week 7: just two things
this week on the little dream farm
This week’s Farm Note is a departure from the normal goings on here on the Little Dream Farm and more of a personal note from me. It is a continuation of the Week Six Farm Note, which you may want to read first if you haven’t yet.
It’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting down to a blinking cursor and a blank Farm Note, knowing that when I stand up from my desk I’ll have written something, but still totally unsure of what that is going to look like. So let’s see where this takes us!
As difficult as it was for me personally to write and press publish on last week’s Farm Note (which happens to now be the most widely opened, read and commented on, and thus the highest “performing” newsletter to date out of 110 Farm Notes), somehow this week’s feels…weightier…like there’s more pressure about what to say next.
Surely, that pressure is my own entirely, and in no way is it a bad thing, either. The pressure, rather, is that I have so many things to tell you and to share with you following last week’s Farm Note that I’m conflicted about what to say first and what can wait for another time.
So this week I’ll share with you just two things, and maybe we’ll touch on the rest another time or in another forum.
Thank You For Catching Me
I spent last weekend at home on the farm with just the animals while Chris was away for the weekend. I hit publish on the Farm Note in the 5 o’clock hour as I always do and then sat at the kitchen table for a very long time looking out at the Big Barn and watching the snow fall in heaps outside until the sun came up.
This winter has been ruthless…relentless. It’s been the most consistently very cold and consistently snowy winter we’ve experienced (I say this as we’re anticipating another five to seven inches of snow tonight). While Chris and I both appreciate the winter months and winter’s significance for where we live and for our farm, we’re both very much looking forward to the reprieve of spring.
I spent last Sunday doing the bare bones minimum chores to keep up with the animals and the needs of the farm during the heaviest snow we’d had to date this season. I made hot, nourishing meals, took a long, even hotter shower, spent the day in my pajamas, and did a lot of laying flat in bed, pillow under my knees, with a heating pad on my back as I’ve been doing since the last week of December.
Here and there throughout the day, I read through the comments you left as you read last week’s Farm Note. The tears welled in my eyes and streamed down my face. I laughed. I cried. I took a lot of deep breaths.
As I read your words, I let all the feelings come like giant, swelling waves, and I sat with them as the weight of them crashed around me.
Ever get thrown around by a wave in the ocean? It felt like tumbling around under the biggest wave, drowning. But then it felt like finally finding footing and coming up for air.
Sometimes, being a decently strong-minded and strong-willed person with a general can-do attitude can really bite you in the ass. These last few weeks have put front and center for me that I am blessed in a really special way to understand and be supportive of how others need help in their suffering, but I’ve done a really poor job through the years of asking for that help and support for myself. I’ve always just told myself I can grit my way through it…power through…keep pushing…keep moving forward…keep going…as I’ve always done.
A few people I interact with regularly said to me, “I had no idea you were even going through all of this, you don’t show it at all!” and I couldn’t help but think that’s likely the root of the problem.
I’m smart enough to know that our bodies store our emotions and trauma and that the weight of the things we hold onto can manifest into all types of physical ailments. But apparently I’ve not been wise enough to practice tending to the things I’ve needed to let go of.
I tell my clients often, knowledge is not the same as wisdom…knowing something is the theory part. The wisdom of knowing something is the doing it part.
So when friends called this week to check in I told them exactly how badly I’ve been feeling. When asked how I’m doing I’ve replied in earnest: not well. It feels like letting go of all the emotional weight has made room for the literal physical pain to ease up, too.
I want to thank you for reading last week’s Farm Note and for the comments, messages, texts, emails, and checking in throughout this last week. I didn’t want to write that Farm Note because it felt a whole lot like whining and complaining, and everyone’s got their stuff to deal with right now.
My hope is that if you take anything from my words last week or today, it’s that you pick up that phone, send that text, write that email, make that post, or make it known if you’ve got stuff you really don’t want to talk about. I hope you can let others help you carry the weight or boost you up while you steady yourself and find your footing again.
Or, if you know someone going through a particularly rough time, it’s the perfect time to let them know you’re thinking about them and holding space for them if they need someone to listen or just to know they’re being thought of.
Thank you for catching me when I was really needing to be caught.
How It’s Going
A few weeks ago I made a deal with myself.
I said, Sarah…here’s the deal.
You can be as miserable, down, depressed, hopeless, and helpless as you’d like, and all of those feelings are valid and you should honor them and make space for them and sit with them and feel them fully.
AND.
While you feel that way, you will also pick yourself up and make the nourishing meals and drink the glasses of water and get the eight hours of sleep and do the PT exercises and get your behind to the gym for your walking (light walking is good for the discs) and do the heating pad and take the supplements and keep after your healing.
—> I am allowing myself to feel crappy while I work on healing.
—> I am making space to grieve about the things I can’t do right now and also journaling about what I’m feeling and what I’m doing about it.
—> I am honoring how I feel by being honest about it while also holding myself accountable in order to feel better.
—> I am taking time to be in this moment instead of forcing myself to figure out what must come next for my work…for life in general.
—> I’ve been spending a lot of time quietly alone as I know (and in a way have always known) that the answers to what I most need aren’t out there but within me.
I believe in the power of good food to heal our bodies. I am witnessing it first hand every day as I’ve managed my thyroid symptoms through nutrition. My labs are improving and I got really promising, good news this week. If I could feel this much better in just one month, I know I’ll continue feeling better with the things I’ve been implementing and building upon these last few weeks.
I’ve also had a few days here and there where I haven’t needed the heating pad for my back. I’ll have the answers from another MRI (of my neck this time) this week. I worked with a great physical therapist this past week and we have a plan. With each meal, every set of PT exercises, every hour of sleep, each glass of water, every walk…I trust my body’s ability to heal and I will honor it by doing my part to listen to what it needs and help make that healing possible.
I know that if I keep doing these things—keep showing up for myself in this way—that all the rest will take care of itself. I know this, because I’ve been teaching it to my personal training and nutrition clients and witnessing it in their individual transformations for years.
It very much feels like a path was being cleared for me. Maybe I’ll talk more about that another time. In the meantime, I’m taking everything just one itty bitty loving step at a time.
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I’m sorry you are going through all this. I get it. Probably a lot of not most people get it. And I don’t know what else to do but keep going on. I spend a lot of moments just saying “X thing isn’t happening RIGHT NOW so just let it go.” Especially because it’s always something I have zero control over but will be pretty devastating. What else can we do?
Such profound words, Sarah. Your thoughts and actions remind me of the Serenity Prayer, you know the one…”God (or Universe), grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” You’ve been surrendering the things out of your control, harnessing your wisdom to address the things you can, and finding some serenity as a result. Brava. (And more hugs)