By the time lock-down hit I had already been in isolation for 2 years. Here is my story: the cliff-notes.
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Story Time: Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am?
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From my first stage success at age 19 I went on to become fame-ish as a female comic who was glamorous, outrageous and outspoken.
My career included television, radio and being the masthead columnist for a leading newspaper. I spoke nationally and internationally, emceed huge woman’s and LGBTQ events, and headlined comedy and arts festivals. I produced shows with incredible performers flanking me. and wrote for leading magazines.
Travel, shoots and interviews were routine.
Booked, blessed, and big-mouthed, I saw myself as a leader, because I was. Noble was front and center. the creator, the producer, the headliner.
But what people saw of me was only half the story. Most often, when not in the spotlight I was in bed.
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The first episode of weeks-long fatigue ambushed me at age 23. It was to sneak back every few months, for the decades to come.
After each ‘burnout’ I’d see yet another doctor or healer. I paid many (many, many) health professionals to investigate my long (long, long) list of ailments. Stomach issues, strange body aches, dizziness, brain fog, ever-present exhaustion.
The response was unanimous: stress. All I needed to do was relax, apparently.
By my 40’s I gave up asking. I accepted the truth: that I had a rare disease that would one day be named after me. I was Patient Zero with ‘Noble’s Anomaly’.
So I got on with it. I slammed caffeine and chemicals and pounded on. On up-days I pranced, on down-days I lay dormant.
SPACE MONSTER
WATCH ME FALL
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2008: Steep decline
I slipped down a slow slope in aching increments. Longer periods of exhaustion, with shorter intervals between them. Increasing inability to focus. Deepening depression. The invisible worm was at work.
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2016: Boom, welcome to rock bottom.
A few weeks of fatigue turned into 7 months in bed. I did have a few trips to the hospital – just to get out of the house. Blood transfusions. The time I donated my uterus to medical waste. A few more visits for post-surgery complications.
After that, I was told that after one month of bed rest I’d be bouncing. Whoohoo, I am healed! Celebrate good times come on!
Not so fast, Noble.
After a little lift, I was soon to sink back into perpetual pain and bone-deep fatigue.
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2017: Career devastated, looks decimated, bank account annihilated.
No longer the Head Diva in Charge, the shell that used to be Irit Noble took a 45 hour a week shop assistant job.
The payment was pittance, the environment toxic with screaming matches between my unhappily married bosses. I lasted 6 months.
Now what?
I started a little odd-job business called I-Assist. I did everything from speech writing to creating party costumes to helping people pack for moves. But it didn’t take long before I was back in bed, unable to move.
What could I do now to create income? Broke and broken, I did find some work I could do from bed: social media management. I studied at YTU (the University of YouTube) and earned while I learned.
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2018: I go to live in the country AKA to die in the country.
I had 6 clients on the books, 20 twenty hairs left on my head, 47kg on my bones, and 4 cats.
Little did I know that I was about to find real healing in this cat-lined nest in this tiny town.
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2019: Miracle! A doctor solves my 28-year-long riddle.
Diagnosis: Autoimmune disease(s)
Prognosis: Incurable.
Prescription: chemotherapy medication… for the rest of my life.
I declined the medication. I knew my body wouldn’t cope. It wouldn’t make me feel better, only keep my husk of a body mobile. I would be so-called alive, with no life at all.
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BUT receiving a diagnosis meant finally I had something to work with!
And work I did. Back to YTU, obsessively seeking natural healing through diet.
I found so many others just like me. Spoonies. So called because we had to measure our energy so very sparingly. The relief! I’m not alone… and I’m not just crazy. I’m not just growing old in fast forward. I told you I was sick! See? There is a name for this!
SEE ME RISE...
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Year 1:
Hard-core diet and detox. Mainly bed bound. Fearful desperation plus tearful hope. Symptoms start to improve. Some disappear completely!
Year 2:
Body healing, I look to lifestyle. I now can look up at sky instead of ceiling. The sun and I are reacquainted and we gaze upon one another each dawn. I can take walks! And they grow longer as my steps grow stronger.
I write again and start to uncover some understanding, which introduced me to its loving sister: Self-forgiveness.
Year 3:
As my physical health challenges fade, the mental ones take center stage: look at me!
