What? Embracing the Illness? How can you do that when it brings such misery and pain? You can and it can make a world of difference. Read on.
Several month ago I shifted my perspective and mindset. After two years of anger, frustration and feeling the victim of this unfair affliction, I shifted. Perhaps it was the reiki session I had that prior week, bringing me to a more grounded, peaceful place mentally. I recall the text message I sent my partner, it read:
“Though I am in pain, I have found a way to make it a part of me rather than something afflicting me, embracing it with compassion for myself, rather than feeling resentment and frustration. I hurt always, I am always in pain. I have a baseline pain that is constant. I move and live through it. Above baseline I have to take special measures to relieve the pain. That is my life and my future and I am learning to live with it and respect it”
That was HUGE. To arrive at such a new place in my head. For two years I had been afflicted with a disease called Auto Immune Disease, specifically called Rheumatoid Arthritis. With later diagnosis to included Osteoarthritis and Fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is my albatross by far. For two years I was in a victim mindset. Why is this happening TO me. This is unfair. What did I do to bring this on? I saw the illness as it’s own entity, attacking my body. It felt a constant power struggle between me and this illness trying to get the best of me, and I, constantly trying to ward it off. What happens in a power struggle? We become exhausted and it depletes us. With a disease that already is designed to cause fatigue and exhaustion it becomes a double whammy. So I began to instead consider the illness, the pain, as part of me, I developed a relationship with the pain. Rather than it be the antagonist, I started to view it with compassion. Work with the pain, not against it. Live with the pain rather than in spite of it. Because when the room is empty, it’s just me and my pain. Friend or foe. So much better to be trapped with a friend. I developed a synergistic relationship with my pain. Today I am here, so is my pain. I have to work with the parameters of today, which are not the same as yesterday. Bend and flex with the disease. The rigidity of anger, frustration and victimization can lead only to further frustration, anger, depression and likely more pain. It becomes a cycle.
I think the word to describe this new synergistic relationship with my disease is EMBRACE. I know for most of us the concept of embracing something that brings us so much turmoil sounds ridiculous and impossible. It is a mindset. A shift in our perspective. It’s a change in how we cognitively meet the daily challenge of today. I liken it to the concept of forgiving others, not for them, but for ourselves and the peace it brings. Another tough one to swallow but effective none the less.
The new kindness and gentleness, that comes with compassion, softens the daily blow of the challenges we face. Which as we all know changes and morphs day to day. How intense the pain is, where the pain is in our bodies. Our ability to go to work, be social, tend to our usual routines literally changes day to day. And we rarely know what tomorrow will bring. It’s maddening at times.
When we embrace our illness we treat it (ourselves) more compassionately. Today we are in pain. Hello pain, there you are. My frequent visitor. What do we need today? What meds will make us feel more comfortable? Do we need to stretch? Perhaps too painful. Heat, ice. Let’s move, put our bodies in motion, stay limber, work out that stiffness and inflammation. No, too much pain. OK today we rest, get off our feet, cancel plans. Today we ALLOW ourselves what we need, no matter what it is. No matter how strong the meds are or what plans we need to cancel. More on allowing ourselves what we need in my next article.
What have we removed from the daily equation? The anger and resentment that comes with the victim mentality. Less energy is now used on such negative emotion. And now our focus instead is on what we need to gently and compassionately get ourselves through this day. One day at a time. And tomorrow when we wake, we will begin again. Embracing who we are, all of who we are, including our illnesses, our traumas and everything we carry.
Self love, Self compassion.
With Grit & Grace,
Donna
I have come to similar conclusions. Indeed, on the over-doing it aspect, here is something I wrote a while back.
"The trouble with being chronically ill is that usually we have lost our interoception, the senses of our own internal states. One of these is sense of tiredness, especially when feeling chronically fatigued a lot as then it is even harder to work out when we are just normally tired. There is also a serious temptation to go hammer and tongs at the neural exercises we hope will make us better.
Unfortunately, this is not how neuroplasticity works - too much of a good thing isn't better. This type of healing process can't be rushed. It takes time. Indeed, even only a few minutes a day on any particular neural exercise may be all that is needed for long term benefits, but over-doing do it just exhausts the system more and more, which can actually be detrimental, especially when we find it hard to tell that the work is making us tired. The danger is we just keep hammering a way at it, exhausting our system further and further in a negative spiral of descent.
The second issue is that a very significant factor for many of us becoming ill in the first place is that we hold ourselves to impossible standards. This is often translated to our healing processes, so when we don't manage to fit in a busy schedule of neural exercises into our day (because eventually our body says no), we end up making it all worse by feeling like we're failures, or getting stuck in looping thoughts of self-doubt and guilt. Again, another spiral of descent.
We need to remember that healing is primarily about neuromodulation and neurorelaxation, calming our nervous and endocrine systems, and thus, while relaxation techniques are crucial for healing, being relaxed about our healing activities is also vital for increasing our aliveness. This is why I recommend healing exercises should always be done in the spirit of fun, joy and curiosity - or not at all! It should be part of our day when our inner child can come out to play!"
Hope it is ok to also share with you my own musings of related themes I posted this morning, which, synchronously, speaks to the "why me?" question and the answers I found... https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/lessons-learned-on-a-journey-into
Your writing is an inspiration to all. I can attest as your partner that you already have kindness and compassion in your being. You are definitely forging a better path. I know it’s not easy love, I EMBRACE you. Always. xo