Sherdie

I’ve always been better at the big picture or the new idea than the actual doing of the thing. So what’s my actual recovery plan? In other words, finally all that HECS and those 5 years studying immunology and endocrinology and other -ologies finally pays off (plus, obvs, advice from the doc).  So. As well as that, here’s what I will do.

1. First up – getting over it (week 1 and 2, I suppose – which brings us to today).

Electrolytes, okayu & umeboshi, ginger juice with honey. Plus maxolon and panadol for when I need it. Sleep. Naps. Lying down. Very, very slow yoga. Being extremely gentle.

2. Then – getting back to normal (from now until… this one’s going to take a while, I think.)

Generally I think that your nutrients should be found in your diet but for now, I’m on a cocktail of supplements. Zinc and magnesium to help with healing my sad little oesophagus and stomach. Hardcore probiotic for my devastated intestinal flora. Iron to ward off my tendency to anemia. A giant, foul tasting vitamin B complex to support everything else. Garlic, horseradish and vitamin C because fuck getting sick again right now. Oh and calcium, but that’s just because.

No coffee. No(t much) booze. Not too much to change about my diet but probably not so much of the rich foods for a month or two.

Other things are about being nice to myself. At least 8 hours sleep a night. Slow weekends. Limited stuff on weeknights. Leave work at 5 or thereabouts. Leave earlier when I’m exhausted. Some other stuff about how I work that’s probably for another post.

Hmmm. Probably sounds fairly fucking awful when it’s listed out like that but right now it sounds like bliss (…er, one day in). When I get bored, that probably means I’m better and can move on to…

3. Keeping perspective.

I’m still thinking this through. There’s something in there about filling up my life with all the other things I love so there’s no room for work to become some sort of invasive species (it’s all about equilibrium). But thinking about what all those other things are and how that all works… makes me even more tired, so I figure I’ll work that out in a few more weeks.

Also I love my job, really love it, so there’s more thinking to do about how to make sure there’s balance but I can still keep the joy in it. I made a conscious choice to push myself hard because I believed, and still believe, that it was worthwhile. But it can’t be at any cost, and if I burn out then I’m not going to be helping anyone. Like I said before, breaking the addiction to ego and adrenaline is going to be the trick there.

There’s also something in there about creating and keeping space, in that yogic kind of way, which seems much more appealing and achieveable at the moment. So I think that until I’ve worked it the rest out, I’ll focus on consciously creating space and stay mindful not to let that space fill up with work (it’s so tempting!).

And a final important thing is the documenting. Accountability and mindfulness. Hence this post, which is probably boring as piss for you, dear reader, and filled with the sort of minutiae about me that even the Architect won’t care to read. But right now this is more about me than anyone else.

So that’s the plan. It’s not comprehensive and has all my classic hallmarks of cobbling something together and working the details out later.

But so far it’s going okay.