A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post called “Running A Photography Business While Crashing.” I wrote it in the very MIDST, the very EYE of the perfect storm I was in. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had adrenal fatigue. And although I didn’t fully understand everything that was going on, I knew I was stumbling in the right direction. I was learning a lot and was hoping and praying that the decisions I was choosing to make would turn out well in the end.

Since that time, I have learned a lot more about adrenal fatigue and a lot of progress has been made.

I don’t say, “I have made a lot of progress” because my role in this journey has mostly been passive. And that was intentional on my part! I knew that if I tried to heal myself, I would stay stuck in the rut of overwhelm and stress that I was in.

But nonetheless, here I am, not fully healed yet, but much closer to healed than I was before.

I just wanted to update you on the journey I am on! What things are working? How are things going?

Since getting diagnosed with adrenal fatigue by my doctor and ADHD, my whole life has made a whole lot more sense. I have been diving deep into trying to understand both, and I think I am starting to understand more and more and am starting to see some good fruit… or at least some confirmations that I am headed in the right direction. 🙂

ADRENAL FATIGUE:

When I started learning about how to heal adrenal fatigue, a lot of the things I was learning had to do with consistently nourishing myself. Going to bed on time, making sure I ate within an hour of waking up, making sure my body received three nourishing meals a day, making sure my body stayed hydrated, etc. All of these things keep the adrenals from getting stressed out about its nourishment. Stress is not good for the adrenals. From what I understand, when the adrenals are is properly nourished on time like clockwork, they don’t have to stress out about not getting the nutrients and minerals they need, or worse, starving to death. They are more able to relax and do their thing.

When I learned all this, I pretty much had absolutely no form of consistency like this in my life. Yes, I was eating and drinking and sleeping, but was there a pattern to it? Absolutely not. Was I eating *enough*? Drinking *enough*?

No. XD

One might think that I immediately set to work on fixing that.

No, not really, actually, and that was on purpose.

I intentionally gave myself grace.

Healing from adrenal fatigue can be a long process I have heard. It can sometimes take up to a year or so of consistent investment into your health to see real transformation, so there will be time to give myself grace. I didn’t want to further burn out my adrenals by stressing out about healing them. I wanted to naturally lean into rhythms instead of chasing them down and exerting a lot of energy into implementing them.

With consistent nourishment in the forefront of my mind, I have been slowly seeing more of that come into my life. I haven’t had to chase it. There has been no need to stress about it or beat myself up for not immediately measuring up to that new standard for myself. I welcomed the value of nourishment into my life, and consequently, nourishment has been showing up in my life more and more. That has been probably the most beautiful part about this whole process.

S L E E P :

One of the areas in my life where I have been giving myself the most grace is in the area of sleep. I kid you not, for awhile when I didn’t get between 13-15 hours of sleep every night, (yes, you read that right!) I felt like I was going to faint or have an anxiety attack or be depressed or become completely paralyzed with overwhelm. A lot of times I was still going to bed between 10-12 pm, so it’s not like I was going to bed at 5 a.m. and needing 15 hours of sleep after that. (Which is very understandable.)

At first, even the simple fact that I literally needed that much sleep and could not function without it drove me crazy and produced so much anxiety. If you read my last post, you know that I used to define my worth by my productivity. With such a few amount of waking hours to be productive in, even if I was working the entire time I was awake (which was difficult because I lacked so much energy too!) I wasn’t being that productive! At first, I hardly knew how to live with myself. It was hard.

But over time I became convinced that my body knew what it was doing and was trying to help me to heal.

Once I embraced that, I let it do its thing. I have truly had to learn to “trust the process” because I had never once even heard of someone needing that much sleep let alone it being a good thing for them in their healing process. Instead, I had always thought that that was lazy and if I ever snoozed or slept in til breakfast, I would condemn myself as a lazy sinner. I have had a lot of re-wiring to do in my brain and my beliefs.

Since then I have read a lot of stuff online about how when you’re healing from trauma and/or a lot of stress, your body needs a *ton* of sleep, and you may feel extra tired for years even, perhaps. Especially if you have been chronically stressed your whole life.

Think of it! You have years of rest and relaxation to catch up on. Your body keeps the score and you do have to pay back at some point. It has taken me several months to transform my ability to fully believe that this is the right choice for me deep down, but I am now loving catching up on sleep and am so grateful for the opportunity I have in this season of life to be able to catch up on all that rest that my body needs and deserves!

I used to feel like even if I was able to wake up before noon, what would be the point? I lacked motivation and energy to do anything with that extra time I would have. But now, I am starting to desire to have more time in the day so I can do all the fun and exciting things I get to do and just be the person that I am! AND, you may be happy to learn, I am starting to feel that I don’t need as much sleep anymore. Recently I naturally woke up a couple hours earlier than I usually do and was able to continue on to have a normal day. I am still letting my body get as much sleep as it wants in this season, but I am seeing very exciting progress and I am so thrilled and grateful.

