Why having Covid was a good thing
This past week I was down and out with Covid for the first time. I almost made it 3 years without getting any kind of illness, because of all the measures in place it was the healthiest I have ever been. While most of my friends have had it to varying degrees, I would say mine was fairly mild, just your basic cold / flu symptoms. I consider myself lucky as we have a family member who has “long covid” and is still struggling after months.
But even with the mild symptoms I had, it still took me out of action for a good 3 days.
I Spent most of that time in bed just sleeping my way through it. This is my typical approach to headaches or colds for a few reasons.
#1 — I feel its the fastest way to heal.
#2 — So I don’t have to suffer.
If I am asleep I don’t realize how horrible I actually feel, I'm a happy girl and since I have no people to be responsible for as a single empty nester I indulge myself with the opportunity to rest.
But, what I have found by being sick or having migraines, which I am prone to, is that I am always reminded afterwards that I actually feel pretty amazing most of the time.
It gives me a new appreciation for how good I normally feel.
I actually felt so incredible that I recorded a video to remind myself if I ever slip back into taking it for granted.
I think we tend to take a lot in our lives for granted.
If you are reading this and living in a fairly advanced nation such as Canada (like myself) or the US, we are very lucky.
The advantages we have and the opportunities to feel safe and secure on a daily basis has become an expectation, its our normal. But we don’t appreciate it as much as we should.
This goes for good an bad things in our lives.
What I have realized is that our current situation in any area of our life didn't just happen over night. In fact it happens over time. It’s a gradual change which makes it sneaky and hard to pinpoint when things turned bad or even good. Our daily habits over time create our current reality.
I heard a great quote that I use to remind myself all the time
“You sit in Shit long enough it stops smelling”
I can attest to this as I used to work at a horse stable when I was a teenager and when i would first arrive the smell was overpowering, but as the day went on I barely noticed.
This is exactly what happens to us in our everyday life.
So here are some interesting facts about our general health in Canada:
According to the Government of Canada website (see link below) only 1 in 5 people in Canada live with a major chronic illness and we are living longer now than ever before.
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/datalab/healthy-canadians-interactive.html
Yes of course cancer has begun to rise and heart disease is still a major issue, but for the most part if we were to stop and think about it, we feel pretty good most of the time.
But do we appreciate it? NO!
Imagine for a second that you get a routine checkup with your doctor and they send you for bloodwork. Then about a week later you get “the call”. The call from your doctors office saying that the doctor needs to see you again to discuss the results from your bloodwork.
SHEER PANIC sets in!
OMG! What’s wrong?
But or course the lady on the phone can’t tell you, you have to wait until you meet with the doctor.
So you spend a sleepless night worrying about what could possibly be wrong and your brain runs through your entire family medical history and by the time you meet up with your doctor the next day you are CONVINCED that that feeling you had last month must be cancer!
Your mind starts to spiral with “what am I gonna do” thoughts and you start thinking about chemo and radiation and how this will affect your kids and your spouse and all the horrible things that are now going to be your life for the foreseeable future.
Then you get to the doctors office and they get out your file, take a look at you then back to the file and then it happens.
YOU have…….. Low iron!
Or something totally benign like that but for the last day you had convinced yourself you were headed for the fight of your life.
How AMAZING do you feel?
How relieved are you that you just need to increase your intake of beef and spinach?
So here’s the kicker, nothing actually changed!
All that changed through all of this was what you believed and how you decided to feel about it.
So WHAT IF……
You decided right here, right now to FEEL AMAZING!
Go do all the things that you would do if you had actually been diagnosed with a fatal disease and miraculously survived and have now been given a new lease on life.
What a POWERFUL perspective to have!
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Jessica Coulthard — Bring the Joy Girl
Just a Girl Like Me Coaching
