“We fall ill in ways that are profoundly influenced by our past experiences and expectations,
and the same can be said of our paths to recovery.”
I had covid in April 2020, before testing began and so diagnosed by my symptoms using the zoe app along side confirmation from a friend working in the Intensive Care Unit in a north London hospital. It was the covid toes that were the significant symptom as well the persistent headache, diarrhoea, sore throat and chest pain. What I wasn’t expecting was the post viral fatigue, which came with joint pain, reappearance of covid toes, occasional chest pain and heart palpitations. Some of these symptoms align with perimenopause and that line is blurred, but just as I had been supporting my menopause transition through yoga, I was grateful for my practice and the awareness I had of my body and what it was asking for to aid recovery. I was in a privileged position to be able to take the time to incorporate pacing, deep rest, breath work, integrate techniques to improve my vagal tone, use anti-histamines when needed and give myself time for convalescence.
In October 2020, a neighbour who had been coming to my adult classes regularly before lock down, got in touch. She had long covid and asked if I could help support her recovery. With her many years of a yoga practice she was acutely aware of what had changed for her post virus. We began weekly sessions, guided by how she was feeling on the day, mainly lying down and working through breathing, restorative yoga, yin yoga and gentle hatha yoga always finishing with relaxation. This led me to begin teaching a long covid class online in January 2021.
Covering deep sleep and gentle yoga classes when needed for Suzy Bolt, my first yoga teacher and co-founder of 360 Mind Body Soul, led onto occasionally covering the yoga aspect of the Rest Repair Recover classes, which support those with long covid. In September 2021, I joined the Fern Programme team. Set up to offer those in recovery, 360 degrees of support, whilst navigating their way back to health after a difficult or prolonged illness. A group programme with a maximum of 12 participants, it has been designed to help participants gently challenge their beliefs around what is possible, support them as they head back to a new normal and create an active peer support group that will be there when they need them. It involves NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) coaching, reconditioning and restorative yoga guided by myself, based on supporting the autonomic nervous system through breathing, gentle movement, deep rest and relaxation to enable healing and recovery.
Two books to recommend to all those beginning on the road to recovery are:
“You’ll come back to yourself,
after this.
You will.
You’ll come back.
It’s hard for you to see that right now,
it’s been so long.
And chances are, you won’t ever be able to imagine
how you can come back.
But you will.
This chapter in your life has changed you,
that much is true,
some of those changes were due.
But the parts of you the world needs are still there,
and it’s vital that you give them air again.
Let them out, in the sun, again.
Come back however you see fit my friend.
Do it your way,
take your own sweet time.
Just come back
”