The People Who Fill Our Bubbles

A couple years ago, I started seeing a nutritionist. I was tired of being overweight, physically tired of carrying around all the excess skin and burdens that come with it. She is the most amazing individual and I leave every session with my mind open and my soul lifted. She truly believes that health and wellness are intertwined, and she applies this holistic approach to her counseling.

In one of our first sessions, she explained what stress was actually doing to my body. Stress triggers our fight-or-flight response, which releases cortisol, the hormone that springs us into action. Cortisol is useful when you need to flee from a vengeful tiger. It’s considerably less useful when the tiger is actually an overflowing inbox, a calendar with no breathing room, and the fifty-eleven things you’re juggling in your head at any given moment.

When stress becomes chronic, cortisol stays elevated more often than it should. And that can affect everything from sleep to hunger, cravings, and the way our bodies store fat. In other words, I could be doing all the “right” things with food and exercise while stress was quietly making the whole process harder. This is exactly what was happening with me.

Mallory decided she was going to teach me how to better manage my stress. She pulled out a piece of paper and drew what she called her “bubble chart.” She drew a ring of circles, each representing something different that can sustain us: hobbies and creativity, rest, movement, nutrition, sleep, mental health, nature and sunlight, relationships, community, spirituality, and more. At the center of the ring, she wrote “Balance and Alignment.”

Using this visual map, she explained that balance doesn’t mean perfectly distributing our time and energy across every part of our lives. Sometimes we’re drawing heavily from movement, nutrition, and sleep. Other times, what fills us up might be friendships, creativity, nature, or community.

We don’t need every bubble to be full at the same time. In fact, running around trying to fill every bubble just creates more stress. The point isn’t to do all of these things. It’s to have enough different sources of restoration available to us that when one area of our lives isn’t giving us what we need, we can draw from somewhere else.

I’d lost about 25 pounds working with Mallory when, about a year ago, her office suddenly started rescheduling my appointments. First, they pushed me out a month. Then another month. Eventually, they moved me to another provider and told me Mallory was on leave indefinitely.

I later learned that she had been diagnosed with cancer and needed time away for treatment. I can’t adequately express how much that affected me. If the world were karmic, Mallory is the last person anything bad should ever happen to.

My body seemed to feel the loss as well. I gained a few pounds and then entered what felt like the longest plateau in the history of weight loss. I changed medications. I picked up golf. I increased my steps. I kept trying different things, but my weight wasn’t responding to any of it.

Then, last week, I got a call from the provider who had been covering for Mallory. For an entire year, this amazing woman had been juggling her own caseload and Mallory’s, intentionally keeping Mallory’s spot open in case she was able to come back.

She needed to reschedule my upcoming appointment. But, she asked, would I like to schedule it with Mallory instead?

Mallory was back!

I had my first session with her yesterday, and I was so happy to reconnect not just with my nutritionist, but with someone I’ve come to think of as a life advisor. I can’t imagine what this transition is like for her, from being a patient to being a caregiver again. I won’t pretend to know what she needs or what fills her bubbles these days.

But I hope that one of her bubbles is labeled “People I’ve Impacted.”

Because yesterday, I got to tell her how much she impacted me, and how my body seemed to go into stasis during her leave. I got to tell her how happy I was to see her. And I got to show her that even during the year she was gone, I hadn’t forgotten what she taught me.

I hope that seeing my joy, my progress, and my absolute delight at having her back filled one of her bubbles, even just a little. Welcome back, Mallory! The world is so lucky to have people like you 🙂