It’s been a beat since I’ve posted or shared anything. I had a wonderful holiday season spent with family and friends.
Many of you amazing folks have been worried because of my lack of posting since the beginning of December when I was hit with the big C. I got through it pretty good other than taking longer to heal than those around me who got it, too. I am doing ‘okay’ other than having to battle what my doctor is calling “Post Covid Cough”
Anyways, I wanted to talk a little bit about why I took a break and shout out to everyone who may think I’ve been ignoring them because I haven’t responded or my response time has been poop. If I’ve been distant, please know it is not personal.
Replying to anyone with real love and care for me can take so much energy at times. And energy is not something I have had much of.
Why did I stop posting?
In 2022 I became disconnected and felt many things not serving me or the greater good of The Happy Pelvis community. There was a key moment that shook my year that I didn’t tell you about which was a suicide of a loved one early in 2022. This is the first and is the last I will talk about it on here for respect of the family.
Within the last few months of the year I couldn’t give the attention and support deserved due to my health, relationships and other exciting projects on the go (which I will discuss below).
You could say that last year was a year of healing and that I have come a long way but I fell back into some old patterns that did not serve me. I avoided a lot of difficult emotions to protect myself from overwhelming my nervous system. And somehow, within this avoidance I deprived myself of some growth and creation.
Painting is a passion of mine and has always allowed me to feel a strong sense of purpose and achievement. As I look back, I didn’t paint one piece of art in 2022.
Now, I think partially why I avoid things is because any emotion such as fear, hurt, or anger etc. goes directly to my pelvis.
Like many of you also living with chronic pelvic pain, my pelvis and pelvic floor scramble up every time my nervous system is provoked by anything that my brain perceives as a threat.
I hold everything in my pelvis: my dreams, my fears, my belief system, what hurts me, what life has taught me, what lights me up, my questions, my shame etc.
So in December, I did not talk to many people as a way of taking care of myself. It was not productive to use my limited energy to reply back and worry for the rest of the week if I said the right thing or not to others on the other end.
I’m still not completely there yet but I just need time.
Along with the disconnect I speak of, I noticed a consistent trap many of us fall for: comparison. This was both felt in my personal life and online.
Am I posting enough to get awareness posts seen? Am I going to afford a house like xyz, one day? Is my pelvic pain content good enough? Will I ever have a family? Am I annoying talking about this again? Will my pain improve enough? Do I have the most accurate and evidence based references? Etc.
All of this, to say the least, can be overwhelming. Especially for a human like myself who is highly sensitive.
With all this being said, I began to avoid social media and my phone altogether so that I was not comparing myself to others and trying to keep up with it all. It sometimes becomes too much on top of trying to put my best self forward to help others within the community on the many days I can’t even look after myself.
Moving forward in 2023.
On the flip side, I feel like I have had a productive first week of the year and feel motivated for the first time in a while. We finally painted a wall in the condo that I’ve always wanted to paint! Many expressed some concern with how dark the colour I chose was but in true Michelle fashion, said Eff it, it’s only paint and went for it. I am really happy with it and it brings so much more depth to the space.
Check out the results below ⬇️
One thing I did differently this new year was to do an overhaul to clean out clutter in my home along with a good deep clean. Pacing myself, doing a little at a time.
This allows me to turn down the volume on the visual noise (aka. clutter) and helps me focus on the things that I need to, which in turn improves my mood.
If your pain allows, do you clean before the new year or the first week of the new year?
I noticed a lot of my resistance to doing things around the house is the pain I am in from the elbow grease and overstimulation with scents and chemicals.
This year I went on to amazon and purchased some new tools to help with that. If interested you can check out the products here:
On those lower pain days with a cleaner home, I can focus better and more on the exciting projects I spoke about earlier!
See what I did there?!
This year I am a part of an organizing committee for a community event for endometriosis awareness month. I’ve been working hard with the team to come up with the art direction and graphics for the event. I can’t give away anymore details just yet but we will be announcing it later this week! Stay tuned!
With gratitude and love for 2023,
Michelle
