Another period of unannounced silence on this blog. I’ve been facing some rough time lately and it’s hard to come to terms with the thoughts and feelings that permeate my days.

I’ve been experiencing chronic pain in my heels for several months. Some discomfort started one year ago and I, sticking to my regular script, tried to ignore the problem. Last spring it became self-evident that I couldn’t cope with pain any longer and I went looking for professional help. I went through the usual “Finnish healthcare charade”: the GP barely investigated causes and went all in to cure symptoms through some pills. It didn’t help. Since then, I’ve been bounced to and from different specialists, with no continuity and so far nothing really helped. The pain is never too intense, but ever-present and prevents me from walking without discomfort or suffering. My body sent me many other small signs of stress in the past months. The best way I can describe the situation is simply, I don’t feel well.

To make the matter worse, I couldn’t help but feeling surrounded by people – my workplace, healthcare professionals – who wanted me to function but do not care about my well-being. Negative feelings started sinking in, to the point that lately I often wondered why I even bother to get up in the morning. I started having so many doctors’ appointments that I felt I was not delivering at work nor being present for my family. So I cut on my self-care activities, which didn’t help the negativity cycle and probably not even my overall health condition.

I hate vicious circles. It’s so damn hard to break them.

If I learned something from this past tough year, it’s that the quickest (and only?) way to stop to spiral down is to set small goals for myself. This is what I’m doing with this post here – no point in aiming at a regular publishing schedule right now – and with sticking to daily meditation. I want to restore other good habits, but I cannot demand too much of myself now. Maybe in a week I’ll add something. Then something more in two weeks. I need to remind myself that things will improve, that I will transition out of this bad period, and that I will not feel flattened down for the rest of my days.