Ep. 31 At what cost? When doing-it-all nearly kills you.
Sept. 6th, 2022
Lauren Lowrey
This is AMPstigator… a podcast founded on purpose but focused on the path to get there. Experience is the best teacher, right? And in this Season of AMPstigator, we’re going all-in on female perspective of women-and-wisdom as we answer one specific question: “what’s the lesson here?” You’ll hear from my best girlfriends and favorite female collaborators as we share deeply about what we’re here to learn -and teach- as we guide other women TO purpose.
[music]
[0:38]
Welcome back! I’m so glad you pressed play. I’m glad you’re taking the time for yourself to do this kind of soul-strengthening work. I DO SEE this podcast as “soul time.” I put my heart into writing, editing and producing these episodes each week and I know you can feel that, which is why you come back every episode, and I’m grateful.
I care deeply about sharing wisdom. And there’s so much wisdom in the life experience of others. We can all learn so much from each other.. And this podcast is here to be the vehicle.
I created AMPstigator because I wanted a platform to share deeper conversations with people. I’m a news anchor. I interview people and tell stories for a living. But in early 2021 I started to feel like the greatest depths of my conversations were being lost to tight time limits in a newscast.
It’s fine. Newscasts are just facts. Just surface. I’ve anchored for 16 years. I know what they are.
But I found I just really longed for the depth.
So, that’s when AMPstigator was born. I wanted to create a place where I could have full conversations about life and past experiences that shape the future… and how -SO OFTEN- we find purpose through pain.. Through curiosity.. through change… Through the moments when we think we might break, but somehow we get through.
I DO THINK people get freaked-out by the word “purpose.” Actually I KNOW they do. My own husband is one of those people. For some of us, we find purpose because we experience something and want to help others get through it, too. For other people – it’s purpose through excitement. Just finding something we really love to do. That means you’re meant to do it… AND THAT’S PURPOSE, AND IT’S EXCITING. It’s fun, it’s cup-filling work! And then there are some of us who find it in the depths. In the darkness. It’s like self-realization was the purpose all along.
There are so many ways we get there. And we don’t have to be afraid of it. Or anxious to find it. We’re just meant to live.. And grow.. And change.. And evolve.. And that’s what AMPstigator’s all about – the evolution of self on a pathway to purpose.
It’s a noun (by the way). It’s a mash-up of two words – AMPLIFY and INSTIGATOR. Amplify is “to bring intensity to something” while “instigator” is a person who initiates.
So when you mash those two words together… you get AMPstigator which is an intense PERSON who initiates change. So, that’s what we’re doing….
I’m an AMPstigator!
By listening to this podcast YOU’RE an AMPstigator. We’re initiating positive change in our lives in a way that makes us better… healthier… stronger.
[03:39]
So, I’m glad you’re back for more of this high-grade wisdom that I’m dishin’ out every week.
In the last episode – Ep. 30, which I released August 2nd, I gave you a few sneak peeks into what I had planned for Season 3. At that point it was just concept… I hadn’t recorded anything but I felt strongly that *LESSONS* was the direction I needed to go.
I’m someone who’s very decisive. I have a gut feeling in nearly every situation, so when I know – I KNOW! I’m not a flip-flopper. So when I had a gut-feeling that Season 3, needed to change focus. I knew we needed to move away from “purpose as a destination” and instead focus on the LESSONS WE LEARN ALONG THE WAY.
Now in earlier episodes, my questions to each person would give you an understanding of who people are and what they’ve experienced – you know – best time in your life.. Worst time in your life.. Something about your nature you continue to overcome. But I found that even *those questions* weren’t deep enough for me.
So, I found myself in the last couple months doing some re-visioning of AMPstigator and really zeroing in on one specific question – which is what we’re going to answer in every episode this season-- “what’s the lesson here?”
And if you listened to Episode 30… you know the story about the vision I had – about going all-in on women and THE LESSONS we’re all learning – because everyone’s lesson is different. I see women as the containers of wisdom. Even just mere survival wisdom. There are things only another woman can teach you. Like things about your cycle, pregnancy, child-birth, breast-feeding. Throughout human history women have been the nourishers. And there’s an intuition that goes along with that.
