For my age – pushing 70 – I have very little in the way of bodily aches and pains or physical ailments.
I do exercises for my knees – which keep the Baker’s Cysts at the back of them at bay – and my daily walks with Lydia help me to maintain my overall fitness levels.
The other day, though, I started getting a twinge to one side of my lower back. Nothing drastic, but noticeable.
I couldn’t have asked for more, then, when our Qigong teacher, Sue, in yesterday’s class, talked us through exercises that concentrated on the lower back area.
Qigong movements are very gentle, methodical. It isn’t always easy to see how they can be of immediate benefit – because they aren’t designed necessarily to be of immediate benefit. Effects over time can be difficult to recognise because of the very fact that they are gradual, often almost imperceptible. All I do know, is that I started going to Sue’s classes regularly – weekly – around 15 years ago and I hold them in no small part responsible for some of the health and fitness benefits I now enjoy.
This morning, the twinge in my lower back is less. I didn’t take painkillers and it didn’t just go away on its own. The combination of Qigong, preceded by yoga – which in turn was a gentle, meditative session – has, I believe, helped.
I meditated again this morning, sitting upright in a chair in the way we have been taught. Thankfully, there is no expectation of sitting cross legged on the floor. I used to try that, but it ‘killed’ my knees!
Lydia and I have had a woodland walk today. We also have new neighbours, including another dog. It’s going to be a challenge to train Lydia not to bark at it every time she hears it on the other side of the fence. We’ll get there though, just as we’re ‘getting there’ with other things. Even if we don’t know where we’re going, were doing our best to make the most of our time together, day by day, step by step.
With no Qigong this afternoon, it’s the woodland walk for Lydia and me this morning, then yoga. Lydia often partakes in this remotely, being particularly good at ‘downward facing dog’!
The yoga teacher introduced a new exercise aid to the class: conkers. They formed a focus for our meditation and visualisation and I must say I enjoyed the experience of familiarisation with the seed of the chestnut tree. It was somehow comforting and inspiring at the same time.
As I now complete this latest 28-day cycle of writing, I reflect on how far I’ve come, not just since I started writing this blog in 28-day cycles a few months ago, but since I started my overall journey of recovery over fifty years ago, when I was still very young.
I didn’t know it at the time, but it essentially started in my teens, when I decided that I needed more than physical food in my life.
That may sound ungrateful as I know there are many people in the world who have less food than they need to survive. But my needs for nourishment were psychological, emotional and spiritual. They were very real for me and presented in the forms of social anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. That’s a lot for any teen to have to deal with and I hope that in writing about my experiences, it may help others to not have to go through the same.
It’s taken me a long time to work out what I needed to work out, to find pieces that I didn’t have reference points for. How could I know what I’d lost when I had no memory of having it in the first place?
For whatever reason – probably survival – my emotional brain closed down, and it’s taken me a lifetime to find ways of opening it up again. I’m still working on it, with Lydia’s help and a lot of help and support from a lot of other people along the way.
The most significant latest step for me is on the path presented by the Buddhist faith. It helps me to make sense of a lot of things, accept what I can’t change, and do my best to make the most of each day as it comes, recognising the value of what I have when for so long I was focused on what I didn’t have. Grief doesn’t go away, but we can grow to encompass a wider experience of life around it. That’s what I’ve been doing my best to do.
As I now take a couple of weeks break from writing a new daily blog, I’ll continue with republishing previous posts, looking back a bit before again moving on.
The paperback versions of my two latest books – ‘Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Recipe, Random: Glad About Life’ and ‘A Woman, a Dog and a Blog: Writing into Life’ will shortly be available on Amazon, along with the Kindle and Kindle Unlimited editions:
‘Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Random: Glad About Life’ brings together over 60 blog posts, from March 2020 through to September 2024.
It offers personal insights into the mental health recovery journey, recognising that there are no easy answers or quick fix solutions to complex problems but demonstrating that growth is possible through whatever difficulties life presents.
‘A Woman, a Dog & a Blog: Writing into Life’ presents a summary of my own backstory and that of my dog, Lydia. We had both experienced trauma before we met and, though I effectively rescued and adopted her, in many ways she has also rescued and adopted me.
