Last week, while visiting my Mum in Hungary, I had to spend a few days in a hospital in emergency. I was in horrible pain and after a short visit at the emergency station I was immediately hospitalized. Instead of a nice dinner, I found myself in a hospital bed with 4 bags of IV dangling above me.
The thing is, I am rarely very sick, normally I don’t take any medicaments on a regular basis and I’ve never been to hospital (except for 1 night in India, but that’s a different story). No surgeries ever, either. So, it was a whole new experience for me.
We are talking about a public hospital in a small town in Hungary, a 5-bed ward, no TV, no radio, and some nurses, who might’ve been trained by the military.
What I found most disturbing was how slow time passed by. You know, I can perfectly lazy-around an afternoon or binge-watch Netflix for hours. And yes, I had my iPhone and Kindle with me. And normally I'm never bored.
But this was a totally different level. It felt like a time-warp.
These few days provided me with some new insights and reminded me of a few others:
Laughter heals
We were all ill – some more than some other. One recovering from a severe tumor surgery. Yet, we laughed a lot. We called our room the “Ladies’ Sundeck” and we greeted every visitor with that. The IVs were re-named to our favourite cocktails or drinks, with the evening service as Happy Hour. Once we laughed so hard, that a nurse came in to check on us.
You can learn from everyone
My roommates varied from cleaning girl to slaughter-house worker, hairdresser, and shop-assistant. We had deep conversations, shared life experiences. You think you have a tough life? Boy, I heard those life stories. And did you know the process, how half-cut pigs are inspected, one by one, before being processed for consumption?
You get help
That’s a big one for me. I don’t like to ask for help. But there we were, each of us needed help one way or other. Fetching water, help with walking, calling for the nurse, just to name a few. It was heart-warming to see, how we supported and helped each-other with all kinds of different things, how much help I also got from these total strangers.
There are good things in bad things
I just started to work on launching my signature program in September again. I felt overstressed and impatient, it caused me a week’s delay in my work. I was forced to rest, instead. There was nothing else to do than to read, to talk, or to sleep. Boy, I slept a lot. Despite all noises, talks, machines peeping, nurses busying – I slept more than on holiday. Lots of rest, that I badly needed.
The value of a healthy body
Illnesses force us to turn our focus back to ourselves. We tend to neglect our own needs. This episode reminded me again, we can only give when our own basket is full. We do need to take the time and effort to nurture ourselves – both body and mind. These few days helped me to be more grounded, more centered again. In a way, I am thankful for this experience.
What are your experiences with involuntary breaks?
My recent reading
As I was not up to reading about business or anything serious, I needed entertainment, beauty, spirit. So here are two interesting books I read and can highly recommend:
1. An award-winning, wonderfully written fiction, almost poetry by a Greek author: The Colour of The Moon
2. A collection of intriguing short stories about women, but still very different: “Roar”
And finally, a coaching moment - let me challenge you with a few deep questions:
· What do you do for your physical and mental health? How do you take care of yourself?
· What is the one thing you could do more of or start today, in that direction?
· And my recent favourite that my clients love: If you knew for sure you have 3 more lives, what profession would you choose, other than your current one, based on your life experiences so far? Pick one, and describe what your typical day would be. Be exact, go into details.
Have fun :)
Want to share your answeres with me? Write me, I am curious!
Take care, stay awesome
Eva
ps: If you are on job-search, looking for a change or returning after a career-break, my 5-day workshop "Boost Your JobSearch" with new, updated content, will be run again, soon. Stay tuned!