Yesterday I realized that if I had chosen to take a break– before the roof at the climbing gym, or around Halloween in real life - I wouldn’t be so utterly fatigued now. If I had paced myself, even if it might look like I was wasting time, I would actually be done by now instead of hanging in the air, instead of feeling not quite right before Christmas. Aesop wasn’t lying – slow and steady does win the race.
Every year I take five weeks off. Because I am self-employed, it’s really hard to do. For all of us, getting away from work is not easy. Having a long history of vacationing the European way, I can assure you that it takes two weeks in a row just to recharge your batteries. I have a three-week break in the summer, and one or two weeks off for Christmas. When is the last time you allowed yourself a solid break, gave yourself time to relax, and felt rejuvenated? Yet I realized recently that I also need to pace myself in autumn.
So what happened this year? For me, when I over-stretch the “health elastic”, I lose my appetite. Oh no! Not so close to Christmas, when I’ll be home with those to-die-for French foods!
Very unusually for me, I started to have heart burns this year. Every time I eat in a rush, or when I am running late (no kidding, those who hang around with me know it can happen), I have this burning feeling in my stomach. (Nutrition is key to health of course, so I’m going to cover this in future “e-sharing” notes.) My body’s message (warning) was clear: take an unplanned break from my usual way of life. I chose to truly stop and calm down to eat, and do fewer things in my average day.
What if I chose to tough it out instead? I see the results of that every day: People fall – into poor health, getting unwell or quite sick. And then people find they have to take time off from work. And you know what? That’s totally OK! It is part of life to be sick every once in a while. It actually is quite unreasonable to tough it out. What’s more, it’s OK to fall from that climb because we have a rope. I’d say the best way to recover from a cold or stomach flu is not preventative injections or fix-it-all-quickly pills. We simply need our rest, planned and unplanned. When I lived in Holland, I once visited my MD for a flu. His prescription was a week off work. “Come back after a week if you are not feeling better,” he said.
This takes us to Lesson #2: When you tire out, have an unplanned break, don’t toughen it up. There’s a reason climbers use a safety rope. When you can’t go on, you have something to fall back on – literally.
Our safety rope in life is largely made of the benefits of being Canadian: universal healthcare, comfortable homes, food on our plates. If we stop for a few days, life continues, and it is unlikely that we lose our clients & customers, or even that we have to stop our smart phone plan for lack of funds. Do not forget that it takes a week of complete rest to really recover from a common cold, and two weeks from a flu.
I’ll tell you later what my safety rope is made of. I hope you take a moment to contemplate yours, and allow yourself to use it when your body tells you it needs a break.
Stay tuned, we’re over the roof of this story! And thank you for your positive feedback so far!
Sincèrement, bonne santé, et Joyeux Noël!
Patricia
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