Have you ever woken up from a deep sleep with a strong desire to write? I did, last night while in my warm, comfortable bed I was woken up from a deep sleep, I turned on my light. I felt the desire to write about wellness. Wellness conjures up a lot of things for each of us. We all have an idea what wellness means, especially for those of us with a chronic illness. I know that I have had thoughts of “can I even achieve wellness with my illness?” “What does that look like?” “How much energy will it take?” I’m sure you all have had these thoughts too. I know I have drained myself of any type of motivation or energy when I have thoughts like these. Since turning 42 this month I have been actively considering what a life of wellness would look like for me. Considering how much time and dedication am I willing to invest in to accomplish them has been the latest step. I no longer desire to as the ads say on TV get that bikini body. My desire is bigger, pertaining to the bigger goal of encouraging and helping others. I asked myself the big question, how can I help and encourage others if I am not well? The short answer is I won’t be able to.
Wellness does not mean you are cured from your illness. It simply means you are striving towards a good life despite having an illness. You are successfully managing your condition and can live a full, active, and productive life. For me, my wellness goal is to be strong mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physical. If I am strong in all four areas then I feel healthy. I feel strong. I feel accomplished. Since I have 4 things I am going to take 4 posts to explain what I mean, and what I do to reach my wellness goals in each area. I am going to start with emotional wellness. While I was journaling emotional wellness seemed to be what I wanted to write about first. This needs to be said what works for my wellness goals might not work for you. We all are different and the way we work things out in our life is different. This is my story. I’m not sharing it to shame you, tell you my way is better and you have to follow these steps. That is not my goal. My goal is to encourage you to seek out your own path to wellness in whatever manner or things you decide helps you the best. I also want my readers, friends, and family to get to know me. So that you can see that I am not always Pollyanna when I share things on my Facebook and Twitter. I go through a process before I even communicate on social media. I have made a decision to not share anything negative, anything too critical, defamatory towards someone, or will cause someone harms in anyway. Words are powerful. They will hurt you and others.
With my challenging physical disabilities with my breathing, my painful feet, legs, and back and the other challenges I have been facing with my illnesses my emotional life has not been a steady course. They are up and down moments. I often times feel like I am on a rollercoaster ride. Dealing with the emotional impact of being a Chronic Babe has kicked me in the rear-end many times. I have felt black and blue from the beating of my emotional state has taken. The biggest emotional impact has been when I have compared my life, my abilities, and my health to others. That is when the dagger of critical judgment enters into my heart the most. I pray and I have and still choose to look at it as an opportunity to praise and bless the people I encounter. The biggest comparison is in being active, it sucks not being as active as I once was. I’m hoping that this next surgery on the 25th will open up my trachea enough that I can start working towards being more active. I even have my Physiatrist appointment set up for June 2. I’m so ready to be up and doing things better. I also know that while I am slowly working up to a better physical position that I am going to have to deal with the emotions of starting slow and not progressing as well as some. I have to beat the monster in my head. The one that I know Satan is using to attack me so that I do not accomplish my physical goals. These thoughts and emotions have waylaid me many times. I will talk more about the monster in my head in the mental post.
Here are a few things that I am going to use to help me deal with my emotions:
- Check in to see how I am feeling my using the HALTBS method that I learned in a previous counseling session.
- Check in with using my journal.
If you have any methods of emotional wellness you would like to share let me know in the comments below….
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