On the flu and food poisoning and the new year...
- Shawna Schenk
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Hi everyone and happy new year! I am hoping you are having a wonderful day and start to the year ahead.
I am sitting in New Jersey and you are all on my mind. I am wondering how you all are doing…please fill me in if you feel like it.
John and I decided to take a 3 week trip to the east coast to spend maximum time with my family during the holiday season. We rented a house across the street from my mom here in NJ! The plan was to have the most Christmassy Christmas ever and spend ALL of our time with my friends and family, catch up and just enjoy each other. We packed up FOUR suitcases (which is a lot for me, I typically bring one small carry on when I travel). Two of these suitcases were entirely dedicated to Christmas gifts and Christmas decor including a huge inflatable meditating santa and mini size leg lamp from The Christmas Story. We were so excited and like Santa on his sleigh we left the west coast and headed east full of joy!
The trip started strong with watching mom in her Christmas church chorus performance and then seeing my little niece as a candycane in the Nutcracker. We started stringing the lights around our rental home and bought two small Christmas trees from a local tree farm that my other niece picked out on our special "Aunt Shawna + Uncle John Day". A little snow came, and we were decking the halls! It was just enough for us to feel like we were in a Hallmark movie.
Then four days into our trip, I got the flu. Not the it’s-a-little-cold-and-you-can-suck-it-up-it-will-be-gone-soon kinda sick. The knock-you-off-your-feet-for-a-week kinda sick. It was awful and in fact my mom said she never saw me that sick before and lucky for me, it was true. You know that feeling where you just can’t get comfortable inside your body? You feel trapped and helpless.
By day 3, I decided to go to urgent care because I thought something was seriously wrong with me. John and I playfully gave myself the nickname “Little wheezy” because I kept wheezing. Hey, at least I kept my humor.
After a two hour wait and $150 later, she told me to rest and drink fluids…I kept thinking: “I wish doctors could just do home visits.”
I was in bed a week and I had my sound healing going from my phone, essential oils rubbed all over me, regularly repeated mantras to will myself into feeling better, gave myself reiki and energy work and did lots of breathwork. I kept thinking “I wish other people knew this when they were suffering..” I was so grateful that I have tools that make me my own “home visit doctor.” Doing these sessions didn’t make it magically go away. The body has to do what it has to do. But it did help and I did feel a difference. Especially with my mental and emotional state.
To be honest, I didn’t feel like myself for two weeks and I barely saw anyone and of course John got the flu too.
But “this too will pass” and it did. As pain and hardship and suffering in our life always does. Whatever we are going through.
Two weeks out, finally we were back at it! My mom and I went to get our nails done and I felt great! I was “Ok, I have one week left and we can make the most of it! That is why the universe wanted me to stay here three weeks!”
Later that night John and I grabbed some food from a restaurant down the street. A few hours later I violently awoke with FOOD POISONING! God damn split pea soup. I thought I was doing the right thing NOT ordering pizza or a cheesesteak!
I never had food poisoning before and GOOD LORD. Are you kidding me?! Anyone who has had it knows what I am talking about. It was worse than the flu and took me out three days.
There was more moaning and fetal position and of course my brain kept trying to reason why this was happening. “Why does the universe not want me to see my family? Why did I spend all this money and time away from my studio to just sit in suffering?”
My mantra was “I surrender.” I said this out loud a few times and I knew my dog understood what I meant.
So I leave tomorrow to come back to San Diego. I spent most of my trip in the bathroom and only got to see my parents and nieces/nephews three times. The inflatable santa never made up it and you know…I cried today like I was a 5 year old girl…haha
I share this with you because the flu and all these sicknesses are going around. I have heard that it is really bad this year. This pl is just a reminder that probably someone around you is going through it (if not the flu or food poisoning but something else) and can relate to the common human trait of suffering. It is also a reminder that your body and mind are resilient, will get through things, and are the most miraculous healing machine that man has ever known. It is true. Even if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes.
This email is also a reminder that we are all more alike than we are different: how many people have felt uncomfortable in their body? How many people have planned something and the opposite of the plan happened? How many people have been disappointed and sad because they didn’t get what they wanted? Or it didn’t meet the picture they had in their head?
This year I am looking forward to getting closer to all of you and expanding our circle bigger and bigger. To sharing the tools I have learned to help make life easier when it gets challenging. To keep talking about how lucky and blessed we all are to be together and alive right now.
I’ll be back at the studio Jan 4. I will be leading a special class at 10:15 am called 12 Cards for 12 months. We do this every year and it is amazing! You pick 12 oracle cards to pick messages for the year ahead creating an affirmation calendar for what is to come! It is $25. Sign up here. Oracle cards will be provided but you can bring your own. Bring something to write with /write on!
Also all week of Jan 5th we will be giving out pieces of paper that say “26 in 26” asking you to write down 26 things you want or are grateful for in 2026. Come in and get one and if you are not local, just write down 26 things at home! Put it on your fridge or somewhere you will remember.
Life is a miracle and you are all walking proof of that..
I love you and wish happy new year!
Love, Shawna
PS: When I was laying in bed I was thinking how grateful I was to know the tools I know so I could be my own “at home doctor.” One night at 4 am my body was so achey I wanted to scream, but instead I started to do some stretching from my bed. I kept saying THANK YOU TO THE UNIVERSE that my brain thinks this way and I know these tools. It made me think about my next upcoming trainings or retreats. If you want to take one of the following but money is an obstacle, I’d like to offer TWO $500 scholarships to anyone who it would change their life in one of the three following trainings…
Or a $400 scholarship to two people to the
I don’t do this often but I feel the call to do it. If this would make the difference for you to come or join, this is the reason I thought this and please reply back to this email and I will get you set up. I am only offering 2 scholarships so serious inquiries only.
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