How to slow down for dummies

If you get my newsletter—first of all, yay—then you’ll know that 2023 was a bumpy landing for me.

If you don’t get it—let me know and I’ll sign you up—the quick summary is that I started having debilitating stomach issues and Cloud ate some thread and had to have emergency surgery.

First thing’s first, Cloud is recovering very well. He’s chafing against the no running, no jumping restrictions, which makes things a little more challenging, but it’s also a good sign that he’s feeling better. He took his last dose of pain medicine on Monday night and since then Aang has started to warm up to him again because he no longer smells like medicine. It makes me happy to see them snuggling together. I cannot wait until we go to the appointment on Monday to see if he’s okay to remove the cone and start moving around normally. But he’s alive and healing and that’s the most important part.

My stomach issues are more complicated. I’ve always felt that my GP was a little distant. If she could treat me over email and never see me and speak to me as little as possible, she would. Not that she was unfriendly, but very rote. I had stomach issues so she ordered an ultrasound and a blood test. This was days before Christmas. She gave me no instructions on how to conduct myself until I was able to get those things done. At this point I was having pain any time I ate something. I talked to a friend who is a PA and she listened more thoroughly than my GP did and gave me several instructions on what to avoid.

I got through Christmas on Nexium following her suggestions. I had the ultrasound on the 29th and, just like the blood test, everything was fine. There was no concern. So my doctor sent a message through the portal—I didn’t even get a notification that it was there—saying she had sent medicine to my pharmacy and to take it for 6 weeks. I had concerns about this medication. It’s physiologically addictive—both my dad and my brother-in-law took it and are unable to get off—and I didn’t know if it was necessary. I had no pain after a week on the Nexium and was even able to have some champagne on New Year’s Eve and a fully caffeinated coffee on New Year’s Day. I called my friend to discuss it.

To be brief, she didn’t think I had an ulcer and didn’t think the high-octane meds were necessary if I was already doing well. After talking, we think the underlying cause is stress. I’m doing my best to step down off the Nexium now (it’s also addictive) and I’m keeping with the diet for another two months, allowing for an occasional cheat item.

In the meantime, I’m collecting recommendations for a new GP. My insurance changed with the new year and this is a good excuse to find someone better suited to me.

I’m also trying to reduce my stress. This is much easier said than done.

I don’t really realize how stressed I am when I’m in the middle of things. I’ll realize that a situation is stressful—like packing, packing is super stressful to me, I don’t know why—but rationalize that once I’ve passed that situation I’ll be fine. If several small situations are varying degrees of stressful, I don’t really notice that an entire week or month has gone by under a continual level of stress.

From what I can tell, there are three ways to deal with stress: physically, mentally, and emotionally. I already run, which is a great stress reliever. I should get back into yoga, but I don’t like doing online classes and I don’t like teaching myself. I prefer to go to a lead class. I was doing this for a portion of the summer until even fitting in the classes became stressful due to all the travel I was doing. Then they raised their rates and I just never found a new place. Still, this is something I should work on.

I’ve tried to get into meditation on and off for years. Once again, I do best when I’m being guided through it. I have an app that I’ve used with decent results, until it glitches out, which somehow is even more irritating. I’m going to try to start that up again. It’s something I don’t mind doing at home, and I can start with five minutes and work my way up. I just have to make it part of my routine.

Emotionally is more difficult. I have to learn to recognize when I am striving to control things that are largely outside of my sphere of influence and let them go.

Social media has become incredibly stressful for me. I’m not sure when it went from fun to headache-inducing, but it has. There is a pressure on authors to perform and engage on social media, and to an extent, I’ve had fun doing it, but at some point over the last few months, it’s just felt more and more like taking shots in the dark and less and less productive. I took time off in the last two weeks of December. I didn’t force myself to make a post, I barely even looked at it to engage, and it was fantastic. I don’t want to get back on. I know at some point, I’ll need to, but until I less stressful way back, I’m giving myself some time off. I don’t know how much I’m actually moving the needle as far as book promotion at the point.

This blog is another thing that may change. Back in 2019, I challenged myself to write a blog once a week instead of sporadically like I had been doing. I knew that consistency was important for growth, so I tried it. And I’ve unfailingly posted once a week since January of 2019.

I’m not sure I’ll continue.

Half the time, the posts come fairly easily, the other half, I thrash around a little before I settle on a topic and the procrastinate until I’ve got it written. I’m considering knocking back the frequency.

I don’t regret making myself post every week for years. If nothing else, it has proven to me that if I sit down to write, eventually something will happen. Writing consistently—both with the blog and other writing—whether I want to or not has made me a better writer. But I’m not sure if I need to hammer at it every week anymore. I haven’t made this decision yet.

But as a friend recently told me, there’s a difference between feeling productive and actually being productive. I’m going to take a hard look at everything I’ve been working hard at and try to parse out what’s working for me. And what things I actually enjoy. As another friend once said, if you’re not having fun or getting paid, it’s not worth it.