I fell ill last month. Not just a cold or even the flu, but emergency room, MRI, blacking-out kind of sick.

It turned out to be shingles. Yes, at thirty-eight, I got shingles—something I thought only elderly people dealt with. And not knowing anything about shingles, I started reading, trying to learn why this happened to me.

Shingles, I learned, is a nerve infection. The chickenpox virus flares up within your body due to a weakened immune system, often caused by stress or other health conditions. The first symptom is often pain, followed soon after by a rash along the infected nerve. Like most nineties kids, I had chickenpox as a child, and that virus had been dormant in my nerve tissues. For most people, the virus stays there until they are much older, usually over fifty.

What was especially odd about this was that I had just come back from a spa retreat in England. I was relaxed and felt great. I’d run ten miles the weekend prior to the retreat and had run twice while away. I had eaten well and relaxed and gotten in time with friends. I was, by all accounts, relaxed and refreshed. Not exactly ripe for a shingles infection.

At that retreat, I also had a personal breakthrough and came back committed to letting go of some of the worry that plagues my daily life. As I’ve shared before, I have a child with chronic health conditions, and the reality of that adds not just the stress of caring but also caring. I worry and worry and worry. And while I lead a relatively balanced life, especially by American standards, the truth is that my inner space was not balanced. I woke up worried and went to bed worried. I ruminate in worry. I marinate in it.

So I got back from this retreat, ready to shift and be present in what is, and stop worrying and start living more for the moment, and—boom. I was down. And I stayed down for two excruciating weeks. The pain of shingles is hard to describe. It’s deep and pulsing. It stops your speech with its ferocity.

Have you ever had something like this happen? You go on vacation, and within hours or days, you’re ill? Researchers propose this is because stress produces cortisol, which boosts our immune system. When we come down from the stress, our cortisol comes down, and the illness kicks in full force. That must be what happened to me. It’s like the virus said, “Aha. Our opportunity!” and mounted a full-on attack.

Thankfully, I caught it early and went to the doctor, where I was given antiviral medicine. But if the medicine did its job of shortening the length and severity, I can’t imagine what this would have been like in full force.

As I worsened, I missed a full week and a half of work, except for a couple of client and community calls. And about a week in, I got really sick. I spiked a fever. I started having neurological symptoms, including a burning sensation on my scalp, numbness in my face and arm on the left side, and nausea. I started blacking out while walking and had to lay down on the floor. That’s when I told my husband we had to go to the ER. Immediately.

Thankfully, nothing was horribly wrong, and I went back home, where my symptoms changed but didn’t worsen. Eventually, as you can surely guess by now, I got better. As I write this, more than two weeks after the first symptoms, I am still in pain, but my energy is mostly back. Not 100 percent, but I think I’ll be there within a week. I left the house yesterday, for the first time. I feel like Stacy again.

And now here I am, back and determined to stay in balance, to treat my mind as sacred space, just like I treat my body. I eat whole foods and run and do yoga. And while I meditate and read and do all sorts of things to keep myself mentally sharp, what have I done to support that bubbling inner anxiety about the future of my child? What have I done to support my emotional health in the same way I support my intellectual and physical health?

Three life-changing lessons

Here are the learnings I hope to hold dear, and I’m sharing them with you for accountability—and maybe to support your own journey of balance too.

1. I am the thinker of my thoughts; I’m not the thoughts themselves. I heard or read this somewhere, though Google doesn’t seem to know where. I love this quote because it’s a reminder that I have agency and accountability over what I think. I’m not determined by my thoughts—they do not make things real or make up me as a person. They are just thoughts that I think, but I am the thinker.
2. I can observe, acknowledge, and let go of negative thoughts. A core insight from the retreat was the ability to observe my own thoughts and let them go. This is simple in practice but not so easy in real life. I am practicing this daily. For example, if I feel annoyed, I think, “What would it be like if I weren’t annoyed right now?” It doesn’t mean that I need to excuse others’ behavior or not deal with negative situations, but I can be mindful of my inner world.
3. Thoughts determine feelings; as the thinker of my thoughts, I can influence my own feelings. This has been powerful for my overarching worry. It is normal to worry about one’s child, especially in my situation. But my worried thoughts are just that—worried thoughts that leave me feeling worried. Instead, I’m becoming an observer of my thinking. “I’m feeling worried right now. What thoughts am I having that are making me feel that way?” I am studying my inner world with curiosity and without judgment. I am noticing the fear underneath the worry, and recognizing that I can be driven to help my child without my thoughts driving me into worry spirals. (I need to give a shout out here to Aaron and Lila from One Thought for the sessions they led at the retreat I attended, which was all about agency over our own thinking. Profound!)

That’s it—it’s as simple as observation and awareness. It’s about reprogramming myself to live in the moment with my family, to let go of fear, and yet to still lean in to the sides of myself that keep me driving. I can harness that inner fire and energy for good.

I’m not saying worry caused my shingles. But stress can. In fact, other than things like age and cancer, stress is the main cause of the virus flaring in one’s system.

I’m listening to my body. I’m observing my thoughts. I’m the thinker, not the thoughts themselves.

Have you had a health event that caused you to see things differently or make adjustments to your life? What did listening to your body teach you? Share with me in the comments. I love learning from you.