Life with a Chronic Illness: learning to exhale

inhale  A N D  exhale. 

It seems so simple which is the irony. I have been holding my breath the past 3 months and I'm finally noticing I need to exhale. 

The "2017 Beta-Blocker Medication Experiment" started April 29th and I'm finally getting my feet back under me. It's pathetically hilarious how on top of the world I feel when the number of good and bad days are equal instead of more bad days. I started doing yoga a month ago and love it. It's good for me physically and mentally. But surprise surprise I got too confident and threw in some cardio workouts. This morning I almost passed out 3 times within 10 minutes. Almost as in I had to lie down ASAP, got tunnel vision and everything got dark/fuzzy. Probably not a good thing. I was so so angry, so frustrated and so disappointed that I had to stop. 

And then I felt a little nudge to just breathe.

inhale....exhale.

Why was I so upset with myself? Did I forget that I have an extremely dysfunctional autonomic nervous system? Was doing a certain workout really worth being this upset? What was I doing?

inhale....exhale.

This is not worth it. I need to practice gratitude for what my autonomic system allows me to do right now and not focus on the things it does that annoy the crap outta me. 

Exhale and let go.

Today my autonomic system yelled "Hell NO" and apparently Ike and I are more alike than not cause I hated being told no *insert grumpy face* For now this girl is sticking to yoga, focusing on breathing and learning to appreciate the simple things like working out period. I may never run a marathon or a mile but you better believe I'm going to try to master a forearm handstand by the end of the year. Also if anyone tells you that they enjoy cardio they are lying! 

Deep breath in and deep breath out. Cheers to living life with a chronic illness and learning how to exhale and practicing gratitude on a daily basis!!

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Today's word vomit is a follow up to two prior blog posts so if you're bored or curious check out Life with a Chronic Illness: Sometimes I Don't Recognize Myself or Life with a Chronic Illness: Against All Hope, In Hope Believe