Who am I?
I’m a 46 year old woman from Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. I started working when I was very young and I have worked in different fields, minding horses, kids, woking in the restaurant business and spent the past 14 years teaching English and French to high school students. I love, and am driven by learning and trying new things, be it a new yoga style, sky dive or try a desert I’ve never tired.
My Passion
I have lived in Stockholm most of my life and I absolutely love my city and country, although I do see myself as a citizen of the world. In the future I see myself living in a house with blue shutters in the south of France. I think traveling around the world, like I have, has made me appreciate my country even more. Traveling is my passion. I love discovering and being blown away by the beauty of new places, cultures, and people. It has made me see things from new perspectives, and given me a deeper understanding of other people and myself, which has made me grow as a person. I think I have seen it all, and then I come to this new place that completely knocks my socks off. The wonders of this world never cease to amaze me. I have lived and studied in Paris and Madrid, and I have spent a lot of time in the States visiting friends and family. My goal was to visit every continent before 40, which I did, Antarctica being the last. Now my goal is to visit all countries in the world. It was during my year traveling around Asia, where I spent 6 months in India, that I did my Ashtanga and Hatha Yoga teacher training courses, as well as Ayurvedic treatments courses.
It’s all in your head
When I was a kid I went in and out of hospitals, but they didn’t really find anything wrong. Or they did, but didn’t do anything about it. My whole adult life I’ve been going to doctors saying something is wrong, but it’s been brushed off as being imaginary, or “just” stress related. Basically I’ve been made to feel like it’s all in my head and not worth taking seriously, doing anything about or investigating further. So my stomach kept acting out and my back and pelvis, that I hurt in a horseback riding accident when I was 13, ontop of having a slight scoliosis, were ignored. Years of visiting different doctors, Chiropractors and what not, but nothing improved for any longer period of time. I often had problems with my joints, sometimes they just hurt and sometimes they got dislocated. When I was in my 20s I was diagnosed with ulcer, which wasn’t investigated further. I took my meds and that was it. At some point my entire body started hurting, it was as if it were on fire, inside and out. Wind touching my skin was excruciating. Pain meds were my best friend. I went to a Homeopath that diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia, but doctors ignored that and continued saying it was in my head. My energy level was often very low and I kept doing too much, then crashing all the time because I wanted to do more than my body could handle, which made me feel, and make other people think, I was lazy. Which completely contradicts the independent, fiercely strong, goal oriented, fearless, focused, adventurous and active person I know that I am. I was very often angry, tense, hardly ever laughed, and I started having panic attacks. Most of the time I was good at keeping up appearances, which is where most of my energy went. Looking like I wasn’t in pain and had lots of energy.
It wasn’t until I was 31 that I got my first proper diagnosis, Crohns (an autoimmune disease where the body attacks itself and creates inflammation in parts of, or the entire gastrointestinal system). I had to wait and fight with doctors for another 13 years until I got the diagnoses Fibromyalgia (a condition that affects the pain reception in the fascia and muscles, creating pain and fatigue among other things) and Hyper Mobility Spectrum Disorder (a genetic condition that affects the fascia which in turn affects the joints and ligaments, creating chronic pain, fatigue, dislocations, and anxiety among other things). Getting my diagnoses made so many little pieces fall into place for me. Finally I understood so many things that my body had done during the years, and I could finally put them into a context. It has helped me finally coming to terms with and accepting my body, which has made me more compassionate towards myself and my body.
My conditions come and go in flares, and a few years ago I got very ill. When they finally found what was wrong, after countless months of tests and exams and years of feeling anything but good, ulcers and inflammation in my entire gastrointestinal system, it was as if I could finally press that huge STOP button that had been blinking for so long.
I was completely knocked out on all fronts. Even laying with my eyes closed listening to the TV was too much for me. My light, sound and smell sensitivities were on an all time high. My body was on fire from within, everything hurt, and I had no energy. My memory was so bad that I had a hard time formulating sentences while speaking and writing, because the words just weren’t there, and while writing they jumped around the page. My brain and my fingers on the keyboard weren’t doing the same thing. I didn’t know if the color green was spelled with q or z… In other words complete and utter chaos.
Accepting and learning to find balance
I’ve worked very hard to find a balance in my life. To I work in unison with my body and don’t bulldoze it to do just a little bit more. I already knew my worth as a person, and I rarely gave way to my inner critic, because I always trusted in my ability to do things well. What others call a mistake I call an opportunity to learn something new and grow. I have now learned to not only speak kindly to myself, but also act kindly. By not doing more than I have the energy to do right now, no matter how much I have been able to do in the past or how perfect I know I can make something. I can now, easier, let things be the way they are, they don’t have to be perfect all the time.
I have learnt to manage my energy, pain and mood by planning what I do and make time for rest. I was made to feel like it was all in my head and no one took me seriously for so long that it took me over 40 years to, in a way, start listening to my body and what it needs. Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, changing my diet, working out on a level that works for me, sleeping well, being able to stand on the outside and view what is happening instead of activating every fiber in me as a reaction, planning my energy among other things, has helped me get in touch with myself, my body, mind and spirit and it has helped me live a more balance life. Having self-compassion and patience with my body, learning to work in usion with it, instead of always trying to do more has helped me immensely.
For so long the focus was on all the things I couldn’t do because of my energy level, or that I couldn’t eat because my body reacted. Food was an obsession for me, in more ways than one. It was never something I enjoyed, it was simply something I ate because I knew I had to, or when I was younger something I didn’t eat because I wanted to look a certain way.
Today I embrace my body the way it is inside and out, and I’m grateful for how immensely strong it is. Not to say that I never wish I weighed the same as 10 years ago, but today I enjoy what I eat and I do it to stay healthy, not to fit into a pair of pants. The process of getting there hasn’t been easy, and part of it has been giving up the idea of who I thought I wanted to be, but now I know that I can do everything I want, I just have to do it in a different way.
Regardless of whether it’s what I put into my body, or what I spend my time doing, I make conscious choices. That doesn’t mean I practice yoga and mindfulness every day, never eat ice cream, sometimes I eat 2 ice creams instead of just 1, not because I need it, but because it’s just so darn good. But it does mean that it’s easier for me to find my way back when I haven’t done yoga and mindfulness for a while, or eaten way too much ice cream and candy.
I now have the tools to motivate myself. I feel how much what I do and eat affects my wellbeing, but I also allow myself to not be perfect and do everything right all the time, because that’s not what being healthy is. I have spent the past 10 years or so educating myself so that I can provide myself with the tools I need to live my life the way I want, because I didn’t feel like I got all the help I needed, so I had to find ways on my own.
It has been a long and very bumpy road, that has in no way come to an end. It has taken a lot of hard work and patience, which was never my strong suit, to create a more balanced life filled with joy and not consumed by pain, anger and stress. I have learned to be grateful for all the little things in life, and all the many ways I can help myself feel good when I work with the cause of the issues, not just manage the symptoms.
I promise there’s light on your horizon too…