But even deeper….
There’s always been a feminine wisdom. There’s always been divinity and beauty there. It’s love. It’s balance. It’s permission. It’s allowing. IT IS LIFE-GIVING.
It’s so beautiful. And I’m here to tell you… I’ve completely missed all of that until recently. There HAS BEEN a deficit. Not because we -as a society- have forgotten how to do those things… more so because for a long time, those things haven’t been valued.
I WAS RAISED TO ACHIEVE. TO DO. TO BE. TO HAVE INFLUENCE.
IN SOME WAYS… I would say TOXIC LEVEL OF ACHIEVEMENT. And because of that, I pushed my body until I ran it into the ground.
[6:20]
And that is what today’s episode is about: How August 2022 changed my life.
*****
The last month has been wild. I was hospitalized multiple times for days at a time. I just realized today that I haven’t pumped gas in a month. I haven’t been inside a grocery store in a month. I haven’t read a single news article. I literally have no idea what’s happening in the world…. Because my world STOPPED.
*****
So, let’s think back to August 2nd. I released the episode teasing ahead to Season 3. I told you the focus. I was taking off the month of August to begin shooting and producing the next several episodes. I thought I was doing right. I thought I was taking a break. Getting ahead. Being a model for BALANCE and order.
Just three days later on Friday, August 5th, my life took a dramatic turn.
I started to have pain in my abdomen. It was in the lower right hand quadrant. Initially, I thought it was a muscle cramp. It felt like a side stitch when you’re running. So, I went to bed that night and was like “oh I’ll be find in the morning.”
But I woke up Saturday morning and it was still there. Immediately I just knew……
SOMETHING’S WRONG.
Now remember, I’m a decisive person. I’m also deeply intuitive when it comes to my body. I’ve known I was pregnant every time before I ever missed a period. Say what you want about that being impossible. But I KNEW.
In 2018 I nearly died 5 days after the birth of my 2nd child. Something wasn’t right. I went to the hospital. Every test showed I was totally normal and they wanted to send me home. I just kept saying “SOMETHING’S WRONG. FIND ANOTHER TEST TO GIVE ME.” They eventually found my lungs were filled with fluid and my heart was enlarged. I had severe post-partum preeclampsia. If I hadn’t gone to the hospital that night… heart-attack, stroke, death… bam. That fast.
Preeclampsia during pregnancy is somewhat common. But POST-PARTUM preeclampsia is somewhat rare. It effects only 700 women every year. And women DIE FROM IT ALL THE TIME.
The point is:
I know when something’s not right in my body. And I knew that something wasn’t right last month. So early on a Sunday morning, like 4am, I drove myself to the hospital. I left my husband and our 3 kids asleep and went in.
Now – to be totally honest with you….
I thought I was just going in for some tests. Nothing would be urgent because I’d only had the pain for not-even-36-hours. AND TO BE HONEST - IT WASN’T AWFUL PAIN - but I knew something wasn’t right.
[9:39]
AT THE TIME, I thought “if something was really wrong, I’d be scheduled for some follow-up testing or procedure the following day.”
But that wasn’t the case. A CT-scan in the ER that morning showed my appendix was really angry and I needed emergency surgery before it burst. Just an hour earlier I had told the doctor “Hey, I need to be out by 10 o’clock this morning. I’m supposed to be downtown waiving the green flag for the IndyCar street race in Nashville.” So when he came in with the news about the surgery, he was like “ummmm… you’re not waiving any flags today.”
I was immediately really sad. I was missing the race, yes, but I also wouldn’t be there the next morning for my daughter’s 1st day of 1st grade. My role as her mother is to BE THERE FOR HER. All the time. No matter what. And I’m laid up in a hospital. So I definitely cried about that, but I was like “chin-up, YOU CAUGHT THIS, and you go home tomorrow.”
[10:50]
So I get the surgery. They catch my appendix before it bursts – surgeon says it definitely would’ve happened within 24 hours – so “congratultions for trusting your body” – and I’m released from the hospital the next day.
