Mastitis & Meltdowns

This Memorial Day Weekend I got tested by the universe in concern with a promise I made to myself to observe, learn the language of, and heed what my body was communicating to me.
Let me tell ya about it:

My Daughter’s 1st birthday was on Memorial day, and on Saturday evening I was hit with what I immediately knew was Mastitis. ICK. It started as a dragging pain in my left breast but after about an hour, I felt a migraine coming on. Then, by 2 hours my body was aching horribly and my spine was especially bothering me. Also, my left breast was super tender to the touch. Nursing made me feel nauseous.
It was not fun, to say the least.
At first, I was really disappointed. I was planning to get a shitload of stuff done at home on Sunday! All l in preparation to celebrate my little girl. But here I was, kinda falling apart on Saturday night.
My was body giving me check engine lights, and very obvious communications that I needed to rest…Honestly, I wanted nothing more than to be anywhere but in my own body.

More backstory, earlier that evening I had a very intense, emotionally-charged conversation with a loved one and it left me feeling insanely conflicted and just, grieving that it turned out, I had been telling myself a story for years to “push through” and ultimately ignore many red flags, many signs that the choices I had been making were not solutions. I realized that there were many things I didn’t actually want from life that I thought had been the right things for me my whole life. Much more, but I' was struggling to put into words what I felt in this conversation and my earth felt shattered all the while.
Lately, there’s been a lot of these sorts of shifts but I wasn’t taking the time to SIT WITH how that made me feel. Beliefs were turning out to not even be my own when I examined them. As a coping mechanism, I was coming at my answered prayers in a very matter-a-fact way, and that’s been building up in my body. I felt generally whacked out lately, also. Beat down and sick of it, but too “busy” to focus on it.

Through a holistic perspective, emotions affect the body just as much as physical causes. In fact, I’d say they do more internally than we are aware.
When we talk about environmental stressors, we frequently think of things like emissions, pesticides, or maybe we think of emotional stressors but things that are “In your face” like a toxic boss, or abusive partner. Things like ignoring your need to cry, or not breathing deeply enough because you’re subconsciously waiting for the other shoe to drop are more along the lines of what I have been doing.
Anyways. I looked up in a book I adore, recalling I had come across this subject before and there it was. Breast pain associating with exactly what I going through. Having difficulty with putting names to my emotions, not letting myself actually feel them, feeling unsupported, also having a hard time receiving. etc. etc. (you should check that book out, it’s called Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Christiane Northrup M.D.)

From here, I had 2 choices: I could continue doing what I’d been doing (which felt more comfortable) I could push through and maybe take some pain killers if it got “bad” and get my list done and be miserable during my daughter’s birthday, OR I could sit with these feelings, tend my body with patience and love and let everything else wait for another day. (That was the hard part)
I chose option 2, and amazingly, the world didn’t explode. Who knew?
In fact, this birthday time went 10x better than my son’s first 2 birthdays when I had pushed through my emotions, needs, and while I was '“well” I was still miserable as I was pushing myself beyond my capacity, or involving myself with other people in ways that made me feel resentful because of my own toxic expectation patterns and also some of theirs.
All day Sunday, I just let everything else sit. The dishes, the laundry, the toys everywhere, the guest bathroom I DESPERATELY needed to clean (I barely got at that one at all, actually) the birthday feast preparation, the birthday cake, the balloon decorations I bought specifically for this, I just let it wait for when I felt good in my body again.
I took it one hot compress at a time, one meal at a time, one nursing session at a time. My sister-in law brought me Happy Ducts tincture by wishgarden (shit’s magical, Y’all) and I brought my mangled ass to my mom’s with my kiddoes and they got to play with my siblings while I took a nap and finally got through those body aches and chills.

Then Monday morning came and I felt way better. Still a little booby-hurt, but I felt grateful in my own skin again. I decided to tidy up to my comfort level, sliced the shit ton of fruit I bought for hosting my large family and my kiddoes ate that while I worked. I then baked & decorated a kinda crappy cake but it was still tasty, and reheated some premade Coconut Curry (can’t have a Bluey themed birthday without curry)
still doing compresses and taking tincture every couple hours. It was a great day. I was able to find a middle ground in celebrating and making the day special, but not totally over expending myself. This was a first for me. My half of the family came over on Monday and when Tuesday came and I felt even better, basically back to normal. We were able to head up and spend the day with the other half of the family. All in all, a very relaxed but special time celebrating my daughter on both days.

It’s interesting to reflect now on how much I have a tendency to rush through my life lessons, even. My Fight or flight extends deeper than I realized. Through this experience I was able to be a bit of an invalid for a day and I wrote out everything I knew I wanted to say but didn’t in rough conversations these days. Everything I was feeling that made me grieve. Everything that I was aching over and wishing for. Everything I hated about myself. I felt SO. Much, Better. I got quite a few tears out. Just letting myself feel was what the true blockage was. That’s what was manifesting so near to my physical heart, in my physical body. But I think the actual dilemma was on a more spiritual and emotional level. “The body never lies” is a quote I love but this past weekend really hit it home for me. The body is never against you is something I feel is important to pair to that first quote. The truth can hurt VERY much sometimes. Sickness manifests in the place of the “truth” we aren’t accepting, But it’s not an enemy coming at you to rub salt in wounds, it’s that a part of you-your organs-your cells are speaking to your ego,-your rational mind-your busy and very stressed self, trying to get your attention and bring you back into yourself. To nurture You. To feed you. To love YOU.

This experience has been very opening in a myriad of ways. I am thankful for it, and I honestly feel more free and comfortable with myself than I did just last week. I’m still processing a lot of it. Writing this blogpost out is part of that process, and I’d like to point out that I’m not anticipating any sense of completion just by posting this. I consider the path of choosing healing to NOT be for the faint of heart. It can be easily romanticized and while I don’t think that’s wrong to do (as romanticizing life can actually be helpful for some people) there’s a need to grasp the truth that it’s hard work. That it’s painful-exhausting and you have to commit to it. Healing is a relationship with yourself. It’s no fun in the moment when your reality crumbles, and you feel so humbled by the feelings of failure, or of loss, or of seeing the mountain you have to climb ahead of you….again.
I will say though, the best part for me, is the collection of treasure-like nuggets of wisdom you gain along the way. It’s best to keep polishing them. Admiring your collection and seeing new ways they glimmer in light of your life as it spirals again, and again, and again. I’m sure this lesson will keep coming around. I believe my tendencies are programmed or ancestrally passed down from the traumas of my mother line. Something like that. It’s gonna be a task to remember that being Human means making the same mistakes sometimes. Learning the same lessons but in different ways. But I think being a human is a beautiful thing, and honestly, what a gorgeous thing it is to simply be alive and get to feel.

Mastitis, Meltdowns, and all.