compassion

My Road

Posted on by originaljo

This morning I have been thinking of where I am in life, and what my road has looked like over the past several years. I don’t know that I could have predicted how far I would actually come if someone had asked me years ago “where do you see yourself in 10 years”.

Right about my mid twenties is when I went through one of the most difficult experiences I have ever had, even to this day. I had been progressing in my role and the opportunity came up to run my own store. Everyone around me kept telling me “you can do this, you are ready for this”, and I believed them. Even when I had some hesitations, I believed what they were saying and so I went for it. And it was disastrous. The store I went to did not want me in that role. The staff were not happy to have me there, having been together for years with the same Manager in place. One of the people on the staff made it her mission to make my time there absolutely miserable; she would go to my boss and tell him that I had already left for the day but she was still there. Never mind that I had been there since 6am. Slowly, she helped to erode his confidence in me. I didn’t really help myself either though. I didn’t have regular meetings with him to see how he was feeling about how I was doing. I didn’t have meetings with the staff to ask for their feedback and what they needed from me. I didn’t ask for help when I needed it. I just kept going, thinking everything was fine.

I went on a small vacation for a week and two days after I got back, my boss asked to meet with me before I left for the day. No problem, nothing seemed out of place. I walked into his office and sitting there was the head of HR. Now if you have never experienced this, it isn’t a good thing to see that person sitting there for a meeting that you have no idea about. My heart sank into my stomach and I knew I was getting fired. I was given two options for different positions in different stores, both well below my capabilities. If I chose neither of them, I was on my own. I called my old boss to tell her what happened and she immediately told me to come back to the store, she would find a position for me.

Let me tell you this, walking back into that store after being fired from my other job was the HARDEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE. Period. I had to give myself a 20 minute pep talk before I could even get out of my car. I had failed. I felt worthless. I felt ashamed. Defeated. But I eventually got out of my car, walked in, and got to work. Eventually those feelings started to fade but they were replaced with anger. I was so angry about what had happened TO me. Not really taking any responsibility for my role in the entire thing. I know it wasn’t all my fault, but with every experience there is a role that you play and you have to take responsibility for the actions you took or didn’t take that helped to lead you there. That’s when you really learn and grow. I happened across a book that really helped me through this time: A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. It was the one thing I needed to read to help me get over my anger. The thing with holding on to resentment and anger is that it will change who you are, the core of your being, if you let it. I didn’t like who I was becoming. So I did a lot of self reflection and working through my emotions, and I came out the other side a much wiser, and happier person.

Walking back into that store was the smartest thing I ever did. It led me to my current role where I get to support the entire region, do training, and work one-on-one with people to help them grow in their roles. This is my happy place. This is what I truly love doing. If had not had the courage to walk back into that store, I don’t know where I would be. Sometimes the hardest thing you will ever do, can be the one thing that will help you to grow the most. It can be the thing that takes you down a path you weren’t sure you would ever find. It can change your life.

If you are going through a hard time right now, hang in there. Reflect on what you need to learn, what this experience is teaching you. Take that power back, put yourself back in charge of your life and your destiny. It isn’t an easy thing to do, but the rewards can be absolutely amazing. And don’t forget to ask for help when you need it. There are people all around you that will jump in to help when you ask for it.

Until next time.

Jo xxox

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Trust Your Intuition

Posted on by originaljo

Fate, Intuition, Energy, Karma; all of these are words that reflect in my life. I have moments when I just know something is wrong, I can feel it in my soul. Sometimes I will reach out to the person I am feeling these things about, sometimes I won’t. It really depends on how well I know them and how well I think my attention will be received. Most of the time I am right in feeling that something is off and sometimes I am able to help or simply be a shoulder to lean on/an ear to listen.

Learning to trust your intuition is a journey in itself – you first have to trust yourself and love yourself before you can ever tap into this part of you. Reaching out and asking if someone needs help can be a hard thing to do, especially if you have been rejected or rebuffed in the past. Lately, my intuition has been telling me that someone I love dearly is in big trouble and with that feeling have been signs that I am on the right track. The hard part is knowing how to act on it and when it’s really serious. Today was the day to act. Today was the day I offered my help. Today was the day when I probably saved this persons life. That hit me pretty hard. There are so many times you reach out and once you talk to the person you see that things weren’t as bad as you maybe thought they were. Things were as bad as I thought they were and once this person told me I had saved their life, all of the intensity of this moment just came pouring out of my eyes.

