When your body tells you what's going on

Had a fairly frightful experience last week, which showed me very clearly how your body can process fear.
I am a fairly fit person, and have been running, training for the City to Surf (an annual fun run in Sydney 14km's long so one could contest the use of the term 'fun' in that context).

Anyway you could imagine then my shock at the end of the working day, as I walked to the station, when my vision became blurred in my right eye.

I kept rubbing it, thinking that there must be something in it. Yet I knew when there wasn't any change that it wasn't a foreign object, and instead something a little more serious. It was like having a 'tear' in my eye. And my fear began to set in, when I closed my eyes and that 'tear' still remained. So as calm as I could, I put my IPOD on and closed my eyes to get centred. A headache began, and by the time I reached one stop before mine, my right hand was numb - pins and needles only.

I wasn't sure what to do. Should I call someone if by the time I get into my car I still can't feel my arm? Was I having a stroke? This wasn't funny and I was close to tears. By the time I got off the train I had feeling back in my arm and my vision was clear - Thank God! So I got home and as I sat at the dinner table with my parents and brother/sister-in-law I was so upset I began to cry. I apologised and went to my room where I fell to pieces.
Now just to clarify - I am healthy, and even though i thought that maybe I was having one of those mystery illnesses that they have on 'House', I knew that that wasn't the truth. What had I done that day which I had tried to pay very little attention to? I had paid my ticket to the UK in full. And it wasn't the money that I was obviously so stressed about, it was leaving my family. My brothers, sisters, their husbands and wives, all my nieces and nephews and my parents. It was obviously terrifying and I had tried to ignore it, dismiss it as another 'to do' which had been completed and ticked off the list. Yet my body had other ideas. Suppressing that emotion just wasn't going to be for me. All that night and the next day I was in 'emotionally' fragile land, crying at the drop of a hat, even when watching movies and episodes of the West Wing.

The biggest learning I had was to acknowledge those feelings and to never underestimate the power of emotion and how it can manifest physically.

It was something that I understood intelectually, and as I am prone to 'breakouts' when I get angry, I knew it on one level. This was in a totally new ballpark. If I was still unaware of my life patterns I may have put it down to a 'stressful day' and moved on. Instead I let it run its course, honouring how I felt. Next time I think it will be easier to simply acknowledge it in the first place.