Getting a Reality Check in the ER
Talk about a rude wakeup call. Hello, mind? This is your body calling. PAY ATTENTION!
Hello, reality check. We all get them, whether we want them or not. I certainly didn't. Got one anyways.
This was mine. See this photo? That's me last month. Yeah, in the ER. Not a place I normally find myself.
My story is a PSA to SLOW DOWN when life heats up too much. It's not worth burning ourselves out. It's never a pretty picture and I can guarantee you that it rarely comes at a good time.
We're often our harshest critics. Sound familiar? Cut it out.
Yeah, I need to take my own advice. And this one:
Life rarely follows the timetable you set for yourself.
I prefer to schedule my spontaneous moments
So what happened? Things got very hectic and my body decided it had had enough two days before my husband and I were scheduled to leave on a three week trip abroad. If you're anything like me, the days before you go out of town are usually hectic. Not just work-related matters, but more mundane tasks like doing laundry, paying bills, watering the plants, and packing up for the big trip.
It was a crazy week all right, but I didn't expect to be woken up by painful chest compressions, tightness in my back, and difficulty breathing. WTF?! I’ve always been healthy. Exercising every day, eating right. Never spent time in the hospital except to birth a couple of babies. OK, forget about the falls and minor out-patient procedures - they don’t really count. No, this was not good.
Of course, it happened at a very inconvenient time. Yeah, that’s how I think. Potential heart attacks should be scheduled when I have time for them, right? We were leaving in only two days and this. was. not. convenient. I had oodles of things to do. I’m a woman with a LIST.
The body has a mind - and will - of its own
Strangely, the body doesn’t care two whits for the mind’s wants when it’s had just about enough. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t a heart attack. Not even a blood clot, like my surgeon husband suspected. I had no clue or early warning; all I knew was that women experience heart attacks quite differently than men and someone somewhere was trying to tell me something.
So I staggered downstairs out of breath, talked to Alex, and he drove me right to the ER.
After a battery of tests over half a day, the conclusion was … stress. The kind that people like me experience but don’t recognize or pay much attention to if we do. How embarrassing. I land in the ER over stress? I didn't even know I had it. Well, I guess I did, I just blew past it. It wasn't convenient.
Guess some self-reflection is overdue....
I wasn’t going to post about this episode. After all, who wants to admit that your uber-energized, super-productive self was abruptly brought up short? And reminded that we're human, just like everyone else? Sigh. Don’t you just hate being reminded of your limitations?
While I was waiting for the result, I decided to take a photo of me in the ER, just in case I changed my mind about sharing this experience. And now a month or so later (and back from our trip), I have. ‘Cause there are a lot of other people like me who just press on taking care of business, disregarding the warning signals their bodies may be sending. Or possibly like me, refusing to slow down just because we're older. After all, we feel like we can handle as much as we ever did. Hmmm. Maybe we really can't ... (ouch).
It’s hard to think that I may have been brought up short because I’m getting (aacckk!) older. I do what I do regardless of how many years my body has racked up because it’s fun and rewarding. I may ignore that biological number, but my body keeps score. So … I got a wake up call to slow down a bit, because I needed to, like it or not. So what am I going to do differently? Certainly not stop what I enjoy so much, just take things more in stride and at a more leisurely pace.
I’m often asked how and why I went from Corporate to Creative. You may guess that I still have a lot of the corporate can-do, get-it-done mindset in me. It’ll never go away, it’s a good part of who I am. But the creative is the playful, joyful side that balances the corporate and keeps the human happy. And I've realized how much I NEED it. The on-camera and voice acting is so fulfilling and an expression of a side of me that didn’t get much play when I was younger. And as I’ve gotten older, I love sharing what I’ve learned about working in front of the camera and behind the mic to help people in business – my former tribe – become better at it, too. My lesson here is that part of getting better at anything, is perhaps not driving ourselves overly hard in the process.
I see an analogy here. Coming from the world of tech, I’ve always been aware how quickly things change and how we need to keep current to stay relevant. Hey, I started my corporate career “dialing for dollars” and working with printed catalogs to find sales leads and now I use social media, the internet, and all sorts of AI tools to do the same thing. I love it learning, but my goodness, it’s coming faster than ever. Who remembers Lucille Ball’s famous scene with the conveyer belt? If you’re of a certain age, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It's easy to lose control if too much is coming at us at once.
What do you do with your stress?
0%I keep it boxed in, right where it belongs.
0%I let loose - watch out! But I'm so much better afterwards.
This is where I get on my soapbox to distract from my embarrassment
We can’t program ourselves to be faster and faster. We can learn to “work smarter” and use new tools, but we still have a human pace to understand and incorporate it all. And that human side will at one point say … WHOA! Slow down. Work to live, don’t live to work. And enjoy what’s around you. Remember the creative play and don't let the taskmaster destroy you.
I see that message in this fall season. Instead of taking the time to smell the roses (they're all dying now anyways), take the time to stomp the leaves. The really crunchy ones. It's weirdly satisfying. Fall is also the beginning of the wonderful holiday season, which for me means more time with family and friends. It's a lovely balance and the perfect opportunity to step outside of ourselves and appreciate others, nature, and all that life offers. It's also quite the relief to finally be done with the heat and humidity of summer, which if you know anything about Atlanta, can be rather oppressive.
So I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing, but reset to a more balanced mindset. Everything in its time, and if I have to slow down due to an overload of stress or a seasonal cough, so be it. Nothing wrong with stepping away from time to time to walk outside, take in the cooler, crisper air, and find some extra dry leaves that need stomping.
See ya on the nature trail. And happy upcoming holidays. ☺️
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I'm Laura Doman, a voice & TV/film actor and video communications coach. As an actor, I create memorable characters that tell my client's stories well, from the friendly CEO to your sassy best gal pal dispensing real-world advice. As a coach, I help you become more comfortable and charismatic on camera in videos, presentations, and online appearances.
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