We continue our journey together, day by day, step by step. Volume I of this book presents the first cycle of me writing a post a day for 28 days, at a time when the depression I had experienced most of my adult life had started to lift, only to reveal an underlying and extreme – at the time – sense of anxiety. Having lost everything that I’d worked for in the past, due to a severe breakdown in my thirties, I was absolutely petrified that history was going to repeat itself and that I would lose everything again, including Lydia. I was determined that wouldn’t happen and I drew on every aspect of resourcefulness and resilience I’d built up, and all the support mechanisms I could muster, to make sure that it didn’t. And it hasn’t.
Volume II presents the next 28 days of continuing to work with – and write about – positives in whatever way that I can. Affirmations, exercises, working with clay, working with words, walking, reflecting, resting, meditating – they’re all in there as I find my own way through and I hope it may help others find their way too.
The woodland walk this morning was wild and windy for Lydia and me. Winter seems to have suddenly arrived and missed out Autumn. Hopefully it will revert back again, at least for a while.
It was good to have yoga and Qigong to go to this afternoon.
I’m also keeping up with my meditation practice, on a morning before taking Lydia out for her walk. I still have dips into negative thought patterns, but am learning to recognise them for what they are.
Body work, breath work, mind work. I do feel I’m continuing to make progress with my mental health, sticking with the things that work for me and repeating them in cycles that also work for me.
As I wake this morning I reflect on a reminder from the Buddhist teachings over the last few months:
Welcome Wholeheartedly Whatever
It isn’t always easy to welcome the difficult stuff especially when it feels like there’s no end of difficult stuff to deal with.
But I find that the more I apply this principle, the more I begin to understand what it means. I’ve still got a long way to go in deepening my understanding of what it means, but I’ll keep working on it.
Today, though tired after yesterday’s intensive session at the studio, including the 50-minute drives to get there and back, I feel a sense of something having shifted in my inner landscape; not a momentous shift – marginal, but a shift nonetheless.
Sticking with a steady routine of walking Lydia daily, going to regular yoga and Qigong classes, building a short meditation practice into my morning routine, benefiting from the expert guidance and teachings from the Buddhist Centre and the weekly classes, and returning to the pottery studio for an afternoon of contemplative creativity in conducive company, are all helping to restore something in me that has needed to be restored for a very long time.
As I write, Lydia is relaxing in a corner of the room on her favourite rug. She’s had her walk and breakfast, spent a bit of time outside doing a bit of barking, and now – like me – she is ready to rest a bit.
I’ll go out later and do a bit of shopping, taking some soft plastic waste with me to go in the recycling bins that Aldi have in store. Their distribution methods do create a lot of plastic waste but at least they provide recycling facilities. Less waste would be better but we all have to start somewhere.
It’s hard to say which self-management rule applies here, although it could be rule no. 13: something to do with responsibility.
A few months ago I had high levels of anxiety which manifested in various ways.
I became highly stressed about my car, as I was having problems with the gears and I started to catastrophise about ‘worst case scenarios’, knowing the extent to which I need my car for daily walks with Lydia.
I pushed through on positives as best I could at the time, the worst-case scenario didn’t present itself and my car has been fine for a few months.
Recently, I’ve started having problems with the gears again.
In the intervening months I’ve taken a lot of time to rest and continue to practice meditation, yoga and Qigong.
I write my blog, in 28-day cycles. The process of writing is proving to be very therapeutic. I’ve written intermittently and irregularly for years but not in the same way as I do now.
My daily walks with Lydia have also been therapeutic, giving us both a good start to the day with regular exercise, fresh air and that all important connection with the natural world. In Lydia’s case a lot of her connection is through her nose; for me it is more a sense of the air around me and the ground under my feet; the slow steady movement of walking.
This time I haven’t experienced high levels of anxiety about my car problems. It’s been a minor inconvenience which Trev has helped me with by picking me up from the garage when I dropped it off this morning. It should be ready later this morning and may need a new clutch in the longer term.
