I was sick this week

Annoying, I know.

I woke up this Monday morning feeling still as exhausted as if I hadn’t slept at all. I had a headache, a stomachache, and just wanted to go back to bed. I hate being sick. I hate feeling like there is life I want to live and things I want to do and, instead, I am in a state of forced rest. I hate the running list of things I could/should be doing in my head while I am semi-sleeping in bed willing myself to recover. I also hate that I know better than to shame myself for needing to let my body heal - because I do know better - rest isn’t earned, it is a necessary aspect to living a balanced life.

I spend a lot of time discussing our relationship with productivity in sessions. I, like many, have a frustrating relationship with productivity expectations from all angles - self-imposed, societal, from a job…. And I love talking about ways we can disengage from using productivity to measure our self-worth or how well we contribute to the world. And yet here I am, waking up from a nap on a Monday, nauseous and exhausted, worried about whether it will impact my business if I post my Monday journal prompt on a Tuesday, my Thursday essay on a Friday, and respond a couple days late to some emails. I hope not, and at the same time, being a human means that not everything happens on the timeline we planned for.

I’ve really had to work to challenge my perfectionism around showing up perfectly, on time, with the right answers. So, I’m going to try that today. Here is an imperfect essay, at an imperfect length, with likely some typos and grammatical errors, about how I’m an imperfect person and I am working to accept that. Happy Friday - you are enough as you are right now, imperfections and all.