Remembering to breathe...

Some of the pain of Friday is starting to fade now; there are still tough moments, but it's a little more bearable.

I have noticed how much I've changed, even in the short time I've been on this path. Once upon a time my escape from this sort of thing would have been to sleep (a telltale sign of depression), to head to a quiet, sedate activity (the movies, etc), or to turn to food. Yesterday morning, when I woke up, the house seemed empty. Too quiet. It didn't feel right.

I went to the gym.

I was still tired, and sore, from my session on Friday. I didn't get much sleep Friday night, but I went anyway. I went, and I put in a workout that, even on a good day, would have been exhausting.

I know Shawn is planning to go through my food diary with me on Tuesday, so I still ate breakfast, and a snack, and lunch; they were all healthy, more or less balanced meals.

By yesterday afternoon, stress and grief and fatigue had caught up to me; I laid down for a bit and ended up sleeping away most of the afternoon. Not something I like to do, but in retrospect, I was exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I think it was my body's way of saying I needed some time to recover.

When I got up, I got supper, and did some stretching and yoga to try to relieve the tension still settled in my back.

This morning the world was a little easier to face. I've been hiding in my room a bit; of course, part of that is having two days' worth of food diary entries to calculate calories on. Yuck. And I have step and probably yoga tonight. If Shawn is in, I might have a word with him about how badly I felt after Friday's session. Or maybe not. I haven't decided. I'm finding talking really hard right now.

I'm still upset about everything, but it isn't quite so oppressive and suffocating now.

Like Shawn told me: slow, deep breaths - in through your nose, out through your mouth.