Big Tab Two had a delightful surprise for me the night of 3/30/2021, just three weeks ago. I was lying in bed listening to a Headspace meditation focused on Creativity. It is a 30-day series and I was just three days in. The prompt was to imagine your creativity as a light in your chest that expands outwards. I’m either really good at meditating or really bad, because the next thing I knew I had slipped into that incredible state of hypnagogia, that place between awake and asleep where reality starts to skew, subconscious thoughts bubble up, and creativity is on fire. That place where you realize you are starting to dream yet you are awake enough to be aware of it. It always makes me smile, and buckle up my mental seatbelt because something cool is always about to happen. Hypnagogic moments present themselves every now and then and always reveal something fascinating, but it is fleeting. I wish I could linger longer to learn more from everything that happens there. On this particular night, it seemed to last for around 15 minutes and then spilled directly into a full night of lucid dreaming.
My Conversations With Dad were great – sometimes deep, but often simple and casual. We hit on deeply personal topics but also shared what our favorite Netflix binges are, what everyone is up to, the weather, chatting with the kids, etc. It was so normal.
Except, for one huge metaphorical elephant left to handle.
Connection #2
I just got off the phone with my dad. We hadn’t spoken in nearly three weeks, I was just getting up for the day to begin writing this exact post about our letters, and there he was, calling me just after 6am. I was literally picking up my iPad to begin writing when the phone rang. Given how sporadically we talk, his timing was too uncanny to not notice the connection. A moment of pause and a shot of connection with him on the day I’m writing about it? This was the second time his timing had been perfect. Thank you, Universe.
You’ve heard me say this several times by now and you’ve seen how I apply this to my physical journey, but at this point it became my guiding idea in regards to working on Big Tab Two. The obstacle is the way – it is always the way.
If it feels like I am veering off track into deep, personal, emotional, or irrelevant stuff, just keep reading. The tools I used for the body were now going to work for the mind, and, ultimately fold back on themselves for the body again.
Big Tab Two – Working through my relationship with my parents, recovering and rebuilding together, and integrating it into this journey.
How does this fit into my hip and pelvis story? Our emotional health is tied to our physical health and vice versa. The mind-body connection. In my case, since my physical body seemed to keep getting stuck stuck stuck I knew I needed to finally address old emotional stuff. It had to be the key. The elephant in the room, that was SITTING ON ME, so obvious.
I went down a rabbit hole today. Come with me…
Yesterday was a milestone for me – the 3 Month Follow-up Visit. For every one of my post-op follow-up visits the anticipation is like being 7 years old and waiting for Christmas. It is exciting and I do everything I can to be fully prepared, having been a diligent patient every single day along the way.
Yesterday was an especially important one since we were interested in seeing the bone growth – was it happening at all with the metal allergy? If so, at what rate? HOW DOES IT LOOK?? And what is the plan moving forward?
Today I had my 12 week follow up appointment. Hooray! A milestone! It was exciting to get new X-rays and see the progress with the fusion. There’s still a lot of healing to do, but everything is on track which is awesome to see given my concerns about the bones resisting healing due to the allergy. What pleases me most about this is realizing that if I feel as much improvement as I do now with the current amount of bone healing, imagine how amazing I will feel once it is all done! DANG! I’m excited to keep going – rainbow trails all day!
Big Tab One
On 2/4/2000 I became I mother for the first time. I left the hospital later that same day with empty arms and a tear streaked face. Emotionally stunned, what jarred me into reality were the congratulations from well-meaning hospital visitors in the elevator that saw my pink wrist band, which meant I had just had a baby girl. Those congratulations were confirmation that my shocking night was real.
What does one do after freeing up mental space, time, and energy with such a massive change as I did with my Screentime Challenge digital detox?
My world became more vibrant after putting away the tech and becoming present. I was able to savor everything, breathe deeply, and my focus was on turbo boost without all of the distractions.
It was life changing, but now how to make the most of it? I had to harness this into something great!
Hi, my name is Carey, and I’m recovering from a “mild behavioral addiction”, aka tech addiction.
For years, I was sucked into and married to my tech devices (computers/phones/tablets/watches/anything with a badge to win) to the detriment of myself, my family, and my friendships. I created a whole world that kept me busy, seemingly productive, yet still a completely functioning member of my family/society/real world. It was a world where I was balanced enough to go through the motions each day, do a good job, but I wasn’t growing as a person, going above and beyond as a wife/mom/friend – I was stagnating.
So busy every day, checking email, text messages, news, Pinterest, cycle back again, check, check, check, give me a hit of dopamine…there was no time left for other, far better things. I was entirely too busy being distracted with doing absolutely nothing.