The Joy of Being Down for the Count
Vaccination symptoms create clarity about what’s important.
I got my second vaccination yesterday afternoon. Today I am home, achy, slightly feverish, dizzy, weak, and slow.
It is a blessing.
The first shot took me through similar symptoms, and I was also grateful. It’s not only because I am glad in the bigger picture that having symptoms from a vaccine means that I have access to health care, though that is of course an omnipresent gratitude I hold.
It is mostly because in having no choice but to slow down, I become more present to myself — my bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, and intuitions. Having less mental energy is a gift for an overthinker. Through the feverishness, I notice that my thoughts are softer, less lingering, less bothersome, less persistent.
I am present to the creaks of my joints, and just how heavy my body is. How much strength it takes to open a jar, and go up and down four flights of stairs. I am satisfied that I can heat up leftovers in a pan, and manage to prop myself up on the couch to write this experience into existence.
Last night I was informed that due to a misunderstanding on my part, that I had only a few hours in the evening to complete my final assignment for my UX Design course at CareerFoundry. By then the symptoms had already started working on me and I was going glassy-eyed.
Normally, this kind of information would have given me plenty of reason to step into a stress response. I would have tensed up, become irritable, and generated some negativity around the event. Of course, not a helpful response for getting the work done, but as a conditioned response, hard to let go of. But last night, I had no energy for unnecessary mental swirling. I just knew what had to be done (hustle my glassy-eyed brain for a few hours and pull an assignment together to submit by midnight, even though it was far from my best work), and I did it.
I was also invited to step into humility and ask for help. I communicated my situation to my tutor, my mentor, and the student advisor team, and simply asked for more time. Normally, my pride would have stopped me. I would have taken it upon myself to handle the situation I’d put myself in, for scheduling the vaccine appointment on the last day of the course. I would have told myself that because it was my own fault, I was alone to deal with the consequences. But here, I clearly needed someone to help me.
The morning after, I noticed that my thoughts wanted to take the well-trodden path to worry about my status. “What if they don’t let me extend?”
“What if I’ve lost nearly six months of work because I messed up the last day?”
“What if I don’t get my certificate of completion, and because of that, I can’t get a job, and because of that I won’t be able to renew my visa, and because of that I’ll have MORE STRESS?”
Normally these thoughts would have taken me down a spiralling tunnel of worry. But today, I just didn’t have the energy to entertain them. Today, I just wanted to have a tea, eat some breakfast, and listen to the lovely voice messages in my Whatsapp from an old friend across the world.
Today, the part of my mind that was functioning simply pointed out that I was probably catastrophizing, and that it was in nobody’s interest for me to not get my certificate because of being late with an assignment. A few hours later, the student advisor team got back to me and gave me an extension, and congratulated me for successfully completing the course.
I should be sick more often.
As I write this, my mind is still hovering around me, buzzing in my ear like a wasp that’s gotten in through the window. I have no energy to fight with the wasp, and so I stay still, occasionally catching sight of it from the corner of my eye. Like real wasps, my mind sees, after some buzzing, that there’s nothing here of interest for it, and it goes somewhere else.
It is a grace to submit to the needs of the body. Being sick is a sacred time that I haven’t allowed much in my life, even during pandemic lockdown. It feels like because I could do something, that I have the energy to expend, that I need to do it. Normally, I can rarely stay still for a few hours at a time because my mind and body want to be involved in making something happen.
Of course, I can say this while acknowledging the conditions of my life that make it possible and easy for me to embrace a day to be down. And of course, I acknowledge the difference it makes to know where my feverish state comes from, how long I should expect it to last, and the assurance that there’s nothing actually wrong with me. It would be a very different story altogether if my state were due to an unknown cause.
I reflect also, that my altered consciousness and relative clarity about what’s actually important in this moment is an experience that people sometimes seek by taking mind-altering substances, or bt going through ceremonial experiences. These things are helpful as well, no doubt about it. But I would invite us to also take advantage of the built-in altered state of being sick, and tune into it, rather than forcefully pushing it away by immediately medicating ourselves to try to get back to being ‘functional’.
Instead, deeply feel into the body sensations of sickness. Maybe you haven’t felt certain muscles, bones, and pulsations for a while. How curious it is to have these sensations at all. Maybe there’s a clarity about what things are actually pointless time-wasters (I’m looking at you, Wasp-Mind), and what small things we can feel infinitely grateful for, that they do work (how amazing that most of our regular bodily functions are autonomous, and that I don’t have to control my breathing, my digestion, my heartbeat).
How grateful I am that because my mind is wandering around, buzzing somewhere else, that I have the presence of spirit to feel my desire to write, and that my inner critic is for once, too slow and tired to bother me. What a relief it is to not be using all my normal energy to wonder if this piece is original enough, interesting enough, clever enough, and to simply be with the words that want to come out.
Have you had revelations while down for the count? Do you have ways to get into this state of presence even when you’re not sick? I’d love to hear about them.
Sen is a User Experience Designer and Researcher. She’s currently finishing off her portfolio, but would be glad to hear from you if you have a project you want to collaborate on.