In praise of writing, and an insight into adrenal fatigue

Hello, my name is Trudie. You might remember me from such places as... this very blog, which I
have somewhat abandoned of late. Please read on as I attempt to redeem myself with this shiny new blog post.
When I started www.onegroundedangel.com three years ago, I made a commitment to post three times a week. I was at war with myself, struggling with my sense of self and feeling isolated by what I perceived as the oppressive blanket of being an outsider (I was just starting to wake up to my spiritual calling). The angels advised me to ‘write my way out of it’.
And it helped. As the words flowed before me on the screen, a sort of alchemy occurred: I began to make sense of my emotions and could see the path ahead with a smidgen more clarity. My black spots diminished. Suddenly I had a sense of purpose; my life had meaning. Responses from others who 'got it' buoyed me; I began to feel less alone - still freakish (well, the best people are!), but more accepting of that.

Then, without my intending it, my blog morphed into a business site as my angel card business started to gain traction. With the demands of social media and a YouTube channel, launched one year ago, my commitment to the blog waned.

These days I am barely managing one non-social-media-driven post a month. Those I do post are more functional than personal, and while that’s probably OK for the majority of people who click through to my site looking for information on my spiritual services, it’s kind of not OK for me. Because without a written portal for my thoughts, I’ve noticed I’m more likely to ruminate and get stuck in unhelpful thought patterns. Writing truly is cathartic. Science confirms it – research from Pennsylvania State University in the US found that keeping a ‘thought journal’ every day improved emotional balance.

So on that note, here’s an update on what’s been going on in my world of late.

This year I’ve been really struggling with low energy. Not just the ‘wow it’s been a big week’ sort of fatigue, but the ‘urge to sleep all weekend but still wouldn’t feel refreshed’ type. It’s not like any sort of fatigue I have ever known – and that’s coming from someone who has had insomnia much of her adult life. I did not notice that what I was enveloped in was not a normal sort of exhaustion. After a mild cold cleared quickly but left me feeling even more flat, I decided enough was enough and I sought out a naturopath.

What came up in tests was not low immunity, as I’d suspected, but abnormally low levels of the stress-hormone cortisol. The result: adrenal fatigue. Which was laughable since in my work as a health writer I’ve covered that very topic more than once in the past, interviewing the likes of holistic nutritionist Dr Libby Weaver, but failed to notice the symptoms in myself.

Adrenal fatigue is what happens when you operate at breakneck speed for too long. Essentially,

your body, interpreting the pressure you’re under as a dangerous situation, goes into fight or flight mode, releasing adrenaline to help you survive. This is designed to be a short-term response, to get you away from the perceived danger, but in today’s high-pressure environment, this has become a long-term state. Because our stress never dissipates, so the adrenaline keeps getting pumped out. Too much adrenaline in the body raises blood pressure and causes inflammation, so the body releases cortisol to bring these down. Because the body is unable to sustain prolonged high-cortisol release, the adrenal glands crash. You will feel, as I have for most of this year, like you are dragging your body around, day after day, and never able to regain your energy. Other effects others have reported include: constantly getting illnesses, sudden unexplained weight gain you can’t shift, low sex drive and constant irritability.

As well as dosing me up on myriad herbs and potions, my naturopath has instructed me to make some much-needed lifestyle changes. I’m banned from looking at my phone or tablet after 9pm (the blue light from these screens raises cortisol output). I must wake up between 6am and 7pm (sleeping in is a bad idea), and must be in bed by 9.30pm. I can only exercise in the mornings, at low or moderate intensity. I must reduce my sugar intake (something I have been using as a crutch to get me through the afternoons, as I don’t drink caffeine). When I’m working from home, I’m encouraged to take a short afternoon nap.

Not surprisingly to those who know me well, it’s the evening phone restriction that’s been the hardest change to implement, but it’s forced me to address my phone dependency. I spend too much time on social media, and that’s been partly contributing to my inability to switch off at the end of the evening. And so I’m trying to relax my tendency to keep checking into the online world on a regular basis; I am now questioning my compulsion to respond to every single message. These are the things that prevent me feeling fully present in my off-line (actual) life, and contribute to my difficulty relaxing in weekends and holidays.