I go home. But I could never get my pain under control. Appendectomies are supposed to be something that you only need pain-management like maybe a day or two and the rest is just resting and ibuprofen.. And then you go back to work within a week.
But fast-forward to 5 days post-surgery on a Friday night… and I’m writhing in pain. I can’t stand up straight. I’m doubled over. I have to lay down because I’m BEYOND hurting at this point. I’m literally crying in agony.
At this point my husband is like “yeah….. This doesn’t seem normal. I’m taking you back to the hospital.”
We get there. They scan me again.. And discover I’ve developed an abscess in the same place where my appendix was. Basically, some rogue bacteria embedded itself in my abdominal wall and flourished… SO MUCH SO… IT WAS THE SIZE OF AN ORANGE. NOT A MANDARIN. A LEGIT ORANGE.
They start pumping me up with IV narcotics. But I can still feel everything. You guys… THIS WAS THE WORST PAIN I’VE EVER FELT IN MY WHOLE LIFE. No amount of stuff took the pain away. It was traumatizing and the procedure to drain the abscess was traumatizing because I could still feel it happening. I was laying there – just moaning in pain.
It was bad.
In these drainage procedures, they drain the abscess, and then put a drain into my abdomen. So, imagine an 8” long straw inserted horizontally across – but inside your abdominals.. And then the straw is connected to a plastic bag outside your body. The bag collects anything gross that’s coming from where the abscess was.
I’m just gonna tell you.
It.
Sucked.
It was painful. Gross. Smelly. I just laid there, in the hospital….
[13:09]
For 3 days. Barely able to walk, definitely can’t sit up on my own. I’m mostly alone – except for a couple angel friends who visited me and the occasional visit from my husband – but he had to work and take care of kids!
I was so anxious. So alone. I was manic. I couldn’t stay in the hospital another second. I was ready to rip all that crap out. I was losing it. I couldn’t quiet my mind. I tried binging shows. I tried sleeping. I tried staring at the ceiling. I tried all the narcotics they would offer me. But nothing helped. I couldn’t overcome MYSELF.
By this point, I had spent 6 of the last 9 days in the hospital for two different events. One routine and one rare. People don’t develop abscesses from appendectomies.
I had bruises –track marks– down my forearms and on my hands from missed pokes. Literally, 11 successful and unsuccessful attempts at IVs and blood work. Plus all the pain. All the narcotics.
If the lesson was stillness. I missed it. I failed the test. Miserably. I mean I WASN’T processing anything that was happening. I was resisting it. Hardcore.
[14:50]
Finally I get sent home.. With the drain still attached.. A dear angel friend brought me home from the hospital and when I walked into my house I sobbed. I cried. Sadness. Loneliness. Just real grief. I cried for days. I cried about what I’d missed while I was in the hospital. My world stopped while everyone else’s kept going. I was terrified of going back– of facing that noise in my head that I could never overcome. I was busy letting the record play in my head – how close I’d come AGAIN to having a major issue. It was like 2018 all over again and I was hearing my doctor say “heart attack, stroke, death.” And then hearing these new words from my doctors - “you’re so healthy, this is so rare.”
There’s only so many times a person should hear “this is rare” when it comes to their health… and I had reached my limit. I just wanted to feel better.
After that second hospitalization I realized there was major trauma that I needed to heal. Old trauma from 2018. New issues being piled on top. Everything was being dredged up again that I never dealt with… but I knew that needed to change… now.
I started really looking at how I’d handled the last two weeks. The first hospitalization I opted to stay conked out – try to pretend it never happened and then I was gonna go back to status quo.
The second hospitalization I spent afraid. Manic. Anxious. Angry. I was so desperate to get home – to get away from the record player of “close call, you could’ve died.” I couldn’t handle it.
[16:38]
And when you start evaluating things on the “life and death” continuum,” things can get scary. And for me, just laying there in the hospital bed threatened everything I was. I’m healthy. I’m productive. I’m quick thinking. I value what I create and laying there took all of that away from me. It introduced what I’ve never been comfortable with…. The unknown. The chance I might not get better.
