The last couple weeks, I have been exhausted. Not normal exhaustion. Not maybe I’ll go to bed a little earlier, maybe take a break, maybe drink more water, maybe stop being dramatic. A much deeper kind where it felt like there were fish hooks underneath my eyeballs puling my face towards the earth. My cheeks heavy, my eyes heavy, my body heavy. A feeling that gravity had increased specifically for me. I could feel this pressure dragging me downward.
And for the first time in a very long time, I could not push through it. Usually, I can. Usually, tiredness is something to override. And I am really good at doing it.
Come on, don’t be weak… you can do more.
But now I was sleeping through alarms. Not snoozing them… sleeping through them. Dragging myself out of bed while my body still felt completely unconscious. Zombie walking through the morning while my brain attempted to force my body into participation. There were bags under my eyes. My face looked as miserable as I felt.
Slowly, my body stopped negotiating with me.
I can’t do the dishes.
I can’t walk the dogs.
I can’t go to this meeting.
I can’t.
I can’t.
I can’t.
I was terrified because exhaustion has always been something I believed I could outwork.
Around this same time, my husband and I were supposed to leave for a five-day anniversary trip to the desert. Camping, reading books, watercolor, nature watching, long conversations under the stairs, playing with the dogs. I imagined myself strolling with the sun and feeling deeply alive.
Instead, I slept. Almost the entire trip. I was going to bed before the sun went down, sleeping until nine or ten in the morning–only leaving the camper because the heat forced me out–dragging myself into a chair outside and just staring into the abyss, trying to wake up. I could barely lift my arms to feed myself. I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to read. Eventually I would slink from the chair onto the dirt and fall asleep on the ground. Wake up, move back to the chair, fall asleep again.
Meanwhile, my husband was thriving. Making spearheads, arrows, rock hounding, building sage bundles. LIVING.
It planted a seed of growing guilt within me because I want to do those things. Why is my body betraying me? This is vacation for fuck’s sake. I’m supposed to be enjoying myself. I’m supposed to be doing something, experiencing new things.
Fortunately, my husband is super independent and never once made me feel wrong for resting. He showed no signs of pressure or expectations. He just stated factually, “It looks like your body needs sleep.”
So I kept sleeping. Seventeen hours a day. And while my body rested, my mind spiraled.
Simultaneously, we were working with Bobinsana through our Amazonian plan cohort. It’s a beautiful pink flower whose spirit is linked to the Hummingbird and has the nickname little mermaid. It’s heart energy–playful, fast moving, lightness.
I couldn’t access any of it.
The idea of hummingbird energy honestly felt horrific.
I didn’t do the inner work.
I didn’t journal.
I didn’t meditate.
I didn’t have beautiful revelations.
When our cohort gathered live, everyone shared these expansive experiences and profound epiphanies. I just sat there, exhausted. Jealous. Angry. Feeling left behind, restricted by my own body.
While I did not know it then, underneath all of that frustration, something important was taking shape. Even while emotionally resisting it, I kept choosing the path of my body. I kept listening, despite that I didn’t understand why. That was the hardest part because everyone around me loved me enough to worry.
Are you drinking enough water?
Have you had your bloodwork done?
Are you taking vitamin D?
While none of these questions were wrong, I could feel myself getting pulled into panic. Not only should I not be exhausted, I should also know why I’m exhausted.
Luckily I realized that I had to stop asking the question. I had to surrender to not knowing. To let my body ask for what it needed without forcing it to justify itself first.
And then this morning, as it always happens the moment we stop forcing something…
I got the answer.
I was working out with my trainer doing movements that historically would have pulled almost entirely from my low back, upper back, and neck. Push-ups, leveraged roll-ups and roll-downs with a kettlebell, etc. These were the kinds of movements where I used to compensate instead of connect. For years, those smaller muscles over-functioned because my core wasn’t properly engaged. My back carried what my whole body should have been sharing.
During our session, it clicked.
My core turned on naturally.
My glutes.
My hamstrings.
My quads.
The energy was distributed evenly across my body instead of dumping itself into the same exhausted places. These were the exact muscles that had carried me through years of compensation. Years of pain. Years of my body trying to stabilize itself the only way it knew how.
The old way finally felt unnatural.
Using my neck and low back to dominate the movement no longer felt normal. My body had learned a new pattern. Not intellectually, but physically. We had crossed the threshold.
I had already worked myself out of daily pain, but I had never fully returned to confidence and strength. This was the first moment in a long time that I trusted my body.
Standing there in that moment, feeling this fluidity and connection move through my body, I suddenly understood the exhaustion.
The muscles that had been overworking for years had finally been allowed to rest. Not for an hour or a weekend, but long enough to finally stop gripping. Long enough to trust they were no longer alone.
Of course, I cried.
Low back injuries are often connected emotionally to lack of support, and neck and upper back pain often carry the feeling of holding the weight of the world: responsibility, guilt, hyper-vigilance, over-functioning, carrying what was never fully ours to carry.
Those places in my body had spent years screaming at me. They were exhausted from trying to do everything themselves. The exhaustion wasn’t betrayal though, it was communication. My body was renegotiating labor. The overworked parts finally believed they no longer had to carry everything alone. They didn’t want to dominate anymore. They wanted to become team players.
For maybe the first time ever, I feel connected to my body in a way that is collaborative instead of controlling. In the past couple of weeks there was no forcing, no overriding. Only listening, working together.
I may not be able to lift what I once lifted, but fuck it. That’s not remotely important. This newly established foundation feels real. Stable. Integrated. Sustainable. My body and I are finally speaking the same language, and this–this feels like the beginning of everything.
