Hey there, it's Susan Peirce Thompson, and welcome to the Weekly vlog. You'll see I'm in a different spot here. I'm actually in the back of my office, not using professional audio today, not in my video studio today. I am just coming off not quite an all-nighter, but almost?in the emergency room with one of my loved ones, and this is the second night this week. Totally unrelated, just a fluke, really. I was also in the emergency room with a loved one three nights ago all night. I shoot a vlog every week. Sometimes this happens where it's time to shoot a vlog, and I'm in no mood, in no shape, and sometimes during times like that, you'll catch me just turning on my iPhone, which is what I'm doing now, and just letting it roll.
I think I've shot this vlog topic before in various circumstances, but it does occur to me that it might be helpful when I'm going through it to just describe how I navigate that because I'm Bright and I'm gratefully Bright, and I wouldn't even really say that I was close to picking up food over any of this, but it's been a really intense week, and so I'm just going to lay some of it out for you so that when your life comes to one of these moments when the proverbial stuff hits the fan, you'll maybe be able to think back on some of these stories and navigate as well.
The first incident happened on Wednesday night or Thursday night, Wednesday night, and at two or three in the morning, David and I got woken up that there was an emergency and that one of our loved ones was on the way to the hospital. We needed to go to the ER, and based on the scenario, I was able to intuit that it might be a long time in the hospital. A lot of tests were going to need to be run. This wasn't going to be a, I don't know that there's ever a two hour visit to the ER, but it just wasn't going to be a short thing. So, I packed my breakfast. It was two in the morning, but I packed my breakfast to be eaten several hours later, and I was in a rush, though. I didn't pack more food than that, but I knew David stayed home. We've got kids at home, so we couldn't both go, otherwise we would've. I knew that after however many hours after I'd eaten breakfast, I could swap out with David. I could come home, get my lunch, and David could come to the hospital and be there for a while instead of me. So, I packed my breakfast. Now, this is something that I've talked about in generalized, hypothetical scenarios of I don't leave the house without my food, just like I wouldn't leave the house without my pants. I don't run out the door, "Donald Ducking" it without pants on because I don't have time to finish getting dressed. There's always time to pack a meal. Now, that said, I had my food written down from the night before, and I did not pack that breakfast. That breakfast was an eat at home breakfast, cooking oatmeal. I wasn't going to do that at two in the morning. I changed my breakfast on the fly. I didn't write anything about it in my journal. I just fricking changed my breakfast, and I threw a bunch of nuts in, an apple, and a portable grain in a little Tupperware, and I fricking took off. It took me 60 seconds, really comparable to how long it took me to get dressed. No time at all. I left the house and I got to the hospital and I was there for 12 hours or less. No, I did come home and swap out with David and shower and get my lunch and stuff.
Then, a day and a half later, I was still recovering from that, I remember I had a meeting to go to on Saturday morning and I couldn't face it. I meditated in my office. I always do. Right on the floor right there is where I meditate every morning and I needed to sob. I needed to crawl back into bed for a little bit and I did. I crawled back into bed and then maybe half an hour later, my highest self was kind of like, okay, sweetie, now it's time to get up and go to this meeting and face the day. I was super late. It didn't matter. Some is better than missing it altogether. I guess what I'm saying is I was really sensitive to my needs to let my tank fill back up after that experience. Then, last night I was out with one of my kids and we were with some of our loved ones and one of them passed out and face-planted and cracked their face into a cement floor. It was eight o'clock at night last night, and we were on our way to the ER. They were still twitching and tremoring in really strange ways. They needed to get evaluated. I went to the emergency room. Now, in this case, it was eight o'clock at night. I had my dinner and I did not have the ability to pack food there. But I also suspected rightly that we would be out of the ER before breakfast time. And even if I wasn't at that point, David was home, I would've been able to again, swap out with David and get home for breakfast. As it happened, I was home and able to go to sleep at 3:00 AM last night.
