Mindfulness with the four elements

Healing a difficult day with physical mindful activity.

The other day I awoke with a great heavy feeling lingering over and within me. I am somewhat used to this, though it happens less and less often. It is the residue from a breakdown I had a few years ago. I am not really a depressive person, and this form of darkness is the energy that I lived with throughout my childhood as a result of my mentally ill mother.

I was due to go in to do a shift at my local hospital, where I work in the end of life wards. You might think this is a depressing place to work but it is in fact a very life affirming place to spend time, and I have met some wonderful and interesting people, both those passing and those close friends and family who are facing their bereavement in so many ways and stages of preparedness

But this day I knew I was not up to this time, that I could not give my best to the people there in their times of crisis, the massive change in life which is the passing of a loved one.

So I made sure they were not too pushed and chose to stay at home. This is self-care. This is mindfulness in action. This is saying I am not able to give of my best so I shall self-care until I can.

Working as do, I am in a position to choose how or when to work and I do rarely miss a shift, so I do not feel bad about saying ‘not today’, as long as I am not leaving people in the lurch.

I didn’t mope though. I started the day writing and doing some editing work on a book my husband has written and is now in formatting and final correction stage. The mood seemed stubborn though, not lifting as I turned my mind to other tasks. I also knew this was not my energy but came from someone else I had met up with a few days earlier, but it had somehow stuck to me. I also understood why — it was a strong echo of my own once sense of deep desperation, that whilst I had expunged it from my actual life, my body remembered its energy and accepted it as a gift.

Mindfulness teaches us to view everything as a gift even if it is a challenging one. This gift was reminding me of how far I have come and how much compassion I have for all the suffering still out there, but that I am also still quite vulnerable to its energy…

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