A Shannon Retreat

After I got the all clear to workout again I thought, I'm getting back into dance. I took a contemporary jazz class and for lack of a better word...sucked. All that I could do, and what I thought my body was still capable of is gone. I remember once my ballet teacher saying, "If you miss one ballet class, it takes one week to make-up the loss of skill and conditioning you missed." So, what does it say if it has been about 5 years since I really danced last?! I leave that up to you math people to figure it out. Basically, I'm so out of it. Half way through the class we were doing turns across the floor, and after one turn, I was so dizzy I couldn't even find my spot. Then at the end, the teacher turned off the lights except for a red flood light and I was so dizzy again, I almost bit it during the combination. I asked the other girls afterward if the light made them dizzy and they looked at me like I was crazy. I was also having trouble "focusing" at night when I was driving, so I thought I'd get it checked out.

The doctor diagnosed me with Benign Positional Vertigo. Something he said gets worse with stress and lack of sleep (thank you newborn baby and 3 year-old, this will not go away any time soon). It's supposed to correct itself, but he said it could be days, months or years. (Way to narrow it down for me.) So, my progress test has been, when I feel I'm doing better I try to do turns in my house. The last time I did, I was nauseous for over an hour. I'm going to the chiropractor on Monday to see if he can help, otherwise I may need to try physical therapy.

All this to say - I think my body is trying to deal with things that my mind and my heart are ignoring. When I was younger (high school/college) I would feel EVERYTHING. Be-it-as-it-may, I'm sure hormones played a lot into it, but I was so in tune with how I felt, and honestly, I had opinions about things. I feel like since I was 22, I have had a hard time feeling emotions. Don't get me wrong, I'm a sap. I'll cry at commercials and movies. I'm extremely good at getting lost in stories and feeling what the characters are going through, but for some reason, I can't feel what I'm going through. My body is dealing with things because either I don't know how, or I'm ignoring it. I just feel numb to life sometimes. I feel joy often because I'm blessed with a great family and wonderful community, but loss, grief, frustration, anger, sadness, confusion, stress, anxiety...all things I should be feeling...I don't. How do I get back to the place where I can really feel again? Is it because I have no time to process - maybe that's it. I'm never alone to be with me and my thoughts. I think I need a Shannon retreat.