Last month I received what felt like at the time a devastating blow to both my health and my self esteem.
I had been in a similar position two and a half years previously after waking up from surgery with Facial Palsy when my main facial nerve, technically known as the 7th Cranial Nerve that controls the face muscles and taste was accidentally severed.
It had taken 2 years of physio exercises to regain control (though not fully) of the right side of my face, only for it to be all taken away from me within minutes.
Those minutes all took place on a weekday evening. 3 days prior, I had been experiencing a headache followed by intense earache. I put it down to an emotional few weeks and continued working.
But come one evening as I sat down about to eat my dinner, I suddenly realized I could no longer blink, quickly followed by a sensation of helplessness and panic, unable to move my face and the side of my mouth. In less than ten minutes, I was almost back to how I had been immediately after surgery, only this time the paralysis was accompanied by substantial pain, as if the whole of the side of my face had been punched and kicked and was coming out in a bruise.
Sufficed to say, I couldn't eat my dinner that night and a phone call to see the doctor the very next morning led to a hospital visit to see my neurology consultant that afternoon.
After thorough examination, he diagnosed me with Bells Palsy symptoms. I was devastated.
Unlike last time. This time, even though I knew what to expect in the realms of how to recover and what to do, it has become even more pertinent how our lives, our communities and our society have changed.
Last time, my strategies were to continue with the events I had planned that Summer. Like Morris Dancing, Singing, Camping, meeting friends. going to festivals and art shows. My resources were Physio sessions, Massage, Cranial Sacral treatment. EFT, hugs and my dogs.
This time round, everything I had available to me have gone. My dog, dancing, singing. Any social engagement. I can't even access the treatments that I would like to support me in my recovery. If I were to strictly adhere to the rules, even hugging would be off the table. This time round, I am very much alone. Creating solutions to aid my healing process is much harder when the world I exist in with the people that inhabit it, are afraid to be near me, let alone touch me. When so many are under the illusion that we are doing our bit to protect one another. To save each other from a virus. I, like countless others are not feeling saved or protected. We are left to struggle to find our own way with little resources to hand and little support. Emotionally and practically.
This is not the end of me though. Like a phoenix rising from the flames, rise I will, stronger than ever before.
For the past few months, I have been training to be a Conscious Health Coach with Sam Thorpe This most recent experience has certainly highlighted and brought to my awareness the importance of maintaining balance at all levels of consciousness from Brainstem, Cerebelum and Cortex brain layers.
I am understanding even more that our body doesn't make mistakes, but rather, creates strategies and adaptations according to the meaning we give to our emotions and experiences we have throughout our lives. Every behaviour and every physical adaptation has a function and a purpose and that is to protect us and to evolve us. It is when they begin to cause us discomfort or they no longer serve us, that we may wish to be released from such limitations and this can be done by unraveling the many layers we form by our beliefs and perceptions that we learn from inheritence conditioning and experiences.
Right now, we live in uncertain times, but they are also exciting ones. And when I reach a level of peace through meditation, breathe work and in my creating space. I can let go of my frustrations, my anger and my heartache and I can become the person I came here to be and fulfill my life purpose. Who else is curious enough to join me on a journey of self discovery?
Like the three Wise men as told in the Nativity, if we can learn more about ourselves let go of judgement, perhaps we can all grow wiser and share our wealth of knowledge, gifts, skills and talents. How amazing would the world be?!
