A Question For Me and You: 5 Days Post Heart Attack
YEP, I Had a Heart Attack
1 week ago today. I recognized some symptoms while in my workout class. Me! Age 58 An avid 6 days a week gym rat, weight lifter, HIIT person for decades. I always have been a clean eater (my binge bag of Hershey's Kisses aside). I am genetically predisposed to high (bad) cholesterol and its pretty high. I've known this for over a year. I've had a medicine cabinet of Lipitor that I have been collecting. Just to look at, not to take.
The Mind Doesn't Give You Answers, It Keeps Asking Questions
My mind tells me, I AM HEALTHY. I FEEL GOOD, I AM ACTIVE, I always have been and I wanted to try and make some changes through tweaking my already clean and healthy eating to include supplements in an effort to lower my cholesterol. It didn't work and the plaque built up in one of my arteries and decided to rupture. More on that another time. Because I have a strong genetic link, apparently medication is my best ticket. So now instead of taking 1 pill, I have to take 5.
The "Come to Jesus" Conversation
Because of my healthy lifestyle, diet and exercise weren't the conversations the cardiologist had with me. I didn't get the "typical" lecture. Heck, my resting heart rate is 46 after all! Fit as a fiddle. Instead, what I was asked and what was discussed by multiple medical professionals last week had to do with the topic of STRESS. As we discussed, life, in general, is stressful. Many of us walk around predisposed to depression or anxiety and both of those contain levels of stress. If you are lucky to not be challenged by either of those issues, there's still no escaping the world we live in today and all its technology making us a victim of chronic stress. We are watching and listening to negative news, spending time on social media and the stress we take in as a result of what we make those messages mean for us. The never-ending game of comparisonitis that so many women partake in. Standing in our own way of getting more balanced to live more life and live less work. Deciding to change our thinking that if we choose to live less work - that doesn't mean we have done less, that we haven't done our best, that we aren't still the best at what we do. We aren't any less the warrior woman we always were.
What I'm Thinking Today
So here are a few of my takeaways to share:
- It's time to unpack and dig a bit deeper in what I define as "good enough". Drilling down what that means for me and what that will look like today.
- Working smarter not harder - yes YOU can too!
- That although meditation and yoga are wonderful stress busters, both are easily done in isolation - that social interaction, creating community and being vulnerable to share what we are challenged with and allow ourselves to take in support from others, THIS IS the #1 healer of all things stress.
- That loneliness and isolation is a heart killer.
- If you are Self-employed and WORSE YET work from home, schedule in regular and consistent "play dates" and time with professional colleagues to exchange in active listening sessions in order to VENT!
Up for a Stress Test?
For today, I ask you all to take your own stress assessment. I challenge you to be honest with only yourself. ~ What is the 1 area that YOU are empowering STRESS to exist in? ~ How are you perhaps befriending STRESS? ~ Why are you choosing to be comfortable with it? The ultimate challenge is for you to email me back your response. I will keep them confidential but will speak to your answers in a blog series. Let's do this together.
AOK
Lastly, I AM AOK! Feeling good. I'm not back at the gym (I would be but the cutie pettuti Dr. made me swear for 1 month to lay off the weights!). If you are ready to unpack and drill down on thoughts that may be adding stress in your life, my hope is that you will love yourself enough to click the button below and bring it to a call. It's free. On the call we will:
- Help you get started on tackling a challenge you are dealing with;
- Discuss the benefits of working together, and
- You will walk away with at least 1 coaching tool and strategy that you can immediately put into action!
How I Got to the ER -
Want some more details and the importance of listening to the voice in your heart vs. the noise from the mind? Click here. Decide ahead of time that you will have a fantastic week ahead.