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Riding Out The Nutty Stuff of Chronic Illness

The nutty stuff of life gets multiplied during chronic illness. Okay, maybe not completely true but it sure does feel that way!! How can life get so dang wild nutty?? While we are ill we just don’t have the patience or energy to deal with it all. I am learning to ride out the nutty stuff a little better, day by day.

Rolling with the sporadic Internet service is not my strong point. I pay my bill on time, I have it all connected in my home, I know what cord goes where to make it work. Yet, almost on a daily basis, it stops working. There is nothing I can do about it, nothing the Internet company can do about it, I have to ride this one out. Urg!!

The electric company has sent me bills that I cannot even begin to understand, no matter how many times I call and ask for clarification. There is no clarification to offer me, well… from their perspective. I have to ride this one out until I can fix the problem. Urg!!

Those are only two issues of my day. What about the physical limitations??

Physical Limitations to Ride Out

I woke up feeling good and started it with some bubble in my voice and a bit of kick in my step and took it way too far. I made three videos today.

The first starts with the bubble and the kick, then faded a bit to flat, then crashes with a winded whining about how would I possibly get back to bed where I belonged.

I had other adventures through my day other than the three videos. I went to an appointment. I went to the post office. Hmmm, three videos and two errands. Okay, that is not much for the average person but for us who are chronically ill, dang that is way too much.

Didn’t I spend all 2018 telling you to slow down, take care of yourself? I thought we covered this over and over again. If we do not listen to our bodies, moment by moment, and do what they need, it is hard to heal and recover from illness.

Basic concept.

If it is so basic, why do we have such a hard time with it? We want to start living again.

Whether we are newbies to illness or we are seasoned longterm chronic illness warriors, this is not how we desire to spend our days much less our lives. So we want to get on with it. We want the shortcuts. We want to ignore our bodies demands some more and make it all go away.

Reality Check

Our bodies are going to do what they are going to do. We have a tremendous responsibility to feed them with nourishment. Supplement them with healing nutrients. Give them sunshine and water, and of course oxygen. Resting is one way we are required to nourish our bodies so they can move through this process. It is basic stuff but we have to do it.

Resting is the toughest one for me. I am just plum done with sitting still but my body does not agree.

After three videos and two errands, I am flat on my back and cannot move around. My body has shut me down. Forced me to be still and recover from my rebellious attitude toward rolling with the reality of chronic illness.

When I won’t do it for myself, my body does it for me.

I know, we all want to get on with our lives and be done with this nonsense. For one, it is not nonsense. Chronic illness is here, for one, to teach us some lessons. Listening to our bodies and not our desires is one of those hard lessons.

I don’t care if it problems with the Internet, electric company or physical limitations, take