The Flu-Funk

About two weeks ago I was in Amsterdam for a GMB Fitness European staff meet-up. We do this from time to time where the staff members in a particular part of the world all meet up to do some face-to-face work and play. I love that we do these meet-ups and always look forward to seeing everyone and catching up. Owning an online company has it’s perks but I always prefer hanging out with people in person.

Amsterdam is a very cool city and although it was my fifth time being there I always look forward to visiting again. Things were great the first two days but on the third I realized something wasn’t quite right. And boy was I right. I came down with a nasty cold that ended up being the flu. I’ve been sick before when traveling and it’s never fun. However, this time was even worse because I ended up getting all of the European staff sick as well. What a great boss I am… The flight back wasn’t fun to say the least and I ended up sleeping for three days straight once I got back to Japan. It’s been almost two weeks now and after losing over 5 kilos I just I started feeling myself again yesterday. This was a doozy and I’m still fighting a nasty-sounding cough.

A lot of silly things go through my mind whenever I’m sick and this time was no exception. I was slipping into a dark side of my mind while bed-ridden and when I came out of my funk, it scared me to ponder what I was thinking about. Everything from me not being good enough to teach people anymore, to pondering my place in life, to wondering if I’m a good enough father, to thinking that I should step away from being Head Coach at GMB Fitness, to…some other things I’d rather not say.

After coming out of my flu-funk, I realized that I was just feeling sorry for myself for feeling like poo-poo for over a week. Well, that and the fevers. Those always do me in.

The mind is a funny thing and when you let your guard down it can be easy to slip into a negative feedback loop if you let yourself do that. Stress, too much work, self-pressure, and topping that off with getting sick is a great combination for creating havoc on a person’s brain and body.

I am happy to say that I woke up yesterday finally feeling myself once again. Rather than just try and move on like normal, I spent some time contemplating some of the underlying issues behind those thoughts that I had the past week. Did I figure them all out? Nope, I’m still working on it and I definitely think this’ll take some time but I’m trying.

I think it’s good to look at problems, challenges, and issues head on and work through them. Yes, this can be very, very trying and new and deeper issues spring up from time to time because of it. But instead of sweeping those emotions under the bed and trying to hide them, I know that confronting them as best as I can will make it easier to handle them when they pop up later down the road. As I’m sure they will.

I’m not really sure what the point of this post is. Maybe I just needed to get this off my chest and out there to move forward. I will say, if you are feeling down and don’t know what to do, find someone you can talk to and get that shit off your chest. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and you’ll probably find that simply sharing it will make you feel better.