I am met with an inner orphanage that has found voice.
I begin to notice an alarming level of anxious habits I haven’t been that aware of till now. Have I always been like this, revving so high inside? (Chronic anxiety and ADHD certainly make a spicy mix. Piquant. Compliments to the chef.)
To quiet the carnival, I start to do mindfulness practice. Which is a gateway drug to meditation.
And now the fun begins! Ooooh, all my woo-woo comes through…
Long-forgotten crystals are rinsed and moon-washed. Herbs burn as high vibrational music tinkles from my phone. The cats, my captive audience, applaud with the odd ear-twitch as I belt out mantra loops and affirmations. I praise! When I tell you that my heart feels like a limb, I’m not exaggerating. I can feel it inside me, as defined as my arm.
After months of le float, my analytical mind comes back online. I am a planning nerd, so when the ideas start to download I’m back at my desk. I update systems, create new processes, design new services, and gather new clients.
SPACE MONSTER
SUCCESS!
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2022: My blood tests were completely clear!
Science announced that there was no disease left in my body whatsoever.
Yay, think I! Now to enjoy my life.
But no.
Now my work life began to crack. Crazy project delays. Excruciating sciatica from hunching over my laptop all day. The new iPhone I’d worked so hard for and desperately needed for my work, was stolen.
Whaaaat? I shouted. What more must I do?!
Ask and you will get. The answer came in one blinding instant on yet another afternoon hunched over my work, at my desk.
The Message:
Ping! A WhatsApp message from a long-lost agent. “I know you’re not really around but would you like to do a motivational talk for a group?”
“Would I? Would I!? That’s ALL I want to do!” I jolted upright as I heard myself shout this out.
And whoop there it is. I finally got it, as clearly as if spoken by The Voice of The Universe Itself:
Your body is healed! Hermit mode is over!
You want to reenter the world? DO IT. You want to reclaim your stage? DO IT
You want to write? Write! You want to speak? Speak! You want change? Change!
DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT
Self-Concept Is Everything: You Are Who You Think You Are
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Autoimmune disease is known as an Invisible Disease, and that’s how I’d come to see myself: invisible.
My self-concept had shrunk to fit my tiny life. I had grown so used to doing what I had to do, I’d forgotten what I LOVE to do. I’d reclaimed my body, mind and soul but not my self-image. Being unable to use my deepest, truest gifts had ebbed my self-confidence but baby, that has since been rectified.
Did this realization catapult me to the understanding I have now? Absolutely.
If by catapult you mean take another 2 years.
So Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want:
This has been a long unfolding but there is no time wasted, only lessons learned.
I had to ask myself: WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?
Spoiler alert: the answer took me back to the beginning – I just want to be my actual self, and get better and better at that.
I know who I am now. I know how I want to live. I know what I am put here to do: connect with people though laughter, learning, and helping them find their authentic strengths. Because we all have them... sometimes we just need help to claim them.
And Now?
In a painstakingly slow reveal, I’ve created a framework in which to express my authentic self in service to others.
And this website is the distillation of it all. Everything I talk about comes from alchemizing my lived experiences into lessons learned.
A gift from ADHD and anxiety is that I need my tools to be sharp and work fast. That’s why I teach about using micro habits for incremental change.
The skills Ive gathered from creating content for myself and for clients, are so easily sharable that teaching them is a joy.
I learned so much from social media management, and up-leveled that with video creation and editing. After learning so much at YTU, I am now a lecturer lol. Check out my channel @iritnoble - it is an ongoing experiment.
I was also called back to the entertainment stage again. I love to dress up and hop about in tights but it’s not my life goal. Its for fun, for now.
My guiding passion is speaking to people about how they can claim their confidence. (Why waste all my glorious mistakes when I can up-cycle them to tell you how to live your life?)
SO… WELCOME TO MY BRAND SPANKY WEBSITE AND BLOG PWEE-PWEE-PWEE-PWEEEE..
I wanted to write: I write. I wanted to speak: I speak. I realised that no-one was going to give me permission, so I gave it to myself. And I am here to encourage you too. I cant wait to watch you show up for your glow-up!
I love that you have read this far, thank you! If anything I offer here resonates with you, please reach out. I am easy to find :).
Love you. Irit x
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