This past winter I watched in horror as normally healthy, resilient friends + co-workers succumbed to a string of illnesses, from bronchitis to pneumonia to mystery stomach bugs. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve also never been sick so frequently despite my usual precautions of hand-washing, flu shots and exercise. We all thought spring would put an end to the madness, but we’re all sick all over again. I know that germs and bacteria are a real thing, and that I have zero scientific data to support this, but I have to think that we are all more susceptible to sickness because we are simply doing too much. And I don’t just mean working. I mean everything: Thinking, worrying, stressing, talking, traveling, coming, going . . . it’s all too much. I’m as guilty as they come and I don’t even realize it half the time because I believe that this intensity is completely normal. In fact, I worry more that if I stop, everything will come crashing down?my career, my following, my reputation, my relationships. So I keep going, with short, designated breaks for relaxation. I call it hurry-up-and-relax time. But all of those massages, bubbly-laden nights out and weekend getaways are really just a very concentrated last-ditch effort to avoid collapse. It takes getting sick, as I have been these past few days, to snap out of my ineffectual, unsustainable way of being.
Our bodies always know, and when they don’t like what they know,...