What Is Your Body Telling You?

Catch up with the previous post here!

What Is Your Body Telling You?

Fast forward 9 months. Winter 2010.

A lot had changed. I mean, I made some huge drastic changes in my life. After realizing emotionally I had been over my long term relationship we broke it off. Wasn’t the easiest break-up as we had been living together at the time and he went straight from our apartment into an apartment with his new girlfriend… yeah…. Since I had basically funded our whole lives I didn’t have a ton of money saved up (ok, and yes, I bought a beemer, but hey! I was naive and made some mistakes) I had to use mostly all of my cash to get out of our lease. After living on my own for a few months I ended up racking up a pretty good credit card balance.

Because I realized I was being completely irresponsible, and because my parents are awesome, all my stuff went into storage and I moved back in with my parents. After 6 years of living on your own moving back into your parents takes a bit getting used to. But I looked at this time as an opportunity to put myself back together since I felt like I had been broken into a million pieces. I knew I could get to a better me, but I knew it would take some time.

I took the oh so original single girl “I’m not going to have a serious relationship anytime soon” pledge and decided to live it up with my friends. And live it up I did. I had some amazingly, awesome times during that period. I worked on paying off my credit card bills and I only did things that I knew would make ME happy.

I set in my mind that once I was financially stable again I wanted to move out of Pittsburgh. I thought my opportunity would come through going back to school and getting my MBA. Looking back on it now I think I just saw this as a good excuse to move and pursued it. I started studying on my own and I signed up for a GMAT class.

During this period I also went on a few dates with new guys. I mean I know I had said I wasn’t going to date, but I was allowed to pursue the menu- right!? Well I met an awesome guy, who I knew was perfect, but I was nervous and reminded myself that I wasn’t going down that road anytime soon.

As the year went on we began hanging out more and more. He was also a consultant and traveled Sunday night to Friday night every week. At that time he was working out in the mid west so it was relatively easy to see him. By Labor Day we were spending every weekend together. In my mind I knew I wanted him to be my boyfriend, I mean I even thought of him that way, but I wouldn’t admit it to anyone and I wouldn’t say it out loud for some reason???! He even brought it up one night at dinner and I told him NO! Afterwards I went home and was like what the heck is wrong with you?? I don’t know what it was, I guess I was just scared of getting hurt and not having the label would help that? Who knows- the logic doesn’t make sense!

He knew I didn’t mean it when I said no and thank God didn’t go running the other way. We continued to hang out every weekend and continue to as of today 🙂 BUT there was one big problem. I had told myself that I was going to move out of Pittsburgh. Where Brad, the not my boyfriend boyfriend, lived.

As the GMAT date drew closer I began panicking. What was I doing? I shouldn’t leave… But if I stayed it could end up like the last relationship. And if I didn’t go I’d be so upset at myself for never taking the leap. But what if I did go and I ruined a great thing?

I continued to study… And I started feeling, well, just not quite right. I felt sick to my stomach most of the time and just felt so stressed out. Then I started getting horrrrrrible back spasms. I’d try to stretch out my back doing some yoga poses and sometimes it would help, but other times it wouldn’t. Until one night I woke up and felt like I couldn’t breathe! The spasms were so bad I couldn’t catch my breathe. Guess what week it was? GMAT week! I didn’t think about it at that time… I thought I was having a heart attack. Thankfully I had 2 roommates who were more than wiling to take me to the ER. After laying in the ER for while, getting some pain meds and muscle relaxers I began to feel better.

My mom had taken me to me hospital leaving my brother at home with my dad. Ironically my mom was supposed to be at that hospital later that morning with my grandpap for a doctors appointment. My dad ended up picking up my pap and brought him and my brother to the hospital. Because sitting at the hospital any longer was the LAST thing I wanted Brad was sweet enough to offer to come pick me and my bro up and drive us home. None of which were close for him. Just seeing how nice he was made myself even more torn!

That November Saturday I went to take the GMAT high on pain meds and pretty damn relaxed from the muscle relaxers. Yeahhhh… I did horribly. I mean. Horrible. I spent the rest of the day laying in my bunk bed crying. Brad called and told me I needed to get out not to think about it and he took me out with his friends. It helped a bit. In the back of my mind I just thought well, maybe it was a sign I wasn’t supposed to go to school? But I couldn’t just take it once and give up all the hours of prep and money I had put into it. I signed up to take it again. The week between Christmas and New Years.

I knew I needed to address my back issues so my first stop was back to see Dr. Hopkins my chiropractor. He helped with adjustments and suggested I try massage therapy. So every week for about a month and a half I got at least 1 massage. Tough life, right? It definitely helped. My back was so tight from holding all my stress. I was also referred to a kinesioloist. I had never been to one before, but a friend of my mom’s had a great experience. What did I have to loose?

Kinesiology addresses physiological, mechanical, and psychological mechanisms. Kinesiologists preform muscles tests to see the response they give. Once they receive the feedback from the muscles they will come up with a plan to help you. It may be in adjustments, adding nutritional supplements, relaxation techniques, lifestyle changes and more.