Anxiety, I’m sure, arises from past experiences when we’ve needed to address a problem, and haven’t been able – for whatever reason – to find and implement a solution; where everything fell apart and we had no help in finding ways to put things back together. We’ve learnt to ‘not cope’ and to retreat instead of establishing ways of knowing what to do and how.
When I was younger, I had none of the personal resources and resilience that I have now. I wasn’t taught any coping strategies as any assertion on my part would have upset the status quo, however uneasy that status quo was (and it most certainly was uneasy, at best).
However, through experience and reflection I’ve done my best to learn and change, to take responsibility for the things that make up day-to-day life and to see and do things differently.
I still rely on a small dose of anti-depressant medication every day, but the main processes I use are the ones that are active not passive. Moving from passive to active has been the major achievement of my life. The mental effort it has taken has been enormous and sustained, which is why, at the moment, I need to rest a lot as well. Re-focusing and re-prioritising takes time and I need to continue to trust in the process, however frightening the prospect of uncertainty may seem. I’ve come a long way, just in the last few months. I’m not going back now.
Despite having had the luxury of a camp bed at the weekend, today I woke feeling aches and pains in places where I don’t usually feel aches and pains.
It was just as well, then, that I had my usual Monday afternoon yoga and Qigong classes to go to. Both proved exceptional in helping me to relax and re-energise.
In the relaxation session at the end of yoga, I had the added benefit of a brief shoulder massage by the teacher.
In Qigong we continued to work on the wonderful movement of ‘dragon’, building up to it in ways that encourage flexibility and focus.
I then took Lydia for a walk in the wind.
It was a warm but quite strong wind and I think we were both invigorated by it.
As I write, it feels like my whole body, breath and being have had good workouts.
Further nourishment comes from the broccoli soup that Trev has made for tea.
These were words spoken to me this morning when I picked Lydia up from the kennels where she’d been staying over the weekend.
I’ve always thought this myself, because she is.
We had a good walk together, before I took her home, and she’s enjoyed much of the day outside in the yard, in what is warm and rather windy weather.
After a two-week break I resumed my usual ‘Mental Health Monday’ activities this afternoon: yoga followed by Qigong.
So, I’ve had two-and-a-half hours of concentrated activity for health and wellbeing with the added benefit – for brief periods – of being a tiger, a dog, a cat, a tree, a warrior and a dragon.
I don’t feel a need to compare and say which of these I’ve preferred being, but I did like the dragon movements.
I can now relax into a mellow evening knowing that I have given important attention to my musculoskeletal system as well as my mind and spirit. I think my girl with the beautiful soul is quite relaxed too; still in the back yard; still enjoying the warm and windy weather.
The path beside the wood: a carpet of green with purple, yellow and cream
Continuing the story of Lydia and Me
I slept!
After resting from late afternoon into the evening, I slept.
I decided to take two paracetamol tablets, eventually, to help set me off. I do this only very occasionally. I’m wary of relying on medication to help with relaxing and sleeping. They are addictive and eventually don’t work.
30 or so years ago, after I’d had a complete breakdown in all aspects of my life, I became addicted to prescription tranquilisers and sleeping tablets. Never again.
I detoxed by walking miles and miles in the hot Mediterranean sun, sweating it out. To do cold Turkey I went to hot Turkey. It worked, and after that I started finding more constructive ways to manage my mental, physical and emotional health.
It hasn’t been and still isn’t easy but I push through on positives, most of the time.
Today I’ll have another woodland walk with Lydia; then go to a yoga class for an hour and a half this afternoon. There is no Qigong today – we have a week’s break between blocks of three. I’ve already done some physio exercises for my knees, while waiting for the kettle to boil.
Yesterday’s wall of emotional exhaustion is no more.
As I enjoy spending a bit more time in bed, I listen to whatever sounds the world is bringing to me: the beep of a lorry reversing, the gentle rustle of leaves, a motorbike revving and cars passing by. They’re nothing spectacular but they are the sounds that are here for me this morning, and I like them, just as they are.
Train your dog; train your mind – positive reinforcement for humans and canines – now available in paperback: https://amzn.eu/d/eQ2sWjU.
The Kindle version is currently for sale at £1.99 on a Kindle Countdown deal https://amzn.eu/d/99yW3Qk.
