Migraine vs. Me
On Sunday night as I was entering hour three of making Ina Garten’s Ultimate Beef Stew, my exasperation was growing and something else was… stewing. A niggling ache in my left temple. I tried to ignore it, asked my husband to finish the stew, and sat at the island huffing and puffing. Dinner at 6 had moved to dinner at 7, and now, seriously?!, 7:30pm. My daughter came in for a bowl of cereal, and even my son, who would love the stew, could wait no longer for dinner and ate a leftover piece of pizza.
By the time we sat down to eat my head was throbbing. The stew was divine, but I was in a bad mood with a bad headache. I woke up Monday morning with the migraine and it stayed, for four days, until Thursday night.
Mid-way through the work day on Monday, trying to figure out how the headache had been triggered, I remembered what week it was. The 11th anniversary of two of the most profound losses of my life. In early February of 2012, my dad died followed a few days later by the death of my husband’s best friend, John. Both were unexpected. We said goodbye to neither.
Maybe you can imagine the whirlwind. The confusion. The night before my dad’s funeral, where I would give the eulogy, I remember calling the police station in the town where John lived to get confirmation of the accident. We were convinced it couldn’t possibly be true. It was.
I think so often an idea makes sense to use intellectually, but it’s hard to see how it might play out in our actual real lives. Like, sure, we can understand theoretically, that the body might keep the score, but what does that actually look like? Well, it looks like this. A migraine for 96 hours.
Of course, not all of my migraines are caused by my body remembering trauma, but I am pretty convinced that this particular one was influenced by past events that occurred this week years before. It’s a reminder that I still have work to do. The healing journey continues.
It’s worthwhile for you to consider, the next time anxiety, depression or trouble sleeping seem to come out of nowhere - could your body be remembering something? It’s a helpful lens for me because it helps me have lots of compassion for myself. I tried not to berate my body for betraying me this week. I got lots of sleep, worked from home instead of commuting, went to yoga, drank more caffeine than usual and smothered myself in peppermint oil.
It can be a generous view of the people around us too. Maybe they are struggling because their body is remembering something and they have no awareness of what is happening.
Intrigued by these ideas and wondering if this relates to your own experience of healing? This is exactly the kind of work I do with my coaching clients. Email me if you want to learn more.