WELLNESS WEDNESDAY

Hey folks, Sally Riggs here, psychologist, fellow long hauler, and your Long COVID Coach, and welcome to another Wellness Wednesday. And for those of you who watch this video from my email newsletter, you will know that there wasn't a Wellness Wednesday video last week, because they discovered mold in my apartment. And I just wanted to talk through a little bit today, some of the strategies that are utilized to help my body cope with that because I think it is very relevant to your recovery journey as well.

Even if you are not discovering mold in your apartment, things may happen in your life that your nervous system responds to. And so it's useful to have strategies to deal with that. So just to give you a little bit of backstory, there was a water leak in my apartment. Gosh, I mean, six weeks, two months ago now and they fixed it right away. But part of the repair process in New York, typically always involves a mold assessment, because if they're standing water, there's likely to be mold. So the mold assessor came out on Thursday. And although he takes the air samples, and they take 24 hours to process, from what he was telling me, the chances are there would likely be positive results. And my body reacted accordingly and started to go into shutdown.

And I don't think that was because of mold specifically, I don't think that my body was panicking, that mold is toxic, and it can't take one more thing. Actually, the levels came back relatively low. I wasn't suspecting they were going to be high. I have not been symptomatic at all. So yes, the mold does need to be mitigated, but not in a panic or etcetera, etcetera. But what my body seemed to be reacting to was the mitigation plan, which essentially involves me moving out of my apartment for at least a month, putting everything I own in storage, and then living from a hotel room. And given that I work from home and basically spent 95% of my time in this apartment, as somebody who has Long COVID, that was a little bit destabilizing.

And I think part of the issue is, "What about my meds? What about this, what about the other?" If I can't access things that I need, that's going to be scary. I rely a lot on food deliveries, Amazon delivery, pharmacy delivery, none of those things you can really do at a hotel. So a little bit scary. Um, so my body definitely went into shutdown. And I could feel the heaviness and that chronic fatigue coming over me on Thursday evening. And it really continued through most of the weekend. And what I did, which you have heard me talk about before on Wellness Wednesday, is lean into it. So instead of trying to fight it, I just acknowledged that my body was in shutdown and went with it. So that involved lots of curling up like ball, just relaxing as much as I could laying down in bed, on the couch, really not expecting myself to do very much at all over that whole weekend.

On Saturday, a lot of emotion came up, I was very tearful, I allowed my body to process that and move the tears etcetera through and really I just spent the whole weekend, paying attention to my body and letting it do what it needed to do. And ultimately, by Sunday night, I was feeling a little bit more energetic. I think the freeze response had probably moved through my body and the energy was starting to come back, which allowed me the strength then to spend most of last week on the phone to contractors, insurance companies the building, negotiating a plan for the mitigation that will allow my nervous system to feel as safe as it can. And that's still an ongoing process that we're trying to figure out. But ultimately what I have been doing is putting my nervous system first and asking my body what it needs.

Interestingly, in the middle of that process, paying attention to my body, asking what it means leaning into the freeze response, I was also dealing with some nausea again, and you may have heard me talk about this on and off. Over the last few months, I've really been dealing with nausea every morning. And sometimes that's been coming on later in the afternoon. And I think we finally figured out what it was, supplements. My primary care physician had mentioned to me when I last spoke to her that she thought that might actually be the issue. And on Sunday, I had another horrible act of nausea, and I just couldn't take it anymore. And I got up on Monday, and I thought, "I'm not going to take any of my supplements".

So I just took all of the prescribed medication, but not any of the supplements. And guess what? No nausea. In fact, I felt so much better, much more energy, much more strength. And so I have continued getting up in the morning, it's much easier getting through the shower is much easier. I've even been ready a couple of days. So early that I've had time to nip out and grab a coffee before I start work, which is all completely unheard of for me in the last three years. So again, an example of listening to my body, paying attention to what it needs, and then going ahead and doing that thing.

So what I want to invite you to reflect on this week, you may not be dealing with mold, you may not be dealing with nausea from supplements. But what is your body trying to tell you, chances are something in your treatment plan or your recovery isn't quite exactly what your body is looking for. And you may still be experiencing symptoms, you may still be experiencing a lot of system symptoms. So take a moment, curl up like ball, and ask your body what it needs. And see what their response is. Be curious, pay attention, be thoughtful, and see what occurs to you. And go ahead and do that thing.

We have a workshop coming up this week on Thursday. Whatever time you're seeing this video, that probably still is time to sign-up. So the sign-up link is down below. And if your body is telling you that maybe you need some more support in your Long COVID recovery journey. Why not book a call with me just to talk about that a little bit more what that might look like, you can work with me for coaching you can work with me for the Safe and Sound protocol, you can work with me for both. The link to book a call is below and discovery calls are free. So maybe if that's what your body is crying out for this week, take a moment and schedule something and we can see where you are and how I can be of assistance. I hope you have a tolerable week. I will see you again on Wellness Wednesday. Take care.