It’s been a few weeks since I started implementing these changes – some days I do better than others – and I’m already starting to feel better. It’s a long road ahead to fully heal my energy – there is no quick fix for adrenal fatigue – and I need to be patient with the process. However if I don’t spend the time now restoring my health, I’ll crash again in the future, and then I can’t do what my soul came here to do. My body is, after all, a home for my soul. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

The message my body has been sending me (that I've been ignoring)

I'm not very good at being sick (who is?). I rail at the unfairness of not being able to follow through with my plans, trying desperately to convince my body it's fine, silently seething at the sick people who probably infected me (damn you, coughing man on the bus!). Since I'm self-employed I lose money for every day I don't work, so I can't help but panic about the hit to my income... which only magnifies the unrest within my body instead of promoting rest (so helpful). It's a shitty situation, and yet, a very necessary one.

Recently I was struck down by a sinus infection that morphed into a chest infection. I was confined to bed for almost three days, too weak and feverish to move. And I was miserable. 

When situations like this happen - which is very rare for me as my immune system is really robust - it's difficult to remind myself that being sick is NORMAL. There is nothing wrong with me. My body has not shut down because it's broken, it has shut down because it wants to be stronger... and for that to happen, it needs to rest and rejuvenate. That quote 'almost everything works best if you turn it off and turn it on again' is pretty on point when it comes to colds and flus. 

But because we live in a 'go go go' culture, resting is frowned upon. We try to 'soldier on' instead of giving our bodies what they actually need - rest, and acceptance of our present circumstances. Our to-do list seems so much more important than our health (even though, without our health, we can't do anything). Then we wonder why we feel wiped out and then get sick again later.

Why is it so hard for us to listen to our bodies?

We also have a tendency to talk ourselves into being sick... not ideal. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone in the office declare: 'I think I'm getting sick' or 'there's something going around - everyone's getting sick' I'd be a very rich woman. When we talk or think about illness as an inevitability - even in jest - the body responds by winding down our defences. The body, after all, is programmed to respond to messages from the brain. I am not saying our thoughts *make* us sick, obviously, but we do have the power to significantly increase the likelihood that we'll fall prey to bacteria and viruses with the messages we send our bodies. I regularly say to myself 'I have great health' and 'my immune system is strong'. This doesn't mean I never get sick (clearly) but it does mean my defences are higher. Which means that when I do come down with something, my body is really in need of rest.

The truth is, my body had been telling me for weeks that it needed a break. (I have a holiday booked in very soon... but, unfortunately, not soon enough.) When I refused to listen to its pleas for relaxation, it forced me to listen. Will I never learn?

I have a lot of work to do in this area. I say yes to things that I know I don't have time for. I limit my sleep so I can fit more work in. I know I'm not the only one who does this. We are all writing cheques that our bodies can't cash. I'm reminded of the Dalai Lama's response when he was asked what surprises him most about humanity: 'Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.'

It's very clear to me that I need to break that cycle. 

Angels 101: how to talk to your angels

The most common question I get asked after mentioning my work with angels is: “Do I have guardian angels?” The second question is: “Can I talk to them?”

The answer to both questions is yes. Which is fantastic, because it means we are never alone (yay). It also means we can access wisdom and knowledge to guide us through any challenge.

No matter who you are, what choices you’ve made or what your spiritual beliefs are, you have guardian angels assigned to you. Their job is to give you guidance and help you find peace in your life. BUT they can’t help you unless you ask them to. That’s because we all have free will – in other words, the right to make our own life choices. The angels can’t violate that (unless, of course, your life is in danger, and it’s not your time to pass on), so if you need help with something, you have to actually ask them.

So how do you speak to your angels? 

Some people choose to pray or meditate, but you don’t *have* to communicate in a formal way – you just need to express what is on your mind. You don’t even need to speak out loud – I often chat to my angels in my head.

Sometimes people think they shouldn’t bother their angels with requests that seem trivial. But your angels are there to help you – that’s their job. There’s really nothing too small or too big for them to tackle.

As well as your own guardian angels, there’s also an angel squad waiting in the wings (pun intended) to deal with specific sitches you might be facing. They have the power to help everyone at the same time, so don’t fear that you are taking them away from a more important task. Try talking to:

Archangel Raphael

He’s in charge of healing, so call upon him for physical or emotional health concerns. When you ask for his help, visualise emerald green light (that’s his colour) surrounding the part of your body or the situation that you want healed. BTW if you find the problem isn’t alleviated after calling on Raphael, that could be because it’s the symptom of a deeper emotional problem you need to address – for example, digestion problems are often to do with fears and stress; lower back is about financial stress (not feeling supported). 

Raphael is also associated with travel, so you can ask him to protect and guide your plane and aircrew, for example, when you’re on vacation. Whenever I’m driving long distances, I ask him to help me and the other drivers on the road to make good decisions.

