The final word: Ann Marie McQueen on the process of getting through tough times

Struggling with emotional shock, I made matters worse by beating myself up for completely abandoning my rigorous workout schedule.

Ann Marie McQueen after completing the inaugural UAE Spartan Sprint in a Dubai sandstorm last year. Courtesy Ann Marie McQueen

Three months ago, I faced one of the toughest challenges of my life. And for only the second time – the first being losing my mum to cancer when I was 27 – I felt both ripped open and knocked to my knees.

As I struggled with all the signs of emotional shock, including exhaustion, weakness, constant headaches, poor sleeping and nightmares, I made matters worse by beating myself up for completely abandoning my rigorous workout schedule. I’ve exercised my way through all sorts of heartache and stress in my life, but this time around, I literally didn’t have the strength. I could not fathom a short walk, let alone 90-minute hot-yoga classes, boxing or any of the other extreme workouts I love doing.

As a person who has to watch her weight very closely, my old body-image fears started to surface, too. I had put on 15 kilograms in the three months between my mother’s cancer diagnosis and her death; my father and brother were powerless to stop me as I ate my way through my pain, and I never want to go through that again. However, all those years ago, once I finally lost that grief weight, I tackled the problem that had caused it in the first place: emotional eating. I changed my diet forever, mostly cutting out the breads and pastas that wreaked havoc on my blood sugar and led to later cravings, making sure to exercise regularly for an overall boost to my mood and most importantly, learning how to acknowledge, process and feel my emotions, rather than stuffing them down with food.

This time, it didn’t hurt that all I could handle eating were healthy smoothies and the odd grilled cheese sandwich. And when I dropped a quick 5kg, I experienced for the first time the small silver lining that is breakup-induced weight loss. I may not have felt good, but I did look it.

My best friends assured me I’d get back to it when I was ready, and eventually, I just decided not to worry about when I would exercise again or how my body would fare in the meantime.

I accepted that my body needed to cocoon; that I had to conserve my energy to get through the immediate crisis. Trusting myself in that regard felt comforting. I also let myself fully grieve my loss, crying when I needed to, raging, too, leaning heavily on that trusted, supportive circle of friends, being grateful for them, and just basically giving in to what was happening. Healing.

And sure enough, after about a month, when I felt stronger, I started doing soothing yin and restorative yoga classes at home.

Eight weeks later I crept back into a hot Bikram yoga class. Although it was hard realising how much ground I’d lost, it felt so good to stretch and sweat again that I didn’t care.

The next week, I went for a gorgeous morning walk along the water. One day I ran for several kilometres on the treadmill in my apartment’s gym. Finally I tackled a 6.30am spinning class.

I left there drenched in sweat, flushed with endorphins, euphoric in knowing I was back on track, excited about the future and also really, really proud of myself.

I think the key to thriving as human beings is to fully accept the responsibility of taking care of ourselves, in the best way possible. When it comes to dealing with those events that will inevitably injure our bodies and souls along the way, sometimes that means stopping and resting until we are strong enough to get back at it, and knowing deep down that, when we are ready, we most definitely will.

Ann Marie McQueen is The National’s features editor.