Have you ever had an illness or injury that took you away from your normal life for a few weeks? And if so, did you feel a surge in energy, clarity and productivity at some point during your recovery? For the benefits of this blog, after my recent experience with Covid, I’m calling this phenomenon a post-viral quantum leap.

I had a similar experience during my healing process from a broken ankle back in the autumn of 2019, which you can read here.

As I’m sitting here today (December 2021) after a calm, productive and nourishing ‘CEO day’, I can feel a rush of endorphins – happy hormones – flooding my body as I take action, tune into my desires and values and start planning for 2022.

But first, let’s jump back in time to just over two weeks ago… 

I was feeling fulfilled in my work, happy and excited about Christmas approaching and to seeing my daughter again when she returned home from living abroad for the past 3 months.

In fact, I was so bubbly and excitable that I organised a small dinner party with three friends who I hadn’t seen properly for years (apart from the occasional Waitrose or garden centre chance meeting!). I spent the day cleaning the house, cooking a delicious plant-based curry and getting the lounge all cosy and filled with candles and fresh flowers.

It was a lovely evening and I went to bed feeling beautifully nourished, emotionally and physically. 

By Monday morning, (three days later), I had started to feel achey and cold. I have anaemia so feeling cold isn’t anything unusual for me, but this was different. The kind of cold that makes your bones shiver and hurts your skin when you touch a cold surface. Like sitting on the toilet seat or picking up a metal spoon. By mid-afternoon I was feeling positively feverish and was curled up on the sofa shivering in at least two blankets when my youngest daughter came home from work.

The next two days were a bit of a blur. My temperature soared to 102 degrees multiple times and all I can really remember is either sleeping or making still lemonade with fresh lemons at random times of the day or night! Even in my sickness I knew that the vitamin C was essential to my healing – plus nothing else tasted good! (Except the ONE solitary throat pastille I found at 4am in the kitchen junk drawer!)

Even with a raging fever, I remember having a lightbulb moment which I was clever enough to record in my phone notes!

I realised that the fever was a powerful lesson in letting go of control.

I knew that I couldn’t make myself feel better, so I simply had to let go of trying to create a different outcome.

It was time to sink into the pain and allow the waves of fever to wash over me.

This is a great reminder to all of us, in any challenging situation, not just an illness or injury …

You can’t control what happens to you, but you CAN control how you react to it.

When I tested positive for Covid on Wednesday morning (first on a home lateral flow test and later on a PCR test), it was no surprise. But while many people would be scared or upset by that diagnosis, I was actually very happy!

Why? Because ‘recovery from Covid illness’ gives you a free passport to travel to certain countries without vaccination. Yay to travel in spring 2022!!!

And secondly, and more importantly, a positive test means that my body is naturally creating antibodies to this virus – antibodies that will protect my health and boost my immunity for the long term. As I plan on reaching at least my 100th birthday, I’m very happy about this!

In my mind, I’d already decided Covid wasn’t going to make me really sick.

Apart from right at the very start of the pandemic outbreak in March 2019 when we had no idea what was happening, I’ve been pretty calm and unstressed about the whole thing. Of course, it’s disrupted my life in many ways, the same as it has for everyone.

And so, when I tested positive, I’d made up my mind that after 48 hours of fever, I’d be back to normal pretty quickly with just mild ‘cold like’ symptoms. Never underestimate the power of the mind!

And then I got a funny prickly sensation in my chest…

It was day 4 of symptoms and every time I leant forward I had a really strange prickly sensation in the top of my chest on the left, just below my collar bone and behind my ribs. Fear kicked in. Was Covid damaging my lungs?

As the sensation became more frequent, I got scared. I coughed up a lovely ball of phlegm (sorry!) and made the mistake of hitting Google! I made a GP appointment for the next week just in case. I found the emergency number for the Covid team.  I really managed to work myself up into a little ball of fear and suddenly worried that I had pneumonia and was going to be reallllllly sick!

All the worries and concerns spun around my mind for a few hours. What would my daughters do without me if the worst happened? How long would they be able to stay in this rented house? Would they have to give up the bunnies or the cat? All unwarranted concerns that came from a combination of fever and a fear of the unknown.

Thankfully, the next day the sensation had disappeared, and I hadn’t coughed up anything else! Phew!

Relief washed over me. “I’m still alive!”

Gratitude kicked in.

And a renewed sense of warrior spirit to get myself back to good health.

