt I couldn’t face the 45 minute run I had planned so I swapped my week around to count the 5 mile walk as my XT session which wasn’t due until later in the week. I didn’t feel like yoga either so just spent a nice evening at home relaxing.
This morning I got up and meditated before doing 2 rounds of sun salutations. The meditation was guided using the Headspace app, something I’ve used on and off for ages. I haven’t been meditating at all this year, except the moving meditation of my yoga classes, and I realise that recently I have been feeling more irritable. My tearful reaction to the vegan festival issue was also an alert to me that I’m not managing my own inner peace so well right now.
This reactive and easily irritated state of mind is an aspect of EUPD (emotionally unstable personality disorder); which is my primary mental health diagnosis. Unmanaged it can result in noticeable contempt in my tone of voice, and then I start being snappy and rude. It’s actually a defence mechanism that is essentially designed to keep people at arms length and it is HIGHLY effective. Being irritable or angry sits at the opposing pole to sadness and vulnerability and so I believe that when I begin to feel or display this emotional state of irritation that truly I may actually be feeling more vulnerable and sad than my emotions are showing me. It’s kind of like my inner child needs nurturing, but if I’m not mindful I just deal with adult Sophie’s emotions and that isn’t what the inner me needs.
So there’s a few things that I recognise….
- I’ve come a long way to be able to see the small manifestations of it in my behaviour before it kicks in properly
- I know what measures I need to take before it becomes serious. This is self-nurturing rather than self-sabotaging behaviours
- If I am self-nurturing and look after myself and my inner child I can minimise the impact of whatever is going on
- As much as I might want to know, I don’t need to know what is causing this particular feeling. I just have to acknowledge and accept it – a technique that mediatation and yoga really helps with
Now don’t get me wrong, you can’t nip mental health problems in the bud, but for me the irritability is a symptom of the condition, and so whilst I can not stop the cause (the EUPD) I can take actions to minimise the symptoms.
They say you can not pour from an empty cup and it is kind of like that. I’ve spent a lot of time this year focussing on work and fitness, and I probably need to do a little more to soothe my soul. Meditation is one thing that helps with that, so I really enjoyed taking just 10 minutes this morning to take time for myself so I am going to try and keep up a daily meditation.
After meditating I did the sun salutations and then started work with a clear and focussed mind. I have nearly completed a project I started last week, which is to make a workbook for clinical competence in a particular area my company trains customers in. I am really happy with the progress I have made with it. I am also grateful that I have the ability to take an idea and make it a reality based on my experience in this field and my understanding of what makes a good learning experience for others. It’s really important for me to be able to recognise my abilities sometimes so please don’t read his as too self-congratulatory. I feel that gratitude and self-recognition is an important part of self-caring so I am trying to make a point of doing that.
For the rest of today my plan is to do my interval training run and then a yoga session later on. I am off to Ireland tomorrow so I want to get as ready and prepared for that as possible to take the stress out of it.
I really enjoyed the interval session the other day so I keep trying to remind myself of that to get the motivation to go to the gym and get it done. Certainly I know I’ll feel better when I have done it. Maybe I’ll have just one more cup of green tea first!
