Last week, I spoke about emulating the efficiency of fast-food staff, in order to save time.

I apply various short-cut hacks, so that I can fit-in all the daily tasks I need to get done; indeed, I’m frequently folding – in new ones.

Yet, this isn’t how I used to be at all. I could only focus on parent and work modes: everything else was reactive-based, not pre-emptive. What I call my pendulum was swinging erratically, and it was due to the aftermath of a harrowing childhood.

Perhaps I was fortunate that my disability worsened, because it forced me to study my behavioral patterns. I couldn’t change my past, but I could change my present; I realised that speeding through things due to latent fear: was not going to assist me in my real-time.

I had to slow down to speed up. By becoming consciously aware about this; gradually my own self-narrative grew louder than the latent critical voice of my past.

I spent, and still spend, time simply sitting alone in nature; and with continual practice, I’m growing more aware and awake to my own needs; due to the steadily growing sensation of alertness and calmness. Because the animal and human mind work far more effectively when we are calm.

This fact spoke to me: I started practicing to be calm.

But, since my ability to walk is under jeopardy: maintain a healthy weight and exercise, or have surgery; my former self, initially elbowed into my head:

“Quick Emma, do some more reps, surely that’ll help fix you”. But I forgot that I’m already achieving an admirable quantity of reps, and actually the main focus: must be stretching my calf muscle on the cerebral palsy side of my body.

It is a slow job, and when I’d tried speeding it up, I injured my knee. So, I had to refrain from any exercise for a few days. It caused me anxiety, and this happened only last week…

I had to follow my own advice: sitting in the garden being at one with nature.  During this time, with the help of breathing exercises, I slowed my head down once more, and realised that calm is my friend, and not my enemy. I studied the muscles in my right leg, comparing them with the left. They are anatomically very different. I’ve always known so, calling my right leg, my “shark bite leg”; but my head has been so speedy for most of my life, that until then, I’d only noticed that the right leg is thinner than the other one.

I enjoyed a eureka moment. For the first time in fifty years’, I realised that the muscles in the right leg are entirely misplaced; they don’t lay at all in the same way as the other one: I have a “candy twist” leg, and arm too, I discovered.

Now that I know this, I’m even more mindful about the need to slow down. When I bend the right leg, the knee is not parallel to the lower leg bones. I have a body in two halves. It’s no wonder that I hurt myself so easily. Yet now I’m alert to these facts, I’ve been adapting my exercise routine to accommodate the disfigurement. It is work-in progress. None of this would have been observed by me in a speedy state of mind. I was forced to slow down, so that in time, I can speed up!

 

I hope you find this helpful.

SUNNY wishes, Emma x