WELLNESS WEDNESDAY

Hey folks, Sally Riggs here, psychologist, fellow long hauler, and your Long COVID Coach. And first of all, I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year. And I also wanted to say something about that, because I know there's many of us, for whom this is our third, possibly even fourth New Year for those who are maybe 2019 long haulers. New Year, going into a new year with long COVID. And I know that may bring up a lot of mixed emotions. And I want to say some things about that today. But first of all, I want to be your daily reminder that there is hope.

For me, I spent New Year's Day with my sister and I also spent New Year's Day last year with my sister and being able to contrast taking the very same bus taking the very same train journey. We didn't quite go to the same restaurant for lunch. But comparatively speaking, what I feel in my body is so dramatically different now than last year. The year before I was in the UK, in the middle of lockdown, I celebrated New Year with my parents. And again, I can remember exactly how I felt. And being able to contrast the three, I am dramatically improved, enormously different. And as you've heard me say before, but I will continue to say it as much as I need to, I have every hope that this can be the same for you.

But I wanted to talk a little bit because I know at this time of year, social media, TV, we're bombarded with stuff about resolutions and goals and all of these things to do with being active and diet and losing weight and so many things that can be enormously triggering for us. And I've never been a fan of New Year's resolutions. Partly as a psychologist, I know that they don't work. And partly, as a smug runner, I was always the person in February, who was happy that the gym got quiet again, after all of the new year's resolutions people gave up and left. And I imagine many of you were also like that. And so it's hard to see people talking about going to the gym, or doing active things or losing weight. Because for many of us, the significant thing about Long COVID is that we have lost those things. Maybe we've gained weight, maybe we can't be active anymore.

So what I wanted to talk about today is something slightly different that you've also heard me talk a little bit about before, which is intention, and visualization. So intention is just in our mind's eye saying something that we want. And we can also even say it out loud, that makes it even more powerful. But intention is nothing if we don't have visualization. And as you know, visualization is enormously powerful. And it's powerful in both directions. When we fully visualize something in our brains, because our brains are actually quite small and are not really able to do a lot of things from first principles, they take a lot of shortcuts. And so when we visualize something, our brain doesn't know the difference between something that is hypothetical in the future, something that is happening right now, or something that has happened in the past.

So here's how this works both ways. If we visualize getting well, if we visualize being strong, if we visualize some other part of our recovery that we want, that dream life that we want again in the future, our brains don't know that that's hypothetical. And something happens at a cellular level in our bodies, that begins to line us up towards that happening. Now that may sound a little bit woo-woo but actually, there's quite a lot of science behind it. And all of our bodies are doing so much right now fighting this illness all the way from our mitochondria up, that when we visualize wellness, it helps our immune systems, and it helps that process. Conversely, if we imagine something negative, like still being sick this time next year, our bodies don't know that that's hypothetical either. And at a cellular level, they act as if that thing had happened.

So the power of intention, and the power of visualization, especially at this time of year, are enormous. And I'm not just talking about thinking positive. That's kind of pointless. And we've all been through a very shitty number of years here, however long you've been dealing with Long COVID. And there is no way to sugarcoat that I'm not trying to put a positive spin on that. It's been awful and I know that this is probably the worst thing you'll do in your lifetime, and your ongoing battling it now. And that's awful. So this is not just about thinking positive. But if we can, even just for a few minutes, find the resources to orient our brains to visualize that recovery. And we don't need to know what the pathway to recovery looks like. We just need to visualize what it feels like to be recovered, that will align ourselves for a few moments in that right direction.

If we imagine the opposite, then we're going to be reinforcing the opposite. And I get that justice, it's really hard to think positive. And I'm not telling you just to think positive. It's very easy especially if we have anxiety and our bodies naturally go to the worst-case scenario, "What if I don't get better? What if this doesn't work? What if? What if? What if?" And the difficulty with that is that each time we have that what if and we slightly visualize it in our mind, our bodies for a second get aligned towards that outcome. And we really don't need anything else working against us. So I know that at this time of year, it's very easy with all the triggers around to feel defeated, to feel let down by another year of this illness, to feel powerless, to feel hopeless. Then I get that, according to Polyvagal theory, if we're stuck bouncing between Shutdown and Fight or Flight is gonna be those feelings are gonna be very easily showing up in our bodies.

Whatever you can do to support your nervous system, whether you're doing the Safe and Sound Protocol, whether you're doing deep breathing, whether you're doing some yoga, whether you're doing some other daily exercises to support your nervous system to get towards Rest and Digest. In those brief moments, where you have a little bit of Ventral Vagal, as we call it, close your eyes and visualize that beautiful thing that you want. Because that will increase the power in your body, right from those mitochondria up towards getting you to that place that you want to be. And that's what we can all do at this time of year, we can set our intentions, "I am going to do this, I am going to do two minutes a day of Polyvagal exercises. I'm going to take my supplements, I'm going to talk to this doctor, and I'm going to visualize what it feels like".

For me, some of the things that I'm visualizing right now, and I think I might have shared this with you. I am working back towards running I now up to one minute 50 seconds I did this morning, which was absolutely beautiful. And I'm continuing to visualize my body getting stronger, my heart rate coming down, and being able to extend that to two minutes and 2:05 and 2:10, etc. I've also had a little bit of symptoms over the last few days, and so the last few days I've been visualizing all of the healing action in my body going to get rid of those particular symptoms. I've also been visualizing some things that I want to start doing with my life some more travel, some things that I need in my apartment. I need some bookshelves to put all the books about Long COVID and other more interesting things on. And so I'm visualizing that beautiful bookshelf that hopefully is going to show up in my apartment one day, maybe this year.

So what are the things that you want to show up for you this year. And I'm giving you permission to dream because I believe that this is very powerful and very possible. So just take a few minutes, especially if you're hearing other people harking on about resolutions or losing weight or any other stupid annoying things. Just close your eyes and visualize that beautiful thing that you want. Because it will help you get there and I know that you can have it. And I am here for you this year to continue supporting you. This community is here for you to continue supporting you.

We have the Facebook group, we had a bunch of people join us over the holidays, I look forward to welcoming them when my assistant is back tomorrow. And we have a workshop happening next week, talking about Treatment Overwhelm and Decision Fatigue, that is next Thursday, January 12. If you're not signed up for that already, the button is below here. So lots of great things happening. Watch this space and set those intentions do that visualization. And this is going to be all of our years. We're gonna be long COVID this year, I can feel it. This is another Wellness Wednesday. I hope you have a tolerable week, and I will see you next Wednesday. Take care.