Those hospitalizations were a chance to learn something about myself and I was missing it.
But… that’s the funny thing about lessons:
They keep gettin’ served up until you learn them. Until you finally see the pattern.
I feel like -for the first time in my life- I’m old enough to see patterns. I keep being presented with life-threatening situations that knock me down. Three in fact – all in my 30s. But I didn’t learn until now.
[17:44]
What does confinement and hospitalization teach a person like me? Someone who’s positive and optimistic, who’s healthy, who’s a workhorse, who’s so proud of being so productive? Who values output more than anything?
Well… that my have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too way of life is probably killing me. This hospitalization was the first time I noticed the lesson that I should’ve learned years ago, WHICH IS
“Yeah yeah yeah, you can do it all, sure! You know you can and so does everyone else. But!!!
AT.`
WHAT.
COST?”
So, when I got home from the hospital that second time, I started asking myself *the very question* that had been in the front of my mind before I ever got sick…. “WHAT’S THE LESSON HERE.”
Immediately I knew the first lesson was that I had unhealed trauma about nearly dying that I had suppressed and needed help to work through. But then the second lesson was that I’m valuing productivity to the point that it’s now hurting me. I don’t know how to rest. I don’t know how to take it easy. I’ve placed my own value on allllll the things I can do at once. Yes, I can do it all. I HAVE BEEN doing it all. But AT. WHAT. COST?
So, after a couple days of being home from the hospital, I started feeling good. I felt like I’d learned the lesson from that time… and the story was over.
But it wasn’t.
[19:25]
I had more to learn… and it came when I had to be hospitalized a third time. Before I went in I pleaded - in tears - to my husband: PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME GO, I CAN’T GO BACK. I can’t do it. I still have all the bruises – i can’t get more. I can’t feel that pain again. Don’t make me go.
But Exactly one week after I’d gotten home the 2nd time, I was admitted AGAIN for a recurrence of the abscess.
I need to express to you how “exceedingly rare” this is.
Like - so rare that I was told by one of the people leading my care: “In my 15 years I’ve only HEARD of this happening. You’re the first person I’ve ever seen, myself, who had a recurring abscess.”
So, it meant another drainage procedure. Another bag. Being sidelined AGAIN. More IVs and bloodwork. More time staring from a hospital bed up at the tiles on the ceiling.
But I KNEW… this was my chance to learn the lesson I couldn’t seem to grasp the first two times. It was the last and biggest lesson of all: How to overcome MYSELF.
When things are hard. When they’re ugly. When they’re uncomfortable, we just push that stuff to the side. We suppress it. We try to distract ourselves with work or with tv shows or projects or kids or a to-do list. That’s exactly what I had done those first two hospitalizations. I didn’t like any of what I was feeling so I took the intense medicine, I binged shows and I pushed off the real work.
I had never learned to accept and allow. Those divinely feminine qualities that I mentioned earlier that we’ve stopped valuing. I hadn’t learned how to just sit with a situation. Sit with the fear, the anger, the anxiety of not-knowing what was wrong with me. Sit with the physical pain. Sit with the bruises on my arms. Sit with the 5 new scars around my stomach. Sit with all the life I was missing outside the walls of my hospital room.
[21:50]
Up until August, I’d only learned how to work harder to overcome. Push harder. Do more. Take on this or that.
*More doing* was always the remedy.
But this chapter required me to do the opposite. To lay in it. To sit in it. To bathe in it. To accept what was happening… and not let it kill me.
We’re talking radical acceptance of a really hard situation. And please understand… there’s a difference between accepting what’s happening -in the way yoga teaches, palms open, ready for what comes- and resigning to a situation. Resigning is defeat. It’s woe-is-me victimhood.
ACCEPTING is different. It’s choosing to stop being bothered by what’s happening.
Michael Singer has a great book he put out this year called “Living Untethered” and he just hammers this point over and over….
“The moment in front of you is not bothering you. It’s just what’s happening. YOU are choosing to be bothered by the moment.”
