Since the end of October, I’ve been struggling with aftereffects from Covid-19 and today I felt guided to share my healing journey with you.
Sometime in mid-October, I contracted Covid. As with many of us, I wasn’t exactly sure how I got it. I was traveling overseas and didn’t confirm I was positive until I returned home! After quarantining for ten days, and finally testing negative, I was ready to move on with my life!
Ha Ha.
This was my first encounter with a long-term illness, something you may live with or have experienced at some point in your life. To you, I offer my deepest condolences. You are indeed a brave warrior.
Each time I’d think I was finally better and could get BACK to my life, I’d have some kind of relapse. Mostly with a blanketing sense of fatigue that would descend like a band across my eyes. That’s when I knew I couldn’t keep going.
This went on for weeks that turned into months.
Some days it was so difficult sometimes just to get up in the morning. Despite that, I tried my best to surrender to the process and allow it to unfold in the time it needed. I knew there was integration happening for me on deeper levels. But I also yearned to have enough energy to get through the day without wanting to collapse into my bed!
About a month into this situation, I realized I needed more help and reached out to an acupuncturist. Along with treating me, she also lent me a book on anti-viral herbs. Initially, I was so overwhelmed just looking at the book, I ended up sobbing.
Another week went by before I was ready to read through the chapter devoted to Covid and the anti-viral herbs you can use to support you. Each symptom whether it be congestion, brain fog, mitochondrial fatigue, or heart issues is there. I identified each of my symptoms, wrote down every single herb the author suggested and researched them one by one.
After consulting with my acupuncturist again and going through the list with her, I purchased and began taking a fistful of supplements every day. Some were basic things like zinc, and vitamin C, others more specific to help with word acquisition, fatigue, and regaining the ability to taste and smell.
As an added layer of support for my system, I also stopped eating foods that are known to cause inflammation like gluten, dairy and sugar.
I also began listening to Louise Hay’s 101 Power Thoughts for Life, where she rains affirmations down on you one after the next. In fact, I began to feel a bit like her and how she described her medical journey with cancer. She tried EVERY single modality she could find to support her in her healing journey.
Along with western medicine, I did deep tissue massage, acupuncture, herbs, crystal healing bowls, and meditation.
One of the images that kept coming to me throughout this time was that I had fallen into a hole (this was my illness). How was I going to get out?
A few weeks later, during a meditation, I was reminded of that image or metaphor, that I was in this hole. “oh right,” I thought. “I am!”
Then, I was gently reminded, “you’ve been so busy trying to get out of the hole, you haven’t taken a moment to look around.”
Astonished by that insight, I decided to do just that. Rather than staring at the pin of light I could see all the way above me, I began to explore my surroundings. At first, I couldn’t make much out. It was dark and cobwebby, but I kept looking.
Eventually, I realized that the space I was in was a dimly lit hall like one in a natural history museum with life-sized dioramas flanking the walls. I walked over to one and peered in through the glass. There, I saw a still life scene from my childhood in which I was at home with my mother. Moving onto the next, was a scene from when I went to boarding school. In this diorama, I was 9 years old trying to help my younger sister get dressed. There was another scene from later, in high school, a different boarding where I was 15 and isolated, having been shunned by my clique of friends for sticking up for myself.
Each diorama/memory was a time when I felt afraid and alone. The physical reaction that experience induced was a sense of stress and anxiety, a fight or flight nervous system response. I have to protect myself, I have to take care of others, play small. It isn’t safe for me to speak truth or ask for what I need. I have to do what others want or need me to do.
In each image there was a notable absence of joy, of laughter and freedom!
After taking them all in, I was then encouraged to bring love and light into each picture, and that is what I did.
I walked through the glass and into scenes where I picked up or embraced the lonely scared child (me). I held her, told her she was so loved, and imagined light filling each of the dioramas. Once they were all illuminated, I was told that I could now leave the pit.
I began to climb up and up and up the ladder, feeling myself enrobed in light. When I reached the top, I stepped into the field which is my metaphor for the heart of love.
The message I received was to be joyful, and to be me, and to know that I am loved WITHOUT needing to take care of anyone else.
After that experience, I felt SO much lighter, and freer. And naturally thought my healing was completed!
It was and it wasn’t.
I still have needed to rest, to take it easy and go slowly.
I must listen to my body and act accordingly.
I have to remember not to push myself.
But every day I grow stronger and return more and more to my healthy self. The joy filled, free me.
What about you? How is your healing journey unfolding? What have you been facing?
I’d love to hear about it.
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Image by Alev Takil on Unsplash