PhD in Being Me

Tag: life

  • I am here, and I am with myself

    A black canvas with four small ferns posing as pine trees. It is called Silent Night.
    A winter piece of art that I made to help me connect to the stillness and silence in a winter forest

    I am here, and I am with myself 💕.  I feel so soothed whenever I say to myself, “I am here and I am with you.”  Sometimes, I even cry, like a part of me has just really needed to hear that, and it allows any stuck emotions or stress to release and flow.

    I am participating in a program that helps people with chronic illnesses.  It teaches about the chronic stress response and how that affects the nervous system, which can impact the body’s ability to heal.  It is full of science, which is right up my alley, along with tools to help self-regulate the nervous system.

    This program, Primal Trust, is another tool in my journey of helping myself.  I have been living with chronic fatigue syndrome for a long time now, and I am sometimes so tired of being tired.  Primal Trust has live and recorded classes and it is so heart warming to see people from all over the world.  The course material, teachers, and other participants help me feel validated, seen and understood, and is furthering my ability to do that for myself too.

    I am learning about how to connect to my sense and feelings of inner okayness, which feels good.  I used to feel much better, and I have missed connecting to myself in that way.  Today, I did one of the tools to help retrain my stress response, and I was able to make it my own so that it felt authentic.  It made my body and heart feel more alive and like I was more present for myself.  Gosh, that was nice.

    I was here, sitting, breathing, connecting and being here, with myself and for myself.  It helped me more fully recognize how far I am from the healthy version of myself.  The practices I have been learning over the past year in therapy are slowly helping me understand the different parts of me and thst each is valid and worthy of compassion.

    I am learning about pacing myself and taking a more gentle, slow and steady approach to life and my healing.  Apparently there is scientific evidence to support the pacing approach to healing chronic fatigue syndrome.  I am so used to pushing and pressuring myself, so this continues to be a challenge for me, but its a worthy one ❤️❤️.

    And so, I am here and I am with myself.  Regardless of any tools and practices I learn, I hope I remember that I am enough, that giving myself the gift of my presence, care, touch, love and compassion are the most important.  And, living my life and enjoying it instead of only focusing on getting better.

    Here I am, writing, reflecting, smiling and sharing.  Thanks for reading, may you be well and may you relax more into your sweetie self today.

    Big hugs, Bradlee ♥️♥️

    ©️ Bradlee Zrudlo 2025.  All Rights Reserved.

  • This is my life

    Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

    I’m 45 years old, nearly 46, and lately I’ve been thinking about how this is my life, right now, as I’m living it. Have you ever thought that? Like you notice that life is happening while you are living it and maybe you’ve not been enjoying it or fully present in it? Or perhaps not really noticing that it’s going by?

    I looked at my hands, and they are older hands.

    I looked at my legs, and they are older legs.

    I looked at my face and hair, and realized that I was looking at 45 year old me, not the version of me I see in my mind.

    It was really refreshing. I felt like I was being given another chance to step more into my life and appreciate it, myself, my body and all that I have lived to date. I started thinking of what I’ve done with my life and whether I am happy about it. I had just been having a hard week, so I was having these thoughts, and then I realized that yes, I am happy about my life. There have been some really hard parts, some awful parts, but overall, there’s been a lot of good and I’m very happy. What a gift.

    I’ve had wonderful experiences, like running a half marathon in Ottawa, biking a full marathon in New York City, going on a hot air balloon ride with my hubby, being a lead in a play, performing at an open mic stand up comedy club (I rocked that!), moving to a new city for work, meeting my husband on the internet in 2005 (and he was the only guy I met because he was perfect for me!), becoming a parent, learning about breathing, connecting to my heart and how important writing is for my heart, and learning to make decisions that are in my highest and best good, like applying for disability leave from my work and recognizing that my health was no longer at a point where I could keep working.

    It was really refreshing to think about the good, and that’s just the experiences. That says nothing about the absolutely incredible people I have met who have made a tremendous difference in my life! Yay for them! Thank you all so, so, so much!! They’ve taught me to love myself, be kind to myself and to celebrate the goodness that I am, and there’s a fair bit of that! I have the best laugh. Tee hee, it’s funny to write that about myself, but my laugh is really great. I laugh from my toes and I laugh loudly and it’s such a privilege. I can feel deep sorrow and I can laugh like something is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, a few times a day. I guess that’s me, I feel the highest highs and the lowest of the lows. Feeling is something I am pretty good at.

    Well, writing a post about my life after just thinking about it is very refreshing. Thanks for reading and I hope this post inspires you to take a look at the good you are, the good you’ve experienced and to give yourself a hug from me for all the tough that’s been in between.

    xoxoxoxo, Bradlee

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2025. All Rights Reserved.