So, I made a choice when I sat alone, again, in a hospital bed for the 3rd time in just-over-2-weeks…. that this time would be different. I wouldn’t turn on the TV. I wouldn’t watch a show. I wouldn’t resist what was coming. This time I would allow myself to accept it.
[23:20]
So, I spent 3 full days in the hospital. The first day it was another drainage procedure and just accepting the pain. Accepting the newest scar – which was my 5th scar from this mess. And just being present to what was happening and not trying to run from it or resist it.
I sat there in the quiet as the noise in my head started to dim… to be less and less and less. Until there was just silence.
Silence happens when you can be present… with a completely silent MIND.
When I had finally accepted what was happening… choosing to not-be-bothered by the bruises, or the scars, or the pain. That’s when my mind finally got quiet. It wasn’t a record player of past or a worry about future. It was just now. And choosing to live IN THE NOW, in that hospital bed.
That’s when my mind was finally quiet.
[24:21]
I spent the entire 2nd day of my hospital stay in meditation. I laid in bed for 23 hours that day and listened to guided meditations - one after another. Some were healing meditations for my stomach. Some gave healing affirmations. Some walked me through visualization exercises where I imagined myself doing all the physical things I’d be able to do again when I’m healed.
I envisioned myself running again.. I saw myself in my yoga practice and doing new exercises for my abs that I’ve never been able to do because I’ve had 3 c-sections. I saw myself in a sports bra with NO SHAME, even though you could see my new scars. I was happy because I was finally taking care of myself… not from the purely physical sense…. But holistically in three distinct parts. Mind, body and soul.
That’s what I learned in that 3rd hospitalization…
We’re all a mix of those 3 parts… mind body and soul. I had been over-working my mind, destroying my body and barely giving any nods to the needs of my soul.
We’re always catering to the body. We become a servant to it. The body’s hungry. The body’s tired. The body’s in pain. The body has a headache. The body can’t stretch that way. The body can’t run that far. The body needs medicine. So we make concessions all day for what the body wants.
All the body needs is water, first of all. Sleep second of all. And then food is actually third. And if you’ve ever watched someone in the process of slowly dying, they can go weeks and weeks without eating during their decline.
I saw my hospitalizations as a chance to recalibrate and remember what I actually need. And for ME… IT’S stillness. It’s balance. It’s rest.
I had to wean myself from body control and even mind control. I had to surrender to soul-control. By the third hospitalization I finally got it right. I had to go to deep meditation and centering that allowed me to accept the present, stop being bothered by it.
[26:41]
True Wholeness.. true wellness.. true wellbeing – those take all 3 parts of you into account in equal measure. So, yes, we need to take care of the body with food and exercise. Yes, we need to take care of the mind with therapy, sleep, and walks to clear our head. But my call-to-action for you right now is a simple question: how are you feeding your soul? How are you strengthening your intuition. That still, small voice that speaks to you. It may not shout. It may be just a whisper. It’s a knowing. It’s a feeling. It’s an instinct. How are you feeding that?
You feed it through acknowledging it. I’ve started writing down every time I’ve gotten an intuition about something. Over time.. You can start to see how those moments played out and you can start to trust it more and more.
It’s like a muscle, so the more you use it -and listen to it- the stronger it gets.
This is what’s kept me alive multiple times and saved me from some pretty bleak health situations because I trusted myself and I listened to my intuition. And I want you to know how to do that, too.
And you can’t hear a whisper if your mind is always shouting.
**
[28:04]
Eventually I learned the antibiotic that everyone gets -the one that’s Standard of Care- didn’t even touch this bacteria in my abdomen. So, they had to do a special culture on the junk that came from my abscess and line it up in Petri dishes in some lab in Nashville to find out WHAT ANTIBIOTIC WOULD ACTUALLY KILL IT.
THANK GOD THEY FOUND ONE THAT WORKED. It’s why I’ve now been out of the hospital for nearly two weeks and on the very day I’m releasing this episode, I’m going back to work – for the first time in a month.
But I’m different now.
This was a life-changing experience for me.
