When I woke up on Monday I was overcome with an inability to move, an inability to think or do much of anything. I felt an overall weakness within me and couldn’t describe it. My throat had been scratchy over the last few nights and continued that morning. With more than one or two bugs flying around the building, the downside of living at a boarding school, I hedged my bets and decided to sleep off whatever this was.

Sleep, I don’t get a ton of it but when I need it I need it badly. I slept going in and out of consciousness until 1pm in the afternoon. My body was pretty much screaming at me for sleep. I spent the afternoon napping more, yes more sleep. Ate a little but didn’t really have an appetite. Then capped off the evening with yes more sleep.

Two days later I hoped on the bike and spun for over an hour and forty five minutes, lofty yes but at the same time no. Analyzing what happened on Monday I realized it was the culmination of a couple things; high stress, lack of sleep, some sort of bug, and lack of balance. My body needed a shutdown, I tend to see this each winter.

A truth, I push and push hard. I push myself hard in exercise, but I push myself harder in life and work. I am my toughest critique and have a hard time recognizing when to stop. Sometimes, I push myself over the edge. What happens when I fall, body shuts down and I sleep for a day.

It’s not pretty but it’s the truth. The good news is after a day or two of rest, recharging the batteries I can kick back into gear. However, avoiding this is something I haven’t mastered. Because I go from 100% capacity to 0% overnight really without warning.

Sitting on the bike tonight did give me a chance to think about what led to this most recent crash and really all I can equate it to is stress. Much of this stress was self manifested, dumb stuff, actually really stupid stuff that wasn’t worth even thinking about. I did a guided meditation for the first time in over a year two nights ago and what happened during the time, this stress revealed itself to me as a giant black mass. I shifted through the mass, trying with all my might to release it, let it go and move on. Did I succeed, yeah probably not so much. But today on the bike at least I was able to pinpoint the pieces that made up that mass.

So the next step is now figuring out the ways to make the changes within my current system to be able to avoid another crash and come out stronger than before. Really as with most things, it’s the battle in our minds that will kill us not the one we fight with hands or words.