#BizSermons: What I'm learning from chronic illness
Do you ever see all the signs that everything is just a little... off?
But you push through. It’s just some discomfort. A crazy week. Mercury retrograde. Work’s picking up. The kids are growing. Things will settle down when these things end.
And yet, you know. You know things are off. That you need a little more rest. That it’s time to take a day off to hang out with your best friend or eat pasta carbonara solo or stay curled up in bed with your partner.
But you don’t. Because life’s just crazy—and if you took a nap every time you felt like it...
...what?
...what, my dear, would come crashing down the moment your conscious mind went offline for half an hour? Which spheres of the world would cease to exist if the dishes were left while you sink your toes in the sun-warmed earth, or if the calls were postponed for you to decompress for 24 glorious hours?
I love you, you wildly important woman. And I also see you fully enough to know that you could rest if only you’d give yourself permission. That the only bad thing that would happen would be that you’d have to admit being busy is overrated and that you feel deliciously good with a full belly and full heart. That you’d have to stand in your own confidence instead of resting in the cultural stamp of approval given to the mindless hustlers.
Delighting in your life is the best and most unholy kind of rebellion these days, isn’t it?
I preach because I need the sermons most. This week I felt that smidge off. That tug for a break. The intuition that my body needed me more than my business did. And I didn’t listen. Of course, these days I’m accompanied by the megaphone of post-viral ataxia and chronic fatigue that knocks me out when I don’t listen.
It yelled at me tonight so I’m off for rest and snuggles and pasta, and the promise to my one precious body that I’ll be braver in my listening next time.
xoxo
Hunter