This morning I woke up with a screaming headache and tried every trick I know (mindfulness, acceptance, cursing) to get it to go away. Alas, nothing helped, so I took drugs, which sort of helped. Yesterday I saw my primary care physician, and she suggested a few things–muscle relaxers, a TENS unit, botox injections, learning not to carry my stress in my shoulders. “I’m for anything that will help,” I said. “I’m done with being in constant pain.” So after breakfast today I made some calls and ended up at a local pharmacy that had a TENS unit and–even better–could bill my insurance for it. And whereas it took thirty minutes for everything to happen, I got the unit, and it didn’t cost me a thing.

Praise the lord.

Thirty minutes. That’s my theme today. This afternoon I was supposed to teach an hour-long dance lesson, but when I got to the studio space, I realized I’d forgotten my key. Anyway, my student and I came up with an alternate location, but, because they had to get back to work, we could only do a thirty-minute session. Oh well.

A lot can happen in thirty minutes.

That’s what I’m hoping now, that I can pound out an entire blog in thirty minutes, since I have dinner plans soon and would really like to enjoy the evening without having the thought of writing on my mind. Before my dance lesson today I started reading a book about headaches and learned that migraines are often linked to perfectionist personalities. You know the type–go, go, go–nothing is every good enough. And whereas I don’t have migraines, I get it, that feeling of constant stress. Hell, with this blog alone, I’ve pushed, pushed, pushed myself to write when tired or headachey  so many times it’s not even funny. So I’m trying to give myself a break (instead of a breakdown). I’m doing everything I can to let up on myself, to take the pressure off both in my inner and outer worlds.

I’ll say it again.

I’m doing the best I can.

My therapist says she works with a lot of business owners/professionals–the driven kind–and that they almost all carry tension and pain in their bodies. “Especially the ones who believe in scarcity,” she says. I think this is fascinating, the way the body can and does mirror the mind. I definitely get the scarcity thing. It’s like there’s this desperation, this grasping. Not just with money, but with finding answers to health problems. My therapist refers to this desperation (nothing every works) as “a profound hopelessness.” That’s how my headaches and other health challenges always feel–hopeless. But–the good news is–I really do think this situation is getting better for me. Last week I set an intention to heal my headaches, to find an answer. And get this shit. In a week’s time, I’ve had three different people (two randomly and unsolicited) tell me about specific pillows they use that have helped their necks. Then I saw my doctor, and she was FULL of suggestions. I got the TENS unit.

The phrase that keeps coming to my mind today is “good help is good hope.” That is, today I’ve been encouraged that I’m not alone, “all is not lost,” and that, although I’ve explored many different options to relieve the tension in my life, there are others yet to explore. Also I’m encouraged that a lot can happen in a short amount of time (a lot can happen in thirty minutes), that a problem can hang around for years and go away in weeks, months.