I don’t know exactly what the next steps look like, we will figure that out together in the next few days. I do know that I’m glad I offered help. I’m glad it was accepted. I’m glad I trusted my intuition. If you ever feel that twinge, that sense, that feeling like something just isn’t right with someone, please listen to it. You may just save a life.

 

What Happens Next?

Posted on by originaljo

By September of 2017 I felt more like myself again…feeling no more pain, able to finally walk, run, sit, do whatever I wanted without having to think about how long I could stand it for. Back to normal, so it would seem. The thing was, I was still taking a nerve blocker to help manage the pain. I started to wonder if now was the time to talk to my Doctor about weaning myself off of this drug; I remembered when I started taking it I was told I would have to slowly wean myself off of it, it would not be an overnight change. I wasn’t told much more about it, just that this was something that would help me get back to my life when I was in such intense pain. In that moment, if someone tells you this will work, you don’t hesitate to take it. Anything to make the constant pain disappear.

I started to cut back my dose in October, lowering the amount each month a little at a time. To be completely honest, I had a lot of anxiety around this; I didn’t realize I had become so dependent on this medication to get through my daily life. I’m not normally one to feel anxious or unsure about things so this was a surprising feeling for me. The first few days of my first adjustment were really tough days for me. Every twinge I felt had me afraid that this pain was coming back. Wondering if maybe I hadn’t healed as much as I thought I had….and I did feel some residual pain for that first week. Looking back I know now this was just because my nerves were starting to fire again and it takes a bit for your body to adjust to any kind of change like that. But the anxiety was a lot for me to manage and I started to wonder if I had made a mistake taking this medication in the first place. I was also a little bit angry that my Doctor hadn’t properly explained what it would be like to come off of the medication.

By December I was medication free, and all of a sudden it felt like I had never been taking it. I started to realize my body still had healing to do….I had muscles I had used very little over the past several months and all of a sudden I was trying to use them on a daily basis. My body would protest in small ways – short shots of pain running down my leg if I over did things, tenderness in my back if I spent too much time on my feet, muscles spasms in my left leg from my knee and all the way down my calf (at really random times like when I was sleeping at night), small reminders that I still had some work to do. Exercise was scary for me because of what it had led to last time so I was hesitant to add it back into my daily life and really took my time getting back into things.

Today, I am now able to do my daily walks again (usually they are about 3-3.5km), I can do lower body workouts without having leg spasms, I can do weights, I can use the elliptical, I can run, kneel, jog, really whatever I need to do. This healing took way longer than I expected it too and perhaps I would have recovered sooner if I had pushed myself a bit more but I really felt I needed to honour how I was feeling inside and not push myself too fast.

The final side-effect of this entire journey is that I lost a lot of ground with my physical health. My muscle mass really decreased and as a result I gained some weight. It’s a little strange when you can’t do anything about it for the better course of a year – really does teach you to let go of control and just let things happen, something that can be really hard for a lot of people. I have been learning to accept my body as it is, be okay with where I am right now, wear clothing that I feel good in, and have patience with myself as I learn all of this. I am by no means perfect but I’m working on loving myself a little more every single day – I don’t see how that can ever be a bad thing.

Lesson #5 – Don’t be afraid to ask questions, no matter what the situation is. Even is the person telling you to do something is highly educated, it doesn’t mean you can’t still question things. You are sometimes the only advocate for your life and the experiences you have – the more you know, the better prepared you can be.

Lesson #6 – Have compassion for other people. You don’t ever know what someone else is going through in their life. Chronic pain can really change how you are and how you behave; this really opened my eyes to the reality that people live like this ever day. There is no pill they can take to take the pain away….it has made me incredibly grateful for the life that I live and the freedom that I experience every single day.

Remember to have patience with yourself, whatever journey you are traveling in that moment. Everything will come together as it is supposed to, just have patience and trust in yourself. Everyone is worthy of self-love, and that is an important message to remember when you have people pushing you down every day. Remember who you are and always assume positive intent.

Until next time.

Jo xxox.