Episode 095 – Ask more of yourself
Recently I had to ask myself, do I want to do more, or do I want to keep thinking I’m doing enough. Listen in for the thing I’m referring to, but in the end I have to decide that I am doing this for me. It makes grief easier to deal with. It makes my illness easier to deal with.
The reason I called this episode Ask More of Yourself is because to get better it requires you to do more.
If you’d like to know more on how to shift your stories, reach out to me to see if my SHIFT to alignment coaching programme is a fit for you.
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Links from the episode:
Next episode: Habits that are actually signs of resentment
Previous episode: Do you owe your body an apology?
Transcript of episode
Hello loves, I’m Lorraine, and welcome to the Life in Align podcast.
The last few weeks I have been cutting back on caffeine. Yes, again. It’s still a wonder to me how I seem to sneak back up to 3 coffees a day, and as the caffeine goes up the water goes down. Caffeine doesn’t tend to affect my sleep, mainly because I stop drinking it by 11am regardless of how many coffees I have a day. It’s not really the caffeine that affects me, it’s the dehydration from lack of water that gets me.
Equally, I always try to drink at least 2 litres of water a day. The later I stop drinking coffee, the later I start drinking water, and you can guarantee I’m getting up at least once in the night for the loo. I didn’t think anything of it, because if I’m hitting my 2 litre quota, then in my mind I’m doing enough.
As if the loaded belief of doing enough is what’s going to work.
If I’m squashing 2 litres of water into the afternoon and evening then my body has a different opinion of what enough means.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has thoughts along the lines of “but I love coffee”, “no coffee, no fun” “meeting friends for water is boring”.
But, I had to ask myself, do I want to do more, or do I want to keep thinking I’m doing enough and continue getting woken in the night for the loo.
I didn’t go through that massive operation last year which helped free my bladder from being squashed into a pancake, to continue losing sleep at night. So I decided it’d be worth trying to cut back on the caffeine, and yes it might be hard, but I’ll be fine and it will be worth it.
And what a few interesting weeks it has been….
The fifth pillar of my coaching programme is about creating your personal happiness protocol. If I coach it, it means I’ve done it. It’s a fluid process, to allow for life. The plan requires me to ask more of myself and to stop convincing myself that I’m “happy” with the lack of sleep, etc.
So as well as things like not eating chocolate, crisps, or drinking wine as much as I’d like, my plan now lists reasons why I don’t drink so much coffee. Same reasons really. None of these things play well with my illness. I want to live life on my terms, I have to take care of my body. This means sometimes I have to sit through hunger. Emotional hunger. And coffee also soothes my mental wellbeing, there’s something so comforting to me. The same way chocolate is. So I have to choose what I really want to do when I’m sad, bored, tired, wanting distraction, or slipping in to habit.
In some ways I add it to the to-do list of other things I have to sit in when they come up. Though I can happily say that the grief comes up less, and I can feel into my body so much more now, and I no longer feel numb. I discover myself laughing without fear that a wave of grief is going to whoosh straight in behind it and take me under again, and that makes me laugh even more.
In the end I have to decide that I am doing this for me. I like how I feel when I am hydrated and sleeping at night. It makes grief easier to deal with. It makes my illness easier to deal with.
The reason I called this episode Ask More of Yourself is because to get better it requires you to do more.
To show up.
To question your beliefs.
To quit quitting on yourself.
To stop rejecting yourself.
Some people really don’t believe they have it in them. Some people think it’s too hard because they’re too broken. I know it’s hard when you’re feeling helpless and hopeless.
Lately I’ve had to have more patience. Patience to sit and think things through so it could become easier. When I got honest with myself I gave more to me.
So my question to you is where can you challenge yourself? What would giving a little more ask of you?
If you want help becoming more, click the link in the show notes to message me to discuss how I work with women with ME/CFS to become the best version of themselves.