Taking a moment to breathe & reflect
A reminder for myself to take it easy (which is still hard!), a cool map, a shoutout to my acupuncturist, and a little review of the first month of this newsletter.
In case you don’t have time to read the full thing, I have a favor to ask: I made an Instagram account, I would love to connect there if you’re on IG (and please share if you know anyone who might benefit). Thanks!
Hi friends,
Today I’m going to take a page out of my own playbook, and remind myself to do a little less 🙂 Funny how quickly we go back to old habits if we don’t consciously stop ourselves from doing that, consistently.
So this is not going to be a particularly helpful post, no new tools for today :) But I wanted to take a moment to reflect.
It’s been a month since I first shared my story and started this newsletter. I didn’t really know what to expect, and I deliberately didn’t set any goals of what I wanted to achieve. Specifically, I didn’t have any targets for measuring if what I was doing was “working”, or “good enough” to keep investing a significant chunk of my time. That is very contrary to old habits— if you’re in my line of work, then doing anything without set goals and a way to measure “success” is considered bad form (shoutout to my fellow PMs and Growth people!). In fact, lots of friends asked me what my goals were, how I’d know if it was “working”, etc etc. I just shrugged my shoulders :)
I very deliberately just did it. I started writing, and I launched the newsletter. I figured if it’s useful for one person during their own recovery, it will already be worth my time. So I decided to spend a month or two, while I’m slowly easing my body back into a kind of “work mode” experiment, and then see what would happen. I made a commitment to listen to my gut after a month or two, and see how I felt about continuing, and see how my body felt, too.
In classic Nicole fashion, I quickly got so busy writing and making plans, that I almost missed the one month mark. Always thinking about more stuff I could do lol. Can anyone relate?! I think many of you might. Mind you, I’ve been deliberately taking it very easy, spending “only” a couple of half days every week writing. But between still doing my daily recovery protocol, still devoting time to rest, answering comments, sharing my posts so people could find them, and thinking/planning, somehow I got busier than I’ve been meaning to be.
Shoutout to my amazing acupuncturist for calling me out on that already a couple of weeks ago (hi Nikki! You’re the best)
So with that, no “recovery post” this week. And I’ll also potentially move to writing every other week, and over time likely a monthly cadence. I still have a bunch of things I really want to get out there, so for now I’m writing more, but saying it now to hold myself accountable.
I do want to take a minute to celebrate, though. In the last month, more than 160 of you, from 20 countries, signed up for the newsletter. It’s gotten more than 5000 views. It really warms my heart. As I said— IDK what I was expecting, but it feels very meaningful to me to know that there are lots of you all over the world reading this, going through the same awful experience, everyone figuring out their own way to cope and get better. Much more important than any numbers though, is the feedback and reactions I’ve gotten - your comments, messages and emails. Like what Nuria (hi!!) shared about a moment we both shared, without knowing each other. Truly beautiful <3
The platform I’m using shares some reports with authors, and this is my favorite one:
I’m also really grateful for how many of your own learnings and tools you all are sharing in the comments, so that others can find those, too. E.g. in my post re tVNS last week, where you all had lots of advice (scroll to the bottom to see the comments). This illness is so complex and varied, and I can only share what I know, so the more of everyone’s advice is out there, the better. The amazing thing about the Long COVID and ME/CFS community, I’ve learned, is how much everyone is helping each other, despite having very little energy to spare. And the information from the community is ultimately what helped me recover, too. So I really, really appreciate all of your support with this endeavor— feels like we’re doing this together :)
So I’ll wrap it up here, and pick back up in a week or two. But one last thing: A couple of days ago I started an Instagram account, so people can find and share new posts more easily (I know, yet another thing lol). If you’re on Instagram, please share it if you think it might be helpful to others in your network.
Thank you!
I would love to hear from you— what’s been helpful about the newsletter so far? If you’re recovering or recovered, how are you reminding yourself to take it easy?
Ok, that’s really all for today. I’m going to go do some yoga now 🙂
Hope your week is as good is it possibly can be,
Nicole
Aw, such a lovely post and thanks for the shoutout :)
I do think this one is very helpful, it goes into the category of "personality work". I too find it hard to stop. I spent one year without being able to read, so now that I can, I've found it hard to stop myself (so many interesting infos and stories out there!). So far, the way I stop myself is by prioritizing the practices I know are helpful, including rest. "Do that first, then you can read some more." And reminding myself that the goal is to feel balanced.
Your newsletter has been incredibly helpful for me. So for sure you have helped at least one person :) From the first post I read, you have been a source of inspiration, seeing that you are recovering so incredibly quickly and have reflected so well what is helpful on your journey. Your newsletter reminds me to focus on my recovery, to make it my priority!
Thank you for this newsletter. I found it from a FB comment you made and reading your story and the story of the woman you linked to (I think her name was Joanna) made me really dive into learning more about brain retraining.
I'm considering a few programs at the moment. I feel like the mid-body aspect is a missing piece of my recovery puzzle, so I'm grateful to have learned more about it from your content.
Please do continue to care for yourself first. I'm nowhere near recovered, but even on my slightly better days I find myself wanting to do more b/c I've been doing so little (and sooooo tired of doing so little). But I hold off and make myself lie down or do nothing. That load of laundry can wait till tomorrow.