So I've started to write something several times and then just dropped it because it seemed like I was whining and there's really no need to add to that vibration in the world, but now I finally feel ready to put something down.
Just a month ago was the year anniversary of this new world we're all living in, not really new but for most of us a whole different way of being happened. Even though this has happened, and in the not too distant past, those alive right now mostly have not had to deal with this before. It also canceled my in person classes, launched many of us into online teaching and a lot of time alone with no more hugs and such...
Just Thursday I received the Johnson and Johnson one shot vaccine. I never intended to get a vaccine, never have in my adult life before, not that I'm against them. Then I discovered it would be easier to travel with proof of having had the vaccine so decided to go ahead and find this one shot instead of needing two. I've never loved needles or the sensation of them going into my skin or oozing whatever serum into my body, blecchhh, so one was my goal. I found it and usually once a week I borrow one of my students car so I did that and went to an open event at this pharmacy about 25 minutes away...
Waiting was the worst part, in line no less on concrete, but mostly because then I can take time to really get all fucked up in my head about the needle thing. The good part was I was the last one to receive it and they sent all those behind me home, which wasn't terribly fair to them but they were going to call and get them appointments to come in so worked out. The doctor was Indian and recognized my name as a Punjabi one so we had stuff to talk about, especially when he found out I spend a lot of time in Mysore then he wanted to talk about dosa. Even told me where to get the best one in Columbia, the town nearest here that has a large Indian population so I drive there sometimes for temples and dosa.
When I left I felt light headed but figure it was from all the self imposed anxiety I'd brought on myself but was otherwise functional. About 8-8:30pm is when I started feeling very woozy, so went to bed around 9. That's when it started. I woke up at midnight with chills so bad I thought I was freezing, achey joints, especially my back and the base of skull. 3am woke up again with fever, full body pain and a full blown headache. 5am woke up with all of those together, but with a bit less of each one if that makes sense. Then 7am woke up and just lie there feeling all of it, eventually watched The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's new episode but I'll have to watch it again because I was out of it. All day long I mostly lie in bed, my head feeling like it weighed a ton, my hips and legs feeling they were detached and weighed a ton each, so going to the bathroom periodically I'd really have to hold onto the walls, bedposts, and would feel like I could barely make it back to the bed.
Then around 3pm I woke up, having fallen back asleeep around 1 and I thought I could get up, so took a shower, ate a cheese sandwich, sat in the recliner I've brought into the bedroom to read in, for about 2 hours, then I chanted, meditated, tried to create a higher vibration in which healing can happen and by then had to lie back down again. Not like go to sleep, I was not tired, but just on the bed and watched shows online til pretty late, then retired for the night.
Then I slept all night long, no waking up til 7 the next morning, I think I fell asleep around 11. This was yesterday morning, Saturday, and I felt energetic, not hugely but a bit, so did some slow Surya Namaskara A and B, then sat in padmasana and did pranayama. Felt good, showered, chanted, did my morning pooja, ate breakfast, then I felt worn out, so sat most of the day, talked on the phone a bit which was good, but didn't have a lot of physical energy all day long, yet again stayed up late, was not sleepy, was just tired physically and so lying around felt good. But by bed time I felt really good.
Which leads to this morning, I woke up felt energetic again, thought I'd try some yoga and see what happened with no judgment if I could only do a bit like the day before. Started did Surya As and Bs, then all of standing, slowly, but not too slowly, then moved through one posture at a time, one vinyasa at a time and ended up doing full primary series with all the vinyasas as it's taught these days, then a little pranayama, then my shower, pooja, meditation, breakfast and ordered a pizza and am now writing. I'm still not tired, I'm very high feeling, like air heady high lol, but am very happy to feel this way after two full days of feeling otherwise.
Now, here's the thing, I've not done full primary with all the vinyasas since this pandemic began. I think it was even since January last year, or the December before that. In Tucson I was having stuff go on with my body and I lost a lot of my practice so what I could mostly was half primary with no vinyasas in between sides and that was only sometimes. The last few months I was doing it more often, but still less vinyasas. So this morning was anomalous to me, and that I'm not sore and not feeling worn out is quite amazing. My friend Karen had joked about this being a super-soldier serum (my words from the Captain America movies and this series I mentioned earlier) and it would give me lots of energy and more strength, and I knew she was joking but it seems to have happened.
I did yesterday a two hour online course with Abraham, all pointing to the fact I needed to get inside my own mind and straighten things out and that was their solution to every problem, as it always is, but I got the message. I needed to get my state of mind in a better feeling place and then all of my seemingly external issues I have been having will take care of themselves, let alone this physical stuff going on from the vaccine, and so I worked last night to visualize and feel myself into a better place, and that seems to have worked.
I've done this Abraham work since 2006 and so I know this, but when you get so low you forget and you keep forgetting until you get a reminder, which I now have. So I'm embracing where I am, and what I'm doing now even though neither are ideal, they are great for right now and helping me get back to where I want to be, need to be, both mentally and physically. And it's working. I've already gotten two appointments for this next week in addition to the ones I already had and have had some great conversations with people that inspired me, so there you go. As the sutras says yoga is all about the mind, as many other texts state too, it's all happening in our mind and we can control that with the right tools, so I've utilized mine and will continue too. I'm not in the clear yet, so gotta keep the focus going, but I'm better than I was a week ago, and definitely better than a month ago!
