How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
Bizarrely, this question has been dominating social media recently.
This viral TikTok trend has women asking their male partners the question and filming their response which is often quite humorous to watch, such that it’s gained huge traction and has even made the news! And it seems that men claim to think about Ancient Rome on a regular basis ranging from monthly to weekly and some even daily.
Of course our family tried this little experiment too, prompted by one of my sons. My husband, not knowing anything about the fad, responded with ‘extremely rarely, or never’ and ‘that’s a really weird question’. Although honest and clear, his answer actually surprised me, as we listen to Lectio 365 daily which is an app with 10 min gospel readings and meditations set in Roman times. I guess he didn’t make that link in the way my own mind did. Maybe men really are from Mars!
Anyway, staying with the Roman theme but transitioning slightly, today’s title serves as a daily reminder to me that things take time.
I am now one month past my fourth heart operation and am measuring my progress.
This is always a tricky thing to assess as it is multifaceted, given the various different issues on the mend. Also, my ‘achiever’ tendencies can subtly drive me to look at numbers (specifically my step count) and I realise that this is not always helpful nor meaningful. I try to increase by a few hundred each week. That gives you an idea of the kind of numbers we’re talking about.
I try to keep my body moving regularly but, given the fact that my heart has had five significant injuries, one per month from April through August, and is healing from seven hospitalisations in that time, the progress feels slow – and it needs to be. I remind myself that it’s been through a lot, and any movement is helpful and I am aware that I am getting a little stronger each week.
The trauma of the past several years of multiple emergency heart admissions has taken a huge toll on my whole body, including my nervous system. Over the course of time I have keenly devoted possibly hundreds of hours towards teaching myself about mind body medicine. I love to learn. Two seminal books in this regard are ‘The Body Keeps The Score’ by Bessel Van Der Kolk and ‘When The Body Says No’ by Gabor Maté. The titles speak volumes in themselves. Significant or repeated physical, mental or emotional stress take their toll on the human frame. But the body can heal.
It is important to listen to the body, to allow it to communicate and guide the healing process. Some days, my body is so pained and inflamed that it just needs rest. I find it hard to ‘give in’ to this but have learned to my detriment that pushing through on such days just prolongs the neuro-immunological inflammatory flare up. Although it may sound to some like a luxury, relaxing and resting has been a challenge for me. I love the idea of being out and about and participating in things, and have sorely missed the freedom that comes with being fit and pain-free. But in order to get to that stage, I must heed what my body asks of me on each new day, and tend to it in the best way. Often less is more. Pacing is key and has a language and currency of its own. Spending too much in terms of energy, can cause days of bankruptcy. Paying in, through responsive, patient, embodied attention, protects from this to an extent.
The very nature and frequency of the sudden fast atrial fibrillation spectre has, over years, put my body and nervous system in a constant subconscious braced state – signalling potential atrial fibrillation threat – stuck on high alert – like a faulty over-sensitive smoke alarm. Learning to undo this and in a sense retrain my nervous system and grow regulating capacity and flexibility in the way it functions is not a quick, simple nor linear exercise. The longer my heart remains stable, the more my body confidence will grow and hopefully this process will become easier as the subconscious guarding dials down.
Anxiety has also been a factor. I learned that the response to excitement and fear activate the same physiological and neurochemical reactions. This makes sense and has certainly been my experience. Fun or any social activity or enthusiasm often triggered a nasty episode of prolonged fast atrial fibrillation, heart damage and hospitalisation. For this reason, my system developed an almost Pavlovian stress response to adventure and socialisation. So my capacity for joy and connection became muted and even feared as the stakes were too high. I realised the other day that I haven’t been inside a shop, nor for a walk beyond my own garden for at least six months.
I now hope that this latest operation will allow me to uncouple those old associations and to experience life more fully again and to spend time with people. I have always loved that and I thrive on connection.
Life in protective isolation – iced out – will become in-sulation- a warm inclusion. But slowly.
My angel nurse, who has been an amazing cheerleader and advocate for me over these months, reminds me to ‘be kind to myself’. This is a message we all need to hear, especially if we are dealing with any sort of chronic health condition. We are often our own harshest critic, shaming ourselves that we need to do better or be better, when we are already doing our best. Our people love us as we are – and learning to accept that is enough. We are beloved and we need to remember this truth, especially on our hardest days.
And, as to the title of this piece, historians say that Rome took many centuries to methodically construct. So meantime, I quietly celebrate each day’s mini-win – even a PJ day – and view it as one brick closer to building the path to better health.
The hope being that this slow formed Roman-style cobbled road to recovery will eventually lead into an open, wild freedom to ROAM!
Roamin’ in the gloamin’ – how joyous that will be.
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Everythingistickityboo 
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