Archangel Gabriel

This is the archangel associated with creativity and motivation. I ask Gabriel for help when I have writers’ block (for example, when I need a brilliant blog post idea!) and when I lack motivation to complete a task. Maybe you need inspiration for your son’s birthday cake. Maybe you’ve got an essay to write. Whatever your project, Gabriel’s your go-to angel.

Parking angels

Yep, there are angels to help you find carparks! You might wonder why angels would be interested in helping you with something so mundane, but remember that the angels’ job is to help you find peace. If someone could reserve a perfect carpark for you when you go out, wouldn’t that make your life more peaceful? Yes, yes it would. A warning: you do need to call upon the parking angels BEFORE you reach your destination (and ideally before you leave home), so they have time to make a space for you.

Archangel Michael

As the patron saint of police officers and emergency-service workers, Michael is associated with protection and security. I call upon him when I’m feeling physically vulnerable, such as if I’m home alone at night and fearing for my physical safety. I also regularly ask him to protect my home and possessions – especially if I’ve got cause for concern (such as when we had people coming through for an open home). He’s also associated with courage and strength, so I ask him to shore up my reserves of those on the reg.

Romance angels

They can help you find love, or enhance your romantic relationship. Call on them to manifest a meeting with your soulmate, help you strengthen your relationship or provide clarity about whether your partnership is serving you.

If you are single, keep in mind that asking the romance angels for help manifesting a new relationship does not mean Ryan Gosling is going to knock on your door tomorrow (soz!). Because relationships are such a fundamental part of the way we learn and grow as humans, there is often work we need to do to prepare ourselves for healthy relationships. In other words: results may not be instant. So if you have been asking the Universe for some time to bring your soulmate into your life and are feeling disappointed, it might be time to switch your strategy from asking for help to one of actively taking charge of the situation. This doesn’t mean you have to get ‘out there’ more, it means you need to look at what might be going on in your subconscious that’s blocking you from what you are trying to attract. If you’re constantly attracting partners who are not respectful or emotionally available, for example, that’s a sign you’ve got some healing to do before you’ll be able to attract the right partner. Read more about that here.

I know I’ve gone off on a tangent here, but I wanted to make it clear that – no matter what some spiritual people say – manifesting healthy relationships isn’t as simple as putting in an order and just remaining positive. If you ask for their help, the romance angels will work with you, but you’ll have to leave the timing up to them – and meet them halfway in terms of making sure you’re really, truly, ready for a healthy partnership. Above all, do not give up hope. There is always hope.

Read more about how we can inadvertently block ourselves from achieving our goals here.

The takeaway message:

Talk to your angels whenever you need help, and trust their answers. They can help you make better decisions and move forward in the direction of your dreams. Connecting with your angels is easy and incredibly reassuring. A good time to start that?  Yesterday. The second-best time? Today. 

Why being lonely is so dangerous

There’s a fairly well-to-do woman in her early 60s living underneath me, who keeps ‘accidentally running into me’ when I exit the lift. Her favourite thing to do when she pounces is to run through an ever-changing litany of complaints, which may include: the way the man living on the level above me waters his plants (too overflowy!), the jazz music the pub down the street plays on Sunday afternoons (too jazzy!), a water pipe between my unit and hers (God knows what her issue is with that – it’s not even leaking). Eventually I figured out her complaints are not borne of dissatisfaction but a more powerful and very dangerous emotion – loneliness.

Research shows that loneliness is as ruinous to your health as smoking. It raises your blood pressure and cholesterol, suppresses your immunity (making you vulnerable to disease) and increases your risk of heart disease, because your body is under constant stress. 

It’s estimated that more than 40 per cent of us will feel the pang of loneliness at some point. And being in a long-term relationship is no protection – research shows that more than 60 per cent of lonely people are married. I can’t imagine the misery of being in a relationship with someone you feel disconnected from.

The common thread that underpins loneliness is a lack of connection. That might be geographic – moving to a city far away from your loved ones, for example – or it might be emotion driven – feeling like your friends don’t understand you, or that everyone around you is having different experiences to you (such as having children when you’re unable to). 

For me personally, the threat of loneliness has always been far more damaging than the emotion itself. Being an introvert, I’m actually pretty content with solitude. But the idea that having only myself for company could be enforced rather than a choice has, at times, gripped me with terror. This has resulted in some poor choices – going out on dates with men who bore me, remaining friends with people who I have nothing in common with, to name two.

