It’s confession time. I ran out of spoons on Wednesday. Something I haven’t done for a while. I am usually far better at managing them. On Wednesday I wasn’t.
So, I didn’t publish a blog Wednesday or play catch up yesterday. To be honest I’m struggling not to feel to guilty about that. You see I normally publish a blog every Wednesday and I hate not doing something I’ve promised to do. Even if that promise is one that I made to myself.
It wasn’t laziness. There was no lack of commitment or motivation. The reason was simple. I ran out of spoons* and I couldn’t get it done. Yesterday was better: however, I forced myself to listen to my body and didn’t do the work then either.
* some of you may not be familiar with the concept of “spoons” so forgive me while I digress and explain ….
When someone suffers from a Chronic Illness they often use “spoons” to quantify the amount of energy they have each day. For me my usual starting point is 50 spoons. As I work I use up spoons.
Washing up – 10 spoons.
Shower – 8 spoons.
Bath – 5 spoons (less spoons as I’m sitting down!)
Walk downstairs – 2 spoons.
Walk upstairs – 3 spoons.
As you can see my stash soon disappears.
Luckily as I work from home I can take time out during the day. If I have a siesta in the afternoon I will add a few to the reserve to help me through the evening.
When the spoons have COMPLETELY run out there is NO pushing through to get the work done: you cannot go in to minus-spoons. When they are gone THEY ARE GONE.
In fact I like to end of the day with a few in reserve. This means I have managed my energy well and I am not completely exhausted. The more spoons I have when I go to bed the better I sleep.
The last few weeks I have been going to bed on fewer spoons than I feel comfortable with. I can do that for a little while, especially if my siesta is high quality. However, I now listen to my body and if I’m about to hit rock bottom I STOP.
That’s what happened on Wednesday. Andrew and I had gone to out to lunch with some friends of ours. I didn’t have a proper siesta: more of a snoozet in front of the TV post a good lunch with a glass of wine.
I then had a lovely long Zoom call with Sarah Chamberlin about the magazine and how we could work together in the future. I’d kept enough spoons in reserve to MAKE this call happen. We’d been saying “we MUST talk” since early April and this was OUR TIME! Nothing, not even a very good lunch was going to stop me.
It was gone 8:30pm by the time I went downstairs to join Andrew and the pups for a light supper and some R&R. I was feeling great: on a buzz from such a brilliant call.
I KNEW I had enough spoons to publish the blog just before I went to bed. Especially as the chillaxing for a couple of hours will give me an extra spoon or two.
Bedtime arrived and went into the office to complete the 10 minutes of work I needed to do to publish the blog. Unfortunately, when I opened WordPress I realised it wasn’t as complete as I had thought. The days when I had planned to work on it had vanished as I supported local friends who were going through a touch time.
In my mind all I had to do was press “publish”. The reality was very different. I looked at the amount of work I still needed to do. A quick assessment of the spoons I really had left told me what I feared. The buzz from my enjoyable call had masked how many spoons I actually had. There was NO WAY I could work for another 10 minutes let alone another hour.
So, I didn’t publish a blog on Wednesday.
I also didn’t publish the blog yesterday today as I played catch up. Instead I have posted a completely different one today. And do you know what, I am absolutely fine with that.
Spoons may not be a feature in many people’s #CanbaceLife: however, some of you may know people suffering from a chronic illness and this blog may help you understand their situation a little better. You can read more about spoons here.
My Chronic Fatigue is caused my endometriosis, which is turn has caused Chronic back pain. Which , you guessed it, also causes Chronic Fatigue. You can read about why Endometriosis isn’t simply bad period pain here.
Has the blog I didn’t publish on Wednesday vanished completely?
No!
I will finish it over the next couple of days ready for publishing NEXT Wednesday. A week late I know: however, it’s taken me a long time to learn to listen to my body and I’m not going to unlearn that lesson now.
Be kind to yourself …
In CANBACE friendship!
If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website, please let me know. I will keep your words private.
Sue Johnston
Hi Nicci…. when I first “met” you, I think I was blogging at least once a week. Then I bumped up my game and got to blogging 3 times a week. I was really inspired with your 30 day blogging challenge and I thought to myself, WOW… I should do that. But then I ran out of all my spoons. I was borrowing spoons from friends and family and depleting their spoon supply too, realizing that I was pulling people I love down a bit too. So, I listened to myself (and family and friends) and have given myself a long blogging break. I’m still not sure I have given back all the spoons I’ve borrowed from others, so I’m not ready to start blogging again just yet. But when I do, I will make sure to ration my spoons much more carefully. Love the analogy and I hope you continue to be kind to yourself. Love you, my dear friend.
Nicci Fletcher
Thank you Sue. The 30 day blogging challenge was, well exactly that, a challenge. I knew I could sustain it for those 30 days and then settle down into something a little more realistic. The last few weeks were manic again because of the magazine, WCW and a webinar. It will settle down from no one, especially as Andrew is going to carry on writing a blog or two a month. You’ve also had a very busy time with ArtPrize (which I hope is going incredibly well!) and CTS making typing difficult. So you can only do as much as you can do. As your energy levels rise again you will find the time, energy and “head space” to start blogging again. In the meantime take care my darling friend.
Brandi Lytle
I’m really glad you listened to your body and gave yourself permission to miss a self-imposed deadline. I, too, have been making myself take a step back and focus on self-care. It’s not always easy (as we do feel “guilty” for breaking a promise), but it is absolutely necessary to keep us from breaking more promises if we allow ourselves to hit rock bottom.
Be kind to yourself, Nicci!
Your Canbace Friend…
Nicci Fletcher
Thank you my Canbace Friend x
“Prevention is definitely better than cure”. We need to remember that if we are going to help and support other people that self care must be a priority. I had another day of listening to what my body needed me to do today so apart from a Zoom chat this morning my whole day was about re-charging the batteries. I hope you also had a day of TLC and were kind to yourself too. I’ll be checking up on you over the week 😉