the Divine Life Hack
Two years ago around this time, I was supposed to be in Lake Como, Italy for a glamorous vacation. It was a bucket list trip and I had pulled out all the stops. Except it didn’t happen… because I got sick.
I didn’t just get a little sick, I got a lotta sick. I got so sick no doctor could figure out what was wrong with me for months. I was told I had a combination of gut issues and “stress.” I’m sorry, but if I’m stressed, then going to Lake Como, Italy is definitely the cure. However, I knew inside that something was very wrong and I was terrified.
At the time I got sick, I was obsessed with getting better fast. My whole life revolved around fast. I was a long-time tech and entertainment executive and always on the move. Anything could be solved by finding the right answers…. all by myself… and going fast. Right?
As I watched month after month tick by with no answers, my depression increased. I was not getting better fast, I was not getting better at all. Short on solutions, I followed a friend’s suggestion to go to an intensive outpatient therapy center for anxiety. Internally, this seemed like a huge failure. But the only diagnosis I had was anxiety… so, why not?
And with that… my world stopped. I went on disability and began three hours of daily group and individual therapy for thirty days. I felt so nervous walking in and then… my shoulders dropped. I felt the sense that I could finally breathe. (It didn’t hurt that the place was in Newport Beach, over the water and next to a European bakery either.)
If you know my story, you know that I found out months later that I was actually dealing with toxic mold illness (or CIRS). And you also know how it changed my life, my finances and career. If you didn’t, well now you do.
But one of the biggest lessons I learned before I was even diagnosed was that rest is essential.
In many major religions, you will read the concept of God resting on the seventh day.
And yet, we don’t view rest as divine. We view it as laziness. We view it as a “nice to have,” not a “need to have.”
While in outpatient therapy, 80% of my symptoms went away. I later learned (in the work of famed “mystery illness” physician Dr. Neil Nathan) that mold illness severely impacts the limbic system and the vagal nerve which regulates the parasympathetic nervous system. So, slowing down and resting literally helps you heal.
I look back on my life now and I think about the time I tried to do a 7 week workbook for finding love… in 3 weeks. (It didn’t work.)
The time I tried to lose 5 pounds in 2 weeks. (It didn’t work.)
The time (or many times) I tried to solve significant work and life stress with “a weekend away.” (It didn’t work.)
On the flip side, nearly everything worth value in my life, took time and rest. My career. My musicianship. My coaching skills. My sobriety (almost 16 years in). My marriage. And yet time, is something I always felt short on and rest always felt superfluous. And that was on me.
I now read and finish books because I make time to rest. I meditate daily and with my coaching clients. I recently told my functional medicine doctor that I’m fine with taking my mold detox slowly, even if it takes a year. Because I have time. I always had time. I just didn’t know it.
This weekend… try to find time for your own personal sabbath… and as you enjoy it, consider that you’re not being lazy… you’re being divine.