At the same time, I am not rushing this progress. I want it to come on its own so it stays on its own.

WHAT SUNLIGHT HAS DONE FOR ME:

I knew sunlight was good but if I’m being honest, I was also kind of triggered by the suggestion of it… for reasons I don’t need to get into. XD So it took awhile for me to start. But not even I was expecting the results I would get. When I go outside first thing after getting dressed now, I have noticed a huge difference around bedtime, ironically.

I used to struggle big time with going to bed. As soon as Ian’s head hit the pillow, he would be out like a light bulb, meanwhile I would have caught my second wind. Haha. I would feel like kicking and jumping around and yelling at the top of my lungs or crying over nothing all of a sudden or, like tonight actually, getting up and writing an entire blog post. Has that ever happened to you?

Well, I have now noticed that every day that I go on a nice walk first thing after I wake up, I don’t experience that weird phenomenon as intensely. And every day that I neglect my daily walk first thing, I have those symptoms return again with fierce vengeance.

ELECTROLYTES – YIKES:

I stumbled upon this by accident when I randomly purchased some electrolytes from Azure and put them in absolutely every single drink of water that I drank that month simply because they tasted so good. Ironically, that month, my period was utterly flawless and pain-free. 🤔🤔 I continued it the next month with the exact same results. Well you better believe I bought some more and now drink it with every glass of water I consume. (I now get this kind because it is cheaper and works awesome.)

So……….

Imagine my surprise and when a friend of mine informed me that, in laymen’s terms, adrenals mainly “run off of” electrolytes and vitamin C.

WHAT?!!

Ok, so that’s why adrenal cocktails are water, salt, and orange juice! And also why people with adrenal dysfunction usually seem to need a lot more salt on their food than regular people. 👌

Makes sense. Wow.

S A U E R K R A U T :

That same friend also informed me that sauerkraut is extremely high in vitamin C and is one of the best foods you can eat for the adrenals. Even just a couple spoonfuls a day. Well I already loved sauerkraut so this was extra motivation to eat it all the time. My goal is to eat it several times a week for at least a year or until my adrenal fatigue goes away 🙂

THE EFFECT OF GIVING MYSELF GRACE –

It’s not just my energy levels and being able to sleep less. In general, I feel so much better than I did just a few months ago. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. A couple of months ago, I would feel like it was a *really* good day if I was able to brush my teeth and do the dishes in the same day. Now I am waking up earlier, brushing my teeth out of habit, not having to think about doing the dishes all the time – just finding myself doing them, and falling into more and rhythms just naturally without trying to that are feeding into a virtuous cycle of more healing and growth. Oh, and my hair is growing back.

I attribute this success mostly to just giving myself grace. Which has been really hard for me to do.

Even now, currently, I’m not sure that 100% of myself is able to give 100% of myself grace. In fact, a lot of times I feel like there’s only just a small and stubborn little me inside of me that is standing up to the bigger and mightier me. It has to tell the bigger and mightier me that it believes that this path I have chosen for myself is the right one. This little me has to keep saying that even when the rest of me feels like a failure and my big and mighty expectations are not being lived up to, I’m disappointing others, I’m not perfectly fulfilling my duties, and I’m feeling extremely discouraged at my slow progress.

But that little part of me keeps telling myself over and over again that it’s OK for me to not have my act together or even be functioning well yet. In fact, it’s the smartest strategy for reaching peak performance as soon as possible. That little stubborn part of me keeps holding space for myself when others are pressuring me to just “get it together” or just “snap out of it,” or “try harder to get better” which has probably been the hardest part of this journey.

For Pete’s sake, I have adrenal fatigue. I am fatigued for a reason. Trying harder will only make me more fatigued. That’s what I’m trying to heal!

Rachelle, a Christian Emotional Release Coach that I met on Instagram had something really powerful about this to say, I thought, so I want to quote her. She said,

“The nervous system heals in slowness. That means the more you try to rush your healing, the longer it will take. If you embrace the process and you embrace rest and do hobbies that help you slow down, it will speed up. Slow down to speed up.”

I sat Ian down and had a vulnerable conversation with him about how I feel, what my needs, limitations, and weaknesses are, how much I want to be there for him in every way he needs me, how I believe that this is the most effective way to approach that goal long term, and how he can help and support me. That way there are less people that I feel like my little me inside of me has to stand up to and hold space against. In fact, Ian can actually help support little me inside of me and be an extra voice that is gentle with me in this process and holds space for me to make progress the way my body needs to. He has been very kind.

I trust the body God fearfully and wonderfully designed and gave to me. I trust that it is seeking to heal, and if I gave it the space and nourishment it needs, it will.

And it is. 🙂