Over the last six weeks my fatigue has returned, as has the incapacitation which accompanies it. I have managed to produce a weekly article but I haven’t done much else. I saw my wonderful homeopathist last week and, thankfully, I am starting to improve.
I have often been plagued by fatigue but this time I have had a profound breakthrough in how I view it, my creativity and my worth as a human being.
Before I talk about that powerful insight, I want to go back thirty-five years and tell you about the first time that extreme tiredness took over my life and how difficult it was to deal with.
I was a 21 year old music student
It was May 1987. I was 21 years old, in my final year at university as a music student. I had a series of final exams and then had to give a recital. I was a flautist. There were three other flute players in my year and they were all better than me.
I had prepared for this recital for two years and it was going to be the moment where I was desperate to “show them” what I was capable of. I wanted to speak from my heart, musically.
It was hugely important to me, not just from the point of view of getting my degree, but in expressing my creativity and proving my worth to the world. On reflection, the latter was the most significant to me.
The problem was, I had fatigue, just like I have now.
It started in that final term. I couldn’t study as much as I wanted to and I couldn’t do the necessary hours of flute practice. That made me extremely stressed.
I went to the university health centre where the doctor did some blood tests. They didn’t show anything abnormal and he told me that I just needed to relax.
But how could I relax when there was so much at stake? How could I relax when I couldn’t do the hours of practice necessary to perfect my recital? How could I relax when I had to spend the afternoon sleeping after each of my exams rather than do the final preparations for the next one?
It was extremely traumatic. At the time my mother was recovering from a hysterectomy but she drove, against medical advice, to visit me and try to calm me down. I pity my boyfriend at the time who witnessed me go this and probably had no idea how to comfort me.
The more people told me to relax, the more stressed I got. Didn’t they understand what was at stake?
Well-meaning people suggested that I would just have to accept that my recital performance wouldn’t be as good as I wished.
This broke my heart. I felt that they just didn’t understand me and what this recital meant to me. I became even more distressed which burnt even more of my precious energy.
As the weeks passed, somehow, I got through it. The recital was okay but not brilliant. I earned my degree but at a lower grade than I would have liked. Summer holidays arrived and I started to recover.
The trauma stayed with me
Back then, there were no alterative therapies available, I had no life experience and I hadn’t met Buddhism which has helped me with similar issues since.
The trauma of that summer stayed with me. Years later, when I started to write, and then got repetitive strain injury, I re-lived the suffering of having to put my creativity to one side while I recovered. It felt like my degree recital all over again.
In 2008 I was a life coach. I was a speaker at a huge Mind Body Soul festival and I got a bad back the day before the festival. I hobbled there on a walking stick, cursing the fact that my body had let me down again, when I was making progress with a heart-felt dream.
Every time I’ve suffered fatigue after an illness, I am haunted by that summer in 1987 and how I couldn’t speak what was in my heart.
Thankfully, over time I have developed more tools, both spiritual and practical, that have helped me win through in spite of the obstacles.
Now I have fatigue again
The state of my health has been reminiscent of that time, thirty-five years ago. I’ve had some scary moments recently where it felt as if my body has been breaking down.
But I am different.
Two weeks ago, I had an incredibly profound day.
It started with me feeling awful and crawling out to meet a friend for coffee. I was very upset and cried uncontrollably while she held my hand in a café. I was so worried about what was going on and what was going to become of me.
Comforted by my friend’s wise words I went home and started to journal. Even though I’ve built great momentum with this newsletter and I was about to resume work on my novels, I wrote that my worth didn’t come from my writing. It came from me.
I was worthy, irrespective of whether I could write at the moment. My worth was in me. It was in my life and it wasn’t tied to any of my creative achievements.
This was a massive contrast to thirty-five years ago when my whole worth was tied up in that recital. It was everything to me. And when I couldn’t carry it out as I wished, it destroyed me.
This is a MAJOR breakthrough.
It doesn’t matter how much I can write at the moment. It doesn’t matter if I have to stop writing. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t been able to look at the edits on my latest manuscript draft. It doesn’t matter that I’ve recently launched paid subscriptions and if I can’t produce any articles, then I’ll have to pause those subscriptions. It doesn’t matter that I can’t write guest articles for other publications at the moment, which will help grow Gentle Creative.
I am still a worthy person. My life still has lots of value. I am still the truly fabulous Cali Bird!
I knew I had to share this with you
Your life is valuable too.
It doesn’t matter how much you write. It doesn’t matter if you are published. It doesn’t matter if you get lots of likes or shares for your work.
Yes, it’s fun to write. It’s good to have the discipline to do it as often as you can. It’s lovely if you can get published and have other people read and enjoy your words.
But that doesn’t make you a valuable person.
Your life is valuable just as it is.
You are a wonderful, worthwhile, valid human being just because of the sheer fact that you exist, that you’re here and that you might get to live out some of your potential.
Every month in my Buddhist movement we have a talk which explains one of the Buddhist writings. I’m giving that talk for my local group in August and preparing the material has been a major benefit at this time.
It’s about something called the treasure tower. When the Buddha was preaching in India, two or three thousand years ago, he talked about how a huge be-jewelled tower rose out from the ground, resplendent with gold, silver, pearls and other gems.
Then he said that every person present had that same potential and beauty in their lives, right now, just as they were.
Despite my current physical challenges, I have this amazing treasure tower in my life. And so do you.
It has been very profound for me to realise that even though I have the same physical condition as thirty-five years ago, I don’t have the same suffering.
That is very freeing and I just knew I had to write about it! After all, I am the Gentle Creative!
Lots of love
Plodding gently
Cali xx
P.S. If you are curious about my Buddhist practice, you can find out more about it by clicking here.
Photo by Chris Rhoads on Unsplash
This is important to remember. . I used to be a productivity nut until I realised all of that activity was about distracting myself from the real me. Now I accomplish what I accomplish and it's all good no matter the progress or lack of it. My recent launching here had me knee-jerking back into the busy bee mindset, but I caught myself before I fell down that abyss again.
I am crying right now. I really needed this, because I've been struggling with feeling bad about myself lately. I feel like I'm trying to juggle too many balls and I can't keep any of them in the air for any real length of time. Between the various administrative tasks that come with being an adult, working, growing as a parent, being a good partner, spending time with friends, keeping the house clean, writing, exercising, spending time with my dogs, and simply relaxing to recover from all the energy I'm using...there's just not enough time to fit everything in, let alone to do everything well. I have to remind myself I can't be perfect in all aspects of my life, and that's not a failing on my part. I'm only human, and I am enough.