At the beginning of April 2019 I traveled to London to stay in my son and his partner’s new house. Previously I had stayed in a hotel as they lived in a small but lovely flat.
I set off from home at 10:30 am and arrived in London at 4:00 pm. Tired and a bit achy from the first train, which was ancient and uncomfortable. The second train was fine as I’d saved up so I could travel 1st class, which I’d never ever done before. It was so much cheaper than the hotel I usually had stayed in that I felt I could afford to look after myself in this respect.
My son met me off the train, and I made my mistake. Oops! I decided I’d be fine going to the next stage by Underground, so we did. My old leg/feet/hip injuries don’t take kindly to walking on hard surfaces. It was a long way to the underground trains. However, I managed it. (I Gupta’d a bit in my head as I went along.)
We picked up my 18 month old granddaughter from her nursery and decided to walk to their house. Adding insult to my old injuries, foolish me.
I managed it even so. Again with the help of the Gupta techniques.
That walk was full of joy, through a couple of parks: so lots of nature, squirrels hopping around, lots of birdsong, ponds with ducks and geese etc. My granddaughter calling out ‘weet weet’ (tweet tweet‘ ’wack wack’ (quack quack) etc. and loving watching it all.
My face was ‘grin’ from ear to ear all that walk.
Their house is lovely, in very quiet neighbourhood and clean air (for a city!) I was really comfy in their spare bedroom. Watching them interact as a family is wonderful, again full of joyful times.
My granddaughter loved my gift of an orange T shirt with dinosaurs on it so much she wore it for at least 4 days!
The next day, however, we all walked to a playground and community centre, and just before we got there the pain hit me. My overconfidence the day before was misplaced as my hips started objecting to more walking on hard surfaces. It wasn’t all that nice and it spread across all of me, as if the fibromyalgia was back in full force. I knew what to do, thanks to my Gupta retraining. So I walked very slowly and gently around the playground singing (in my head) my stop song. I knew they were worried about me, but also knew I was able to deal with it and how to do so. So I did.
If I’d sat on a bench that would have hurt my hip even if it wasn’t already hurting. Lying down might have helped but not on a very cold day on tarmac or damp grass! Once I felt a bit better and most of the pain had fled from my awful (but silent) singing, we set off back to the house. I went upstairs to my bedroom, did a few rounds of my leg exercises, did a Soften and Flow, another round of leg exercises and went back downstairs feeling human again.
So that was the little dippy time. It lasted about an hour from start to finish.
All the rest of my holiday was packed with fun, joyful times with my lovely family, I met some of their friends adults and toddlers and almost got to know my way around their immediate neighbourhood. Especially the playgrounds.
My journey home was good and enjoyable including some lovely chats with people.
Next time I will use taxis or buses and definitely not the Underground! Not too much hard surface walking either.
I hope that will be soon, fitting in with their busy working lives and my dog minding friends’ lives as well.
Wonderfully, amazingly joyful memories.
Margaret Cory
Having been forced to stop working aged 53 due to CFS, I was later diagnosed with Fibromyalgia as well. (With the added challenges of hypersensitivity to chemicals, smells, various foodstuffs, bright light, noise, etc.)
10 years later I found the Gupta Program and started my recovery. Wanting to pay back some small part of what I owe the Gupta Program I later volunteered to be a moderator in the Facebook Gupta Forum.
Lovely, joyful times. I’m so happy for you.