Everyone’s been asking me how I’m doing. And, you know, while I’m doing a lot better, the experience of dealing with both migraines and a broken foot was honestly just a lot. But there were really some amazing takeaways that I’m so much better for. The reality is that when I broke my foot, I was already struggling mentally.
I would be either glued to the couch or exhausted from being up all night with my migraines. My schedule seriously suffered, and even my ability to think of doing activities beyond my house got clouded because I was scared that I would get a migraine while I was out. It was consuming a huge part of my mental space.
In fact, when I broke my foot, which was really funny, I was out with my husband, we were having date day, and it was really exciting because I was trying to get ahead of not feeling defeated, worthless, or worthlessly unproductive. Which was daily (if not hourly) conversation with myself. And actually, I did, in fact, get a migraine that day but was able to like get Tylenol and Advil in time before it was blinding and debilitating.
But then, when I did break my foot, we had just gotten home, and I was running up the stairs at full speed. Since I’m going so fast, my front foot slipped and when I slipped, all my weight went onto my back foot and hit the corner of the stairs. It was just a really bad moment. But the first day, I was, you know, in autopilot mode and really light-hearted.
On the second day, I was starting to feel detached, and I couldn’t help with the baby. I just started to disconnect, and I could feel myself starting to shut off and shut down.
But the second day, I had a full-blown mental breakdown and couldn’t stop sobbing.
My husband would help me and hold space for me and everything, but I was already feeling defeated.
Now here I am, just feeling completely and utterly done. So as this state of stillness became my reality, I went ahead and watched a ton of TV, which is great because I love TV! So it’s a big bonus for sure. But one of the shows that I watched that I highly recommend is “Only Murders In The Building.”
It is so good. And there was this one part where the character played by Tina Fey, she kind of leans in. She’s going to tell everyone some amazing nuggets of wisdom. And she says, “…embrace the mess”. When I heard that, I thought, wow, like that hits extra when you’re actually in the mess, and all you’re trying to do is escape the mess, and all you can think about is the mess, and then it hits you… you have to embrace the mess because you literally ARE the mess.
That’s beautiful. You are a beautiful mess, and your life is a beautiful mess. And you get to embrace that. You get to embrace yourself. You get to embrace the process and the fact that you know what; it’s not an issue anymore. Like, sure, it’s not. Okay, but all right. Okay, like, let’s do this. Let’s walk through the mud that is my life because it’s not going anywhere. That’s what embracing the mess is and does. And that was amazing.
So I made room to enjoy my downtime. I made room to enjoy getting a break from cleaning, the kids, and the up and down of everything; I started coloring, I started reading more, and it even allowed space for like really, really, really deep, deep trauma to just come up.
I have a super transparent and unconditionally loving relationship with my husband (humble brag). It comes from being synchronized in similar values, philosophies, and compatible communication styles. Yet I even got into it with him, and it was a big one, and I cleared the air with him on things that I didn’t realize I had been holding on to that went much, much… much deeper for me and far beyond anything I could even recognize.
And I just let it explode, literally from the root up. It just made me realize how deep the suppression of that trauma was. And ultimately, I embraced myself through the whole process as well as did my husband (thank God). I embrace that I am a mess and that chaos is a beautiful cosmic gift that we all need to learn to embody because we’re all a mess.
But I’m still healing. You’re still healing. And we’ll always be healing together collectively.
So when you’re at your lowest, or even just starting to see the tunnel and where it leads, and it’s getting kind of dark, take a deep breath and embrace the mess because you deserve that. You deserve to give yourself that. You are perfect; you are already perfect.
There’s nothing that needs to change about you. You are experiencing the human experience, which you simply need to accept and embrace. It is only when you do that that you will give yourself some breathing room.
