I’ve been humbled…

I have always taken pride in being healthy. When I was younger, food and exercise were the primary avenues, then as I got older I began to understand the importance of mental and spiritual wellbeing (although the latter has waxed and waned throughout my adulthood). My beliefs in health have changed as my understanding of the human body and nutrition grew. I’ve always attributed my efforts to the reason I have been able generally feel good and lead a healthy life. After all, I have a family history of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, obesity, hypothyroidism, and severe depression; but I’ve never had any signs of these. And I now realize that I thought I was invincible. Like nothing would happen to me since I’ve moderately put forth effort for decades. Until this year.

At the beginning of the year I was not feeling like myself. I felt like a dark cloud was hanging over me. I had no energy, no “umph,” no desire to do much of anything. I was going through the motions of life and not really getting excited (or annoyed) by what came my way. I couldn’t sleep, gained weight, had no sex drive, and was emotionless. My life got very blah, yet for no good reason. After all, I have a wonderful, supportive husband, my son is perfect in every way (okay, maybe I’ve watched too much Mary Poppins in my life, but he’s a pretty good kid), I had accomplished one of my life goals by running a half marathon, I create my own work in my practice. Yet I was ready to give up my nutrition practice and walk away from everything that I’ve worked so hard for. I was beginning to understand what depression felt like and I knew it wasn’t “me.” Through all of this I wasn’t quite ready to surrender to the idea that this is what mid-life is like.

Luckily, I have some extraordinary people in my life. I had some good conversations and I began to understand that I was going through what is very common and something was broken. While many doctors would consider me in perfect health, I found one to listen to my symptoms and run a few tests. It turns out this was not all in my head. I was broken…well not quite, but my thyroid was sluggish and my vitamin D levels were low. Both of which are common, especially among women, and both are nutrition related~YIKES! So I’ve had to re-evaluate what I’ve been doing and make some changes.

I’ve spent the last few months slowing down my overachiever ways. I allow myself to sit down without feeling guilty and enjoy taking on life’s every day adventures. I have revived my meditation practice. I find reasons to laugh. I spend more time outside soaking up the rays o’ the sun. I eat more seaweed, Brazil nuts, and pumpkin seeds (to nourish my thyroid) with a few supplements thrown in. And after just a few weeks of this I feel like myself again. Look out!

“Ain’t nothin’ gonna to break my stride, Nobody’s gonna slow me down, oh-no, I got to keep on movin'”