I can’t be physically active for another 6 weeks.. And Old Lauren would’ve been really upset about that... But Post-abscess Lauren realizes I needed to be more soul-led and to do that, I need to take a step back from what’s been running my body and my mind.
[29:05]
That’s what I think this series of hospitalizations was really here to teach me.
So, I’ve committed to a few things.
1. First of all, for these 8 total weeks of healing, I’ll take the time I would usually spend exercising – so 30 minutes to an hour every single day – and I’ll spend it meditating. When I get further along in my recovery, those can be walking meditations in nature. But I’m not running. I’m not doing my hot yoga practice. I’m not doing anything physical until I’ve fed my soul and calmed my mind consistently -EVER DAY- so I can eventually bring exercise back into the picture in a holistic way – not a punishing way – but in a way that strengthens me, and doesn’t deplete me.
2. Number 2… I’ve committed to going to therapy to work through some pretty big trauma. I’ve had 3 near-death issues now in my 30s that I compartmentalized and tried to push aside. I should’ve gotten help for those traumas and never did. So this has been the opportunity to really work through some heavy stuff that’s really plagued me. It’s the record player of “so close, you could’ve died” and “wow, this is really rare.” It’s really impacted me in a way that I can’t work through alone. And I admit that now, so I’m getting help.
3. And lastly, I realized in this hospitalization how powerful I really am. The research is showing consistently that we have the ability to shape our reality through our thoughts and beliefs. I knew and believed that research before all this… but this hospitalization put it into practice. So I’m spending time now in these remaining 6 weeks to get really really clear. Like, GRANULAR, about what I want. This is far beyond my intention. This is getting detailed about what I want and WHY.. and then how I plan to feel and act once those things are here. Because part of all of it is the belief that you already have those things you desire. So if I desire wellness and wholeness, then how would I act as a well and balanced person? Then I need to do that right now!
So, when I ask myself “what’s the lesson here?” – WHICH IS *THE POINT* OF EVERY SINGLE EPISODE i’LL PUT OUT IN SEASON 3…
What I learned over the course of 3 weeks is that allowing the body to control you, or the mind to control you will never give you the life or the health you want. True wellness is living from within soul-control… AND EVERYTHING SPOKES FROM THERE.
[32:10]
So if this lesson resonates with you, I invite you, start with the present moment. Start with the things that you’re saying “I CAN’T” about…. “I CAN’T TAKE IT, I CAN’T HANDLE IT.” Notice those things. And then choose to stop being bothered by that moment in front of you. Choose to be present to it. That’s the beginning of turning off all that noise in your head.
Move into guided meditations.
For me.. I’ve used the app “Insight Timer”. I heard about it because a couple of my AMPstigator podcast guests are teachers on it. You basically type in a search for the meditations you want and just listen. SO.. maybe you want a guided sleep meditation. Or a walk-in-nature meditation. Or a morning manifestation meditation. It’s all right there, totally free. It’s what I used in the hospital. Period. It’s what helped me clear my mind and get SILENCE. AND THAT’S what strengthens my ability to hear my intuition, to feel my heart… AND THAT FEEDS MY SOUL.
So… can you overcome yourself? Can you overcome what your body wants or what your mind is telling you?
Maybe you’re like me and you need silence.. To just rest. Because I’m at the point where I’m saying to myself “HOW DO I LIVE SO THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.” It means I need to change things moving forward to create balance and wholeness… and really consider “AT WHAT COST.”
I’m hopeful you understand how transformational the month of August was for me. My prayer is that you don’t have to experience something so severe to find stillness. But I’m grateful that I can share my journey with you and you can learn from it.
**
[34:09]
COMING UP Next week on AMPstigator you’ll meet two of my best friends here in Nashville. You’ll hear how we met, how we support each other and what lessons we’re learning from each other all the time. It’s a deep dive into developing adult, female friendships that feed and support you. Remember, we’re going all-in on women and wisdom this season, so it’s really CONVERSATIONS.
For now, thanks for joining me on this journey. I encourage you to lead with your heart… shine your light… and live life purposefully.
I’m Lauren Lowrey, and this is AMPstigator.