1.Lower Back: Anger 2. Stomach & Intestines: Fear 3. Heart & Chest: Hurt 4. Headache: Loss of control 5. Neck/Shoulder Tension: Burdens 6. Fatigue: Resentments 7. Numbness: Trauma 8. Breathing Difficulties: Anxiety 9. Voice & Throat Problems: Oppression 10. Insomnia: Loss of self
I found that list helpful then, and I do now.
Historically I’ve had a long struggle with anger. I’ve done a lot to address this, as I described in my blog from 2021, and continue to do so.
I’ve recently worked through sudden surges of fear and anxiety, as described in my book, Train your dog; train your mind – positive reinforcement for humans and canineshttps://amzn.eu/d/eQ2sWjUhttps://amzn.eu/d/99yW3Qk. (also available for Kindle, see below)
I don’t have any problems with my stomach and intestines, nor breathing difficulties. I used to suffer from fatigue but don’t anymore, generally sleep well, never get headaches and am altogether faring very – and thankfully – well for my 69 years.
I could just be lucky and, in many ways, I know that I am. I am very very fortunate to have the robust and healthy body that I have. But I have also done a lot to work through negative emotions, as well as finding ways that work for me to keep my body fit and healthy.
Having established a basic pattern – incorporating Qigong, yoga and walking – into my weekly routine, I’m sticking to it.
A step at a time, a day at time. It’s amazing how it builds up until you realise that you don’t have to make quite so much effort that you used to have to make, because a lot of the inner resistance has gone.
As I write, Lydia lies sleeping on the floor in front of me. She rests and sleeps a lot but she’s approximately 10 years old. She readily jumps in and out of the car with ease, rolls around in the dog park, runs about wearing her ‘happy legs’ as I call them. She’s booked in for a routine health check at the vets next week but I’m fairly confident she has no issues with her heart or digestive system (I make sure that good stuff goes in and monitor what comes out). She continues to have fear and anger issues on sight of her triggers: other dogs, some people, moving vehicles.
We’ll keep working on our residual tension areas, together.
It probably won’t be easy, but we’ll do it, step by step, day by day.
Train your dog; train your mind – positive reinforcement for humans and canines – now available in paperback: https://amzn.eu/d/eQ2sWjU.
The Kindle version is currently for sale at £0.99 on a Kindle Countdown deal https://amzn.eu/d/99yW3Qk.
Having identified a priority for Lydia of giving her more body rubs and gentle massage, I introduced these during our walk today.
So, as well as continuing to reinforce “heel” and “watch”, using some of her daily food allowance combined with tasty treats for rewards, I stopped a few times during the walk to rub around her neck, ears and lower abdomen.
This had an immediate calming effect. I also made sure that I gave her lots of verbal encouragement as we were walking along: “we’re OK Lydia”, “yes, good girl, we’re doing OK”, repeated often.
This evening, after we’d had our respective meals, Lydia came up to me while I was sitting on the settee, and I gave her some more rubs, all around her ears and down her spine. She sat there for ages while I did this – a far cry from when we first got her, when she would not have been able to accept this kind of attention at all. She came back for a little bit more rubbing and some brushing, and then started barking – an invitation I have come to realise, at this time of an evening, to have a bit of a play.
We played ‘tuggie’ with an old towel for a while, then she settled down.
At my Qigong class today, we started by giving our knees a gentle rub. As Sue, the teacher said, this was an acknowledgement that we were going to be kind to ourselves, to our bodies, for an hour, doing gentle movements under gentle guidance.
I haven’t always found it easy to care for myself; I used to have a tendency to push myself too hard, and to look after others’ needs first. While I continue to want to look out for and care for others, including Lydia, I also recognise now, particularly at this stage of my life, that I need to look after myself as a priority.
So, I have had a good ‘Mental Health Monday’, with a lovely walk around and through a wood; a yoga session which concentrated on developing strength and flexibility in the spine; and a Qigong class which incorporated a range of movements to open up the shoulder blades, promoting a calmer mind through working with the body and the breath.
I’m hopeful that I’m helping Lydia to have a calmer mind too.
Glad About 
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