This fear is not as strong for me now because as I’ve grown older I’ve come to understand that being alone does not equate to being lonely. And at an age where most people’s social networks are reducing as they focus more on their family units, I’ve made a conscious effort to expand my circles of friends, because I’ve realised how much these connections add to my life. This includes volunteer work at retirement homes, joining a social club and, yes, this blog – which has made me realise I have a great deal in common with a great deal of people. I think, too, that becoming more comfortable with being myself has helped me connect with people on a deeper level while also developing an awareness that isolation is really an illusion. 

For all these reasons I don’t give my whingeing neighbour the brush-off, although I can’t say spending time with her is a joy. And I’m not sure that me feigning interest in her chatter out of a sense of obligation is beneficial to her. But I try to keep in mind that loneliness is a miserable emotion and it can make us do unhealthy and unhelpful things – like complain (which tends to repel people). I can only hope that having some understanding of the mechanics of loneliness will help me to be more proactive about taking steps to prevent it when I get to her age and beyond.

We have insurance for fire and theft, but how do we insure against emotional crises?

I am insured for all sorts of disastrous events that are highly unlikely to happen – touch wood! – but no one is offering me insurance against the sorts of things that are actually likely to derail me throughout my life. There’s a good reason for that – any company offering insurance against heartbreak, friendship breakdowns, career crises and cripplingly low mood would go bankrupt. But as I went through the process of assessing my insurance arrangements recently, I started thinking about whether I’m doing enough to insure myself against the highly damaging events that we’re all subject to, at one point or another. A sort of emotional insurance, I guess. Obviously nothing can prevent tough times, but there are lots of ways we can minimise the damage, and bounce back more quickly.

Here are a few of the things I came up with. Some of these I am already doing, others I need to make a better effort at.

EXERCISING SELF-CARE

For some reason, we tend to be great at looking after other people and really crap at looking after ourselves – women, especially. I’m certainly not going to hold myself up as a model of good behaviour. I know how important it is to eat well, drink plenty of water and get enough exercise and sleep, and although I fall down in one or more of these areas at times, I think I’m doing a pretty good job overall. I don’t practise self-care out of a sense of obligation – unlike the types of people who make a show of eating a salad 'to be good', as if trying to win brownie points with their body – I do it because I know how much better I feel when my body is getting what it needs. If I feel like a chocolate bar I’m going to eat a chocolate bar, and not feel guilty about it – self-care is not a slavish devotion to healthy living. 

SETTING GOALS

Choosing something to aim for – running a marathon, setting a savings goal, shooting for a work promotion – does a lot to enhance your emotional health. Firstly, it lifts you out of a sense of feeling stuck and dissatisfied with your life. Secondly, backing yourself to strive for something reinforces your sense of self-worth. And finally, the sense of satisfaction from achieving a goal further boosts your self-esteem. Having healthy self-esteem is a big, big deal – it means you’re better able to weather difficult times and more likely to form healthy, nourishing relationships. 

COMMITTING TO DAILY MEDITATION

Look, I know I talk about meditation a lot, but honestly, it is the best tool I have in my arsenal for staying calm and focused. That doesn’t mean I don’t lose my shit sometimes, but it does mean my emotional baseline is higher – I can return to a calm centre more easily, and from there my intuition is more accessible. Deepak Chopra says that meditation isn’t about making your mind be quiet, it’s about tapping into the quiet that is already within you. I love that.

CONNECTING

This is a big one for me, because I’m introverted and have a tendency to isolate myself. For the most part that is not a problem, however, if I become totally reclusive that’s unhealthy. Why? Because it’s our relationships to others that give our lives meaning. Spending time with people we love is consistently rated as one of life’s most enriching experiences. And no, connecting on social media doesn’t count.

Connecting to your community, too, is hugely beneficial for your emotional health, through volunteering, joining groups and attending local events. This is an important way to protect yourself against feeling isolated and lonely.

PRACTISING GRATITUDE

Another thing I bang on about – for good reason. Across the board in positive psychology research, gratitude is consistently associated with happiness. Reflecting on what’s great in your life, instead of what you perceive to be wrong, in a sincere way – not a vapid "beyond blessed" way, a la celebs on Instagram – will always bring you back to a state of contentment. If you’re aware of how wonderful your life truly is, you’ll treat yourself better, will make better choices and you’ll commit to overcoming obstacles with a greater sense of resolve. I have no research to prove this, I just know that this is true. Kinda makes sense, if you think about it. 

The best part: there are no pricey premiums on this insurance policy, and the payoff is readily accessible.