I had a wonderful experience with mine. I went to see Dr. Klock and Dr. Gessler in Cannonsburg, Pa. I had an evaluation with Dr. Klock, but routinely went to see Dr. Gessler. He was a great guy. He was the one that pointed out that he believed my spasms were due to the GMAT. Back then I refused to believe that. I didn’t feel that I was overly worried about passing the GMAT. In fact, I passed off all the stress I was feeling and refused to believe that was the cause. Looking back its hard to think how foolish that was of me! Of course that was it! And my seating posture at work (I improved that and man did that help A LOT).

Thanksgiving came and I got to meet some of Brad’s family. I instantly felt connected to them. They were fun loving and so down to earth. Then I got to meet Brad’s parents. Can I just say – when you dream of your future you always dream that everything would be perfect, you’d have your Prince Charming and his family would be as equally charming and sweet. Well. That’s Brad’s parents. They instantly treated me as if I were their own daughter.

In the beginning of December Brad was sent to London for 2 weeks to work and during that time I received the opportunity I had been dying for! The opportunity to move to my dream city… NYC! How could I pass it up? I immediately said yes to the chance… Then I thought of the repercussions. Was I going to leave this awesome relationship for something I had always dreamed of? I wasn’t sure how it would go over with Brad.. So one night, while he was over in London, I laid it on him. Brad, I found out, wasn’t one to let his opinion influence other’s actions. He basically left it up to me and said you need to do what’s going to make you happy.

Before, when I used to talk about moving or going places in my previous relationship, I was chastised for not taking his feelings into consideration. Which was a valid point. I mean if you saw your life with someone why wouldn’t you take their feelings into consideration? Hearing him leave it up to me was a breath of fresh air and I kind of ran with it. I know in my heart that everything happens for a reason and if it was meant to be it would work out!

Christmas came and went, I scored 10 points LOWER on the GMAT the second time around, and I decided to move to NYC. Once January hit I never had a horrible back spasm again. I had back pains, don’t get me wrong, but who doesn’t have them!

I moved up to NYC, on the weekend which was dubbed snowmageddeon mind you, and started to get all set up! Pretty much at the same time Brad’s company sent him to work in AFRICA. Yeah. Africa. Botswana, Africa. For 6 months. Every 6 weeks he was allowed to come home for 1 week 🙁

Timing is everything. Those 6 months were extremely difficult. Being on completely opposite schedules and Brad being in a town that barely got Internet (and warned the people not to go out at night because there was a lion roaming the area) it definitely tested our relationship. I think that God provided me the perfect opportunity to move when he had Brad go to Africa. It helped me be able to explore the new city and attempted to keep my mind off the fact that Brad was, in my mind, a billion miles away.

 

Over those 6 months I had the chance to go and visit Brad. We met in Johannesburg, South Africa and flew to Victoria Falls, Zambia. We took a boat over across the boarder of Zambia and Botswana (there is no bridge!) and did an amaaazzinnggg safari in Botswana. Ended out trip back in Joburg and then we parted ways. It was an incredible trip, one that I’m sure we wouldn’t have been afforded had he not been over there. But, aaaahh, even for another trip I wouldn’t wish him to go back over. I joke all the time and say that if they send him back over there we’d have to break up.

Once he came back he was working in Vancouver, Canada. This project allowed him to come home for 4 days every 10 days. I had transferred to a project in Brooklyn, NY so I wasn’t traveling since I could just take the subway to work! This started to put a little strain on the NYC/Pgh living arrangement since it wasn’t as easy for me to get back to Pittsburgh. It was then that I decided that I really was committed to making this work and my heart was where he was. So once our lease was up I packed up my things and drove home… Which is a hell of a lot easier said than done! Lol. Since my parents are always so welcoming I moved back in with the. Haha! They can’t get rid of me!

New York taught me a lot and offered me a lot. While I was there I officially paid off my credit card and started a savings plan. I also am so happy to have had the chance to live in the city that never sleeps. I think the luckiest thing I was afforded was I found a man who supported my dreams just as much as he supported our relationship.

Recently I took a class taught by Dr. Lissa Rankin and she spoke so profusely on how our intuition is always right and if we listen to our body’s we will always know what is right and wrong for us. I can’t help but look back on this time and think – wow, my body tried so hard to tell me that going back to school wasn’t in my plan at that moment, but I didn’t listen. I kept going on and on, having spasm after spasm, stressing myself out needlessly. If I only would have taken those spasms as a sign that something wasn’t working back then I could have saved myself a lot of pain and aggregation.

At least it’s in the past now! No need to dwell on it … But I challenge you to look, at your life and see if there are any outward signs your body is giving you that you may need to change something in your life? Every time you do x you get a headache, whenever you’re with y you get a stomach ache? They may be very subtle hints, but I’m starting to see that we need to listen to ourselves more closely. When we take into account what our body needs, we can experience happiness and health.

Keep on reading . . now I’m getting to the juicy health details part. Click here to read about the beginning of my disability madness.

Today is my lovely methotrexate hangover day so I’m not feeling my best, but I wish you a pain free day!!