I still have the mid-afternoon energy dip; I don't have a to-the-minute grasp on it, but I think it hits somewhere between 1:30 and 2:30. If I hit it with some powdered green tea (matcha) I get a boost that renews me, but if I don't either hit the sauce (the stimulant sauce, as it were) or hit the bed--or preferably both--I'm in really bad shape by 4:30. But at least I can move through it. Sort of. (There that is again, "sort of." Can't seem to escape it...)
But the most interesting change is my relationship to my legs. Just changing my consciousness from a consciousness of loss to a consciousness of cooperation has done... something. I'm not sure what, precisely, but I can tell that... things are different.
Here's an interesting data point. Walking around campus is still slow and difficult (possibly because of the temperature, possibly because of my shoes, although I have ordered custom orthotics, that may help--at least that's the plan) but this evening, I've been walking all over the house in my bare feet and it has been really no problem at all. I've come darned close to enjoying it, the standing and walking. Which I don't like at all at school.
It may be something as simple as having come home, sat down, made a cup of tea for myself (today, sencha with a touch of matcha, a friendly and gentle blend), and gave serious intention to doing nothing but coddling myself, if only for a few minutes. Maybe just that gave me a few more "spoons." ... Actually, I'm sure that did an awful lot for me. Maybe it has been the chi-generative breathing and tote renshu that I've been doing the past few days--which I hadn't been doing for too long and for some reason, I just started again, deciding that even if it's the very last thing I do before bed, ten minutes (or however long) of practice is better than zero minutes.
But I think that simply changing my consciousness has done something. Being in a mind of cooperation, and of listening. And of sympathy, and of compassion, directed specifically for the parts of my body whose impairment is (for the lack of a better word) impairing my life with the greatest immediacy.
Compassion for yourself. What a concept. Too bad it took MS to bring me there. An interesting gift, no?
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