Aug

 August was a hard place in my head 

A lot of sickness, sick leaves and consequential doubts on myself and my ability to continue with life as it is. Zaya's rashes, Me diarrhea, Zaya covid, Rat diarrhea, me covid, wrist sprain, Zaya fell off the bed, Zaya cold. Rat and I - sore throat again. that's a summary of my whole month with a few days in between where things were okay.

I wanted to quit and restart from the scratch pad, from an authentic place , but quitting is very hard, especially quitting from something you've built your entire identity around so I've decided to give it one more try. 

There were a lot of fears. Money, people, purpose etc. I had low morale and felt like I had 0 reputation.

I'm thankful for the following : 

That the three of us are getting better, that we had food , clothing, shelter, rest and most importantly each other.

I am thankful for Ajey's patience as my monkey brain thought about life differently each day.

I was not able to be a vegetarian. Had a lot to rasam and chicken and chicken soup to get over the sickness. 

I am thankful for Arti ka who I reach out to for advice on career and who always has encouraging things to say.

I am thankful for the smiles Zaya put on my face and for Scooter's belief in us, mainly in Ajey.

I am thankful for giving myself another chance and I pray for the health and discipline to get past this.

Last month I had one inspiring thought , that of mental richness - the disciplined life of one's own accord. This month my inspiring thought was that of meeting someone similar to me - someone looking to focus at work, a mother with a baby, someone fun with interests outside and someone who's got a younger side within them waiting to explore the world. Someone adventurous who I can get along with and someone who finds me fun. 

I am thankful that despite the sickness a LOT of cleaning was done as we isolated within the house. So much laundry, mopping, cleaning and of course baby duties.

Was sad that I was not celebrating festivals with good food and dressing up Zaya because I don't identify with most religious things. Rat got Zaya a Vegeta costume out of the blue and somehow out of the blue, I realized this is more authentic to me than trying to fit in and life made sense for a while :)

My team has been very patient with me. Being sick is bad morale for myself and for the team, so when they still hold space for me, it is helpful. 

Rat got me the new pixel phone. It was a good gift even though in my head I've been trying to move away from the cellphone very unsuccessfully. I was like I don't want material stuff and I was still a dick when he got me a mic to sing lol. all in all, I'm thankful - photos on pixel are great.

13 lives - loved the human grit and the success of it all.

Flavorful origins - The Chinese culture of food, narrated beautifully.

Thankful for being a person that's always hopeful. I am building back.

Mom gave me 2 books - P.S I love you and another 'Life's little instruction book' and these are both good to look at when seeking guidance.

Deepu's lovely villa. It brought me so much happiness to see her and the beauty of community living :) And Log and Nivi too :)

Had anxiety, and Rat woke up and said let's have a conversation in the middle of the night and made time to hear out my fears and then we slept well. :`) What I learnt is I have to learn to trust, that it's okay to take some time for my soul, and that I can make small changes every day and work towards guiltless days. The fear of the future will always be there - and I have some things in hand - some savings, someone to trust, abilities, somewhat of a support system - so it's good to take this risk. 

Rat talks about things at his work, people he is mentoring and what clicks about people in a team - he says work is not about talent or ability - it is about getting things done - and often what that means is to remove blockers, ask for help and clearly communicate. Proud to have him next to me and hope to use the good influence he has on me , positively.

Deep cleaning and organizing.

Small wins. Body. Work.

Breaking thought patterns : 

Social media addiction. World issues and people talking about injustice. Not doing something I had planned to do. Planning. 

Good thought patterns:

Active dreaming. Being happy for others. Zaya, Rathan and Scooter. 

Being sick and getting better

 Being sick sucks, but is an opportunity to revisit habits and try to do small changes towards good health. I’m thankful for that opportunity. I’m thankful for friends who suggest what to do when I get sick or sad. I’m thankful for hospitals and the fixes they give. I should not be , but I’m also thankful for the 10 pounds I lost this last month out of sickness. I’m thankful for sick days. I’m thankful for Santhu’s video on satvic eating that shares a few good points about what can be changed habit wise. 

Here's a bunch of things that my friends told me about getting sick and getting better:

What I tried : tea, water, eucalyptus oil, steam.

Allopathy : amox antibiotic and flonase steroid spray.

Homeopathy : ear drops 

Lymphatic massage

Satvic Food

Foods for estrogen binding.

I don't know exactly what worked and I'm not fully sure it has worked since it has got better and then worse in the past. But towards the end of my most recent better phase I did have amox, I did have flonase, I stopped ear drops and oils and inhalers. The lymphatic massage seemed to really work. I did go mild with food and tried to starve a bit before choosing to eat. I also ate cauliflowers for estrogen binding. 

Here is some philosophy behind how one gets sick : One theory is that when we eat mucus causing food it lines all our intestines and pipes and causes gunk to build up and cause infections and sinusitis. So having satvic food (mucus reducing food) along with brisk walking and fasting and water packs helps remove the mucus. A very complementing theory is that of lymphatic massage. Both these theories are based on the thought that mucus gets produced below the neck and the symptoms show in the ear, nose and throat - so fix what's below. Lymphatic massage has a series of gentle strokes where you pump at a certain point in your neck and then massage downward from the ear and the side of the necks and the back of the head. When you do this the phlegm from here drains downward and the phlegm in your sinus cavities across your face have space for downward movement and therefore now drain downward. These theories also believe that allopathy only fixes the symptoms and not the root cause. Sometimes fixing the symptoms are equally important for relief and to stop infection so that's good too. Finally the other theory is that especially for women, the hormonal imbalances are high because of menstruation and child birth and menopause and so when certain hormones are higher than usual, your sensitivity to allergies increase (especially the case after child birth). So estrogen binding foods can help here.