You know how google photos or facebook reminds you of what you were doing in previous years by showing you photos you posted or saved back then? The other day, I saw a photo and knew immediately that it was the photo I took when I ended up in hospital back on the 8 December of 2016.

I went to look on instagram to check if my memory was right and I did post this photo there on that date simply saying ‘Room with a view’ and not saying ‘hospital room with a view’.

Back then, something weird happened with my body. Out of nowhere, I had a pain in my belly. A pain that I recognised from another time, albeit not as intense. It was a pain that came and went in regular cycles. I decided to go to an ER to check it out, I mentioned that at some point I had pancreatitis and this pain felt somewhat similar. They made some blood tests and asked me to go back home and come back a few hours later. I did that and waited for a few more hours in the ER waiting room. When they finally called me in, they told me that my blood tests had been lost and they had to repeat them. Because I had been already waiting for so long and there before, they decided to admit me in ER so that I could have the blood tests done quicker. By then, my best friend had come to keep me company and she was allowed to come with me into the ER while we waited for the results.

At some point, the pain kept coming and going and the doctor in charge of my care gave me a painkiller saying that it should be quite strong and give me relief. The pain killer was so strong that I felt quite numb in my body very quickly and I joked with my friend, saying that she could ‘slap me right now and I would not feel a thing’. She did and we laughed.

Then, all of a sudden the pain surged from inside me and I’m moaning and twisting and in agony. My friend called the doctor, they found me a bed and finally someone put me on a drip and I don’t know if anything else (possibly morphine) and eventually the pain disappeared. A surgeon is called, the blood tests don’t show anything and I should not be feeling so much pain. They do not have an explanation for what is happening in my body.

It was late and they decided to keep me in for the night. I am given regular doses of morphine and anti-sickness as this is a side effect of morphine on me, it makes me throw up.

There was no more pain and I was being checked and given regular medication. What I now start feeling is intense confusion. Like my brain is not clear and functioning well and it just does not feel right. The doctors start talking about discharging me from hospital but I do not feel well and eventually manage to speak to one of the doctors saying that maybe I am not reacting well to the medication as I was feeling very confused and slow in thought.

Things get checked and they change the medication and I end up staying another night. I eventually feel like myself again, get sent home with some painkillers and no answers.

I miss my own leaving do at work. It had to be cancelled. The opportunity to receive thanks for my work there disappears.

I go back home, recover and the pain is no longer there. Everything goes back to normal, as much normal as possible in a year full of so much change.

A few weeks later, when I was looking back at being in pain and ending up in hospital for something that nobody could explain, I remembered that just a few days before the pain, I had made the sudden decision of not staying in London for part of the next year. I felt I could not deal with starting my own business and the pressure of paying rent in London, and the sense that I felt deeply exhausted was creeping up on me.

I decided to go to a country where I could live relatively cheaply in the world. I did some research and South East Asia seemed like the place. In a very short space, I made a decision that would put me in a part of the world that I had never been before and completely on my own. This would also mean giving up my flat and pretty much most of my possessions.

And then it started making sense to me, my pain. That year had so much change. From learning lots of new things in courses, to making life changing decisions. My brain and heart were making decisions that made sense to me, but another part of me was not able to catch up. My body. The decision to leave London for a while, was all of a sudden, too much for my body.

Sometimes, I look back to 2016 and I find it unbelievable of how much stuff I was able to fit in, in just that year. I have no idea where I got the energy, on a physical and mental level, to do so much stuff. It was like I was on a intense year experience. It started with remembering my experience of childhood sexual abuse, I learnt Reiki I and II, I took a week long training in the Nia Technique White Belt, I attended an 11 month Foundation Course in Psychotherapy and Counselling, I presented my resignation in a job I had been working for the last 5 years and at the end of the year I decided to spend a part of the next year in a different part of the world.

My body. It decided that it was enough of running around. On that 8 December, it decided that I needed to stop and the only way to make me stop was to give me intense pain. That is certainly a sure way of me listening to what my body has to say. It made me stop on my tracks and slow down.

Since then, I have had times where my body does this inexplicable thing. It increases my temperature, sometimes gives me intense body aches, like when you have the flu and the feeling of collapsing with no more energy. It is intense and when I had it the first time I was a bit scared, but since then, it has repeated itself a few times in similar but different formats. Because often, it lasts 24 hours or so.

Why am I remembering this hospital episode from 2016? The photo that came up on my memories, together with currently being unwell with a strange mixture of symptoms for now almost two weeks, made me realise that this might be another way of my body forcing me to stop. I must admit, that even though I find that I am much better at listening to my body, I very rarely give myself permission for deep rest. I have felt the nudges from my body quite a few times this year, but other pressures and stresses come up, I feel so guilty for staying still and resting, that I just do not give it to myself. I push through.

At the moment, there is no pushing. There is no option but to rest and be still as much as possible.

If you gave yourself permission to fully listen to your body, what would it say? What would it ask of you? Would you allow yourself to fully follow those messages for a whole day?