As my appetite returned a little and my Amazon supplement orders landed on the doorstep, I felt a renewed sense of vitality. I’ve always been passionate about personal health since I was a teenager, and even more so since first taking qualifications in fitness and nutrition at 23. I wasn’t eating much, but I made sure that every meal had a huge handful of lettuce or rocket or cooked broccoli. I made raw soups, more still lemonade, nutrient dense smoothies and ate simple,  home-cooked meals. And I drank so much water!

As one week turned to two (and I developed a cough and a blocked nose), I had to learn another important lesson:

Surrender.

I had to let go of trying to do everything. Of wanting to be in control. Of getting back to my copywriting work quickly. Of being fit and healthy again really fast.

I had to accept I was human.

A pretty awesome, intuitive human, but human nonetheless! #alwayskeepasenseofhumour

I realised that I had to let go of my attachment to being ‘perfect’ when it comes to health. I had to release the belief that I was a failure if I didn’t get well in a matter of days.

And the more I stopped and thought about this, the more I saw the parallels with running my own business. You might resonate with this too…

All too often we take a small action step and then get frustrated when positive results don’t come instantly. As the pattern repeats over and over again, we subconsciously start believing that we’re not good enough. That ‘success’ only happens to other people. That somehow we’re flawed, imperfect, a failure.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

We’re all divine souls having a human experience – and our individual challenges, highs and lows are what make this experience so magical. Even when it feels like life is falling apart. In fact, especially when life feels that way!

Whenever we go through struggles – individually and collectively – we have the opportunity to learn from those experiences and to emerge the other side with heightened awareness, increased resilience and a renewed sense of energy, enthusiasm and vitality.

Which brings me back to those post-viral quantum leaps…

Having an illness that knocked me off track actually blessed me with so many opportunities for growth and energetic healing.

It helped me to see that while some areas of my life felt ‘happy and fulfilling’, there’s actually so much more that I desire to achieve.

Covid kicked me out of my comfort zone, made me face my humanness and catapulted me into a whole new timeline.

I feel blessed with a whole new vision for the future and the clarity and focus to make it happen.

I’m going into December feeling supported…

While I was resting, I took some action steps that will support me to move into 2022 on track to achieve my goals. I ordered a beautiful ‘Mind and Money’ planner, signed up to a 2022 online planning retreat and started making appointments to meet up in person with some of my motivational, inspiring biz besties and dearest friends in January.

But I had to hit another ‘low’ first…

I watched a lot of movies, YouTube videos and house design programmes!

Hours and hours screen time.

And it didn’t take long for me to get stuck in that unproductive, low-vibe cycle where the more screen time you have, the more bored and unproductive you become!

I could literally feel my creativity slipping away.

And just as the sensation in my chest had brought up all kinds of health fears, this negative energy from too much ‘consuming’ brought up all the business and money fears.

What if I don’t get my creativity back? What if I never feel like writing again? What if I don’t get any new clients next month? What if I don’t get my course created and launched? What if, what if, what if?!

As I wrote in an Instagram post recently, thankfully, I know what my body is doing, and I know it’s only temporary. I know how to get out of that cycle and back into creativity mode.

But I remember how long it used to take me to get back in the zone 10 years ago. 

My top tip is to STOP the consuming cycle. There’s no point trying to create magic when you feel this way. Simply STOP consuming. Even if you just sit on the sofa bored, stepping away from the laptop, TV or smartphone is your first priority. Allow yourself some quiet time and see what comes up. 

You might feel drawn to tidy up the kitchen, play silly games with your pet or doodle on a scrap of paper. It really doesn’t matter what you do, the key is that you’re removing yourself from the consuming cycle. 

Spend a couple of days getting lots of sleep, eating healthy food and drinking lots of water. And allow your creativity mojo to slowly slip back into action. 

Before you know it you’ll have sparkly new ideas for 2022 and will enjoy creating things for your business with a renewed energy, focus and clarity.

I’d love to hear about your experiences of illness or injury.

Did you get similar lightbulb moments when you were stuck at home (or in hospital) away from your normal life? Did you feel a post-viral (post-injury) quantum leap? Do you feel as if you’ve jumped a whole timeline energetically? Are you a different person to who you were before illness or injury?

Pop your comments below or send me an email. I love to connect!

With love,

Lorraine xx

Ps. Please note this blog is written for entertainment and inspirational purposes only and is not intended to create debate about treatments for Covid or any related issues. All opinions are my own.