Thursday, July 30, 2020

Covid-diary: July

Oh my, what a summer this has been! I have been trying to gather my thoughts and allow some guidance about the future to come up. This summer with covid-19 hanging above our heads has been exhausting, so that a couple times I have been thinking about taking a real break and finding another job. Really, I am also a teacher, so in the beginning of  'this era of uncertainty' I took and passed an exam to teach English as a Second Language. 

But here I am, still seeing clients, and that is only because I love my clients, and YOU ALL bring me so much strength and lighten up my workdays! Thank you for that. Still, I have been struggling with my inner momentum and I feel like I have lost the inner knowing of when to push and when to let be. Those of you who know me, also know that I strongly tend to push forward whenever I feel even a little bit uncertain. 

And there is no adamantly pushing  forward when we have a worldwide health crisis on our hands! Every time I open my door to a client, I also crack open my (and my family's) safety and chance to get the virus to sneak in. I am very aware that this virus will not kill us all, and in some ways we should be more worried about the coming flu-season, which might be fierce since we all have been isolating ourselves for such a long time; but in the business of touching people, the spreading is the biggest enemy. I don't know how I would handle the situation, if it came to the reality that I have been spreading this virus among my clients. I am grateful to have stayed pretty much untouchable by it so far, but that could change any time. Literally: any time.

In the past few weeks I needed to cancel a bunch of my commitments because of my health issues. At some point I developed almost all the covid symptoms in my head (I kept smelling my coffee about 70 times a day to make sure that I can still smell, and I think that was the only thing that kept me sane), but 'fortunately' the reason of my feeling so ill, ended up being  my front tooth. Yes, you read it right, one probably infected tooth made me crazy, so that I frenzied around my house thinking my last will and testament. 

The anxiety was what made me jump over my head, and I accumulated a symptom after another. When I finally managed to make an appointment with my dentist (I really did not want to bother her in this time), I spent a sleepless night making up scenarios about the first woman that has been killed by the version of covid that ate up her brain (you see, straight root canal to the amygdala). After the (first) dental appointment I felt 2 things: 1. that I just survived from a near death experience, and 2. all my covid-related symptoms had disappeared. Just like that. 

This tooth has been bothering me quite some time, and we still don't really know if there is anything wrong with it. (It has had a root canal, it has a crown, it has been bite-adjusted like 10.000 time and I do have a night guard to keep it safe.) So why all of the sudden the things evolved out of my reach? I simply got too anxious, my mind was not able to understand and make peace with the current situation and because I am too stubborn to read between the lines, the pain attacked to my weakest spot. I have been giving, caring and releasing my clients anxieties all the while forgetting the amount of self-care this situation needs. And I have never been taking more care of me than this summer; it just wasn't enough. 

To emphasize the importance of my teeth's wisdom, I will also tell you that the worst time with my teeth I had right before we moved to the States, like a week before the flight I urgently needed a new bridge (to replace one we had built like 6 months ago)... or the fact that when I am scheduled to have a 2 hour crown procedure, it normally takes 4,5 hours. The assistants in my dental office have learned to ask to schedule me as the first client in the morning, because they don't like staying after hours. So, I am pretty humble in front of my teeth and deeply grateful to my awesome dental crew!

At the moment I don't know what to think about the fall that's coming pretty soon. Should I pre-screen my clients, have everybody sign an extra waiver, make my clients wear a masks at all times in my house? I don't know. I personally don't feel threatened, but I can now see and feel how the big picture affects us all. I am not immune to the big scare (of uncertainty, financial threat, political atmosphere) and I am willing to serve my clients, but not in cost of my own health! I simply don't understand how the front line workers are managing, AND I also want to be there to support them with my skills when the time to unravel all this comes. 

I am taking some time off next week, and will schedule at least one week off each month until the end of the year. Make sure to schedule ahead of time, since I can not guarantee all of your regular spots. I am also planning something new for 2021 even if my studies probably won't be in the phase I wanted them to be by that time. My work is evolving, my practice is changing and I am my first priority. I love my work, but that can not be the reason to neglect my own health. I give up now: I can't do it all, I don't need to do it all and I refuse to do it all. Please remember that this is Kata's Way and in my way Balanced is Good, because Balanced in Painless. 

P.S. If you are interested in what happened to my tooth, I can tell you that it needed an acupuncture session to calm down the nerve and the channel. I have no idea how it worked, but 2 hours after my session I felt the huge weight lifting from my shoulders and the pain in the tooth shifted. It is still a bit painful, but this pain is reconstructive, not threatening and invasive any more. It will be fine. 

Here; ask them more if you need an excellent care: Art of Acupuncture