I want to share also what has happened to me over the last few days around food, thoughts. I know I shot a vlog a little while ago that was about dragonflies and dragons. The idea that a food craving is like a dragon, and it swallows you up and it's burning inferno. It's got the motivation to act built into it. It wants you to eat, it wants that food, right? And it's fiery. A food thought is a different thing. It's like a dragonfly that lands on your shoulder and it feels more like an invitation. Do you want to consider this food? Hey, what do you think? Do you want to consider this food? Doesn't it look, sound, taste potentially good? What do you think? At the moment when the dragonfly lands on the shoulder, there's a choice point where if your program is solid, if you're internally vigilant, you can swoosh it away before it grows into a dragon. As soon as you turn toward it and give it the assent, the agreement, the buy-in of, maybe I do want to consider that it doesn't even have to be a yes, even just a maybe. It just opens the door to more growth and development of that food thought potentially into a dragon. What I found was in the last week, well, it's only been a few days, right? Last few days, it felt like I was in a swarm of dragonflies. They were just landing on my shoulder. I mean, not always, but when I was in the grocery store in particular, I was with my kids grocery shopping and the foods that I don't eat were just there. And they kept saying, "What do you think? Hey, maybe now, Hey, what about this? Hey, what did this used to taste like? Hey." And I was just like, and so what I did now...my kids hadn't eaten dinner yet. They were off in the cafeteria area eating. I was alone with my shopping cart for a little bit, and I got out my phone and I called a Bright friend, and I just said, "Hey! I'm in the grocery store, and I just need to say I am so grateful to be Bright, and I am so grateful that I'm not eating and that I can leave this grocery store and not be consumed by food cravings, but the food is calling me a bit. It's up. And I just wanted to share." I shared about the emergency room and what had been happening, and that's...it was a two, three-minute, phone call. It was just a quick check-in, and really it was an expression of gratitude. I'm grateful that I do not have to pick up the food right now, and that food is poison to me. I used my mantras, "That's not food." "That's poisoned to me." "That would just poison every aspect of my life." And I got out of that grocery store Bright. I don't normally have that experience. I normally go through a grocery store, not even seeing the foods that I don't eat and feeling really focused on my life and the produce that I'm selecting and I get out of there. I mean, it sounds all Mary Poppinsish, but whatever. I mean, that's usually my experience.
Let me think. Is there anything else? Oh, yeah, I did want to share one other thing with you today. I've really been, I was in the emergency room last night till 3:00 AM and I had a full day today. I had to shoot this vlog. I'm prepping for a Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation continuing ed lecture I'm going to give in a couple days on ultra-processed food addiction. I had several long meetings. I had a bunch of stuff. And after I got home at 3:00 AM I just started sending messages, canceling stuff. I really went into triage mode. Triage meaning what's most urgent, what's most important? What has to be done first, what could be pushed off to later? I canceled a podcast interview that I was supposed to show up for. We've rescheduled that sucker like five times already. Oh, well, we're rescheduling it again. I am not showing up. It was right during lunch hour. Like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm napping and then I'm waking up to eat my lunch. I'm not doing that podcast interview. I canceled those two meetings. I looked at the agenda. There's nothing absolutely urgent and absolutely important that had to be decided, canceled those two meetings, this vlog, I'm going to get out. I don't miss vlogs. Generally, the bar has to be really high for me to miss a vlog. Now that said, I am giving myself the grace of, I am not going into the studio and doing the whole rigmarole. I mean, to be honest, I don't even know if this is that much easier, just setting up my iPhone. I had to make sure I got some light. And I don't know that it was that much easier, but it felt easier to me, and it just felt a little more gentle.
I'm going to be with my loved ones today, the people who aren't? Well, that's the main priority right now. So, just a lot of triages and a lot of awareness that I've already taken a bath today, I've meditated today. I've had two or three naps today. I actually laid on the couch and started a novel. I didn't read much of it, 15, 20 minutes, "A Gentleman in Moscow." It was really good. What an opener of a book. Thank you, dear Betty and Leah for recommending that book. Just doing some gentle things like checking in with myself always like, what do you need, sweetie? What do you need? What would help you navigate this situation? It's almost like I have a Part of myself that's like the most effective, kind, loving, skilled, wise perspective, taking Girl Scout troop master, right? And then when there's Parts of me that are like Girl Scouts with broken ankles and broken legs, and we're on a hike, the Girl Scout troop master needs to handle it, right? So, I've got this Part of me that is surveying the situation, looking at the calendar, what could be canceled? Whose ankle is broken? Who needs care? What could we cancel? Where do we have to change plans? There's this reorganization that happens when life gets really lifey, and that Girl Scout troop Master knows that staying Bright is the number one priority. Everything goes to hell. If I don't stay Bright, everything melts down. I'm a mess if I don't stay Bright. That's the number one priority. Then the habits, the tools, the disciplines that support my Brightness. Some of those can give. Some of those are a good idea. It's all up for negotiation. We'll see. But breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the right time, the right foods, that's got to happen. I'm really grateful for that Part of me that takes over and makes it all work. I'm still in that mode for sure. Still in that mode, probably will be for a few more days.
This has been a lot to go through in a very short period of time and a lot of sleep to have missed, a lot of loved ones to be considering, and a lot of family dynamics to just consider. And because other folks in my family are sensitive too, and when not everybody's, well, that's hard on them and it's a big deal. And so, it's a lot. That's it. I'm going to go be with one of my kiddos right now and just stay close to family. And that's it. That's it. So, when life gets lifey for you, I just wish you gentleness and care, and I hope that you can develop a Girl Scout troop master that will shepherd you through it as well. That's the weekly vlog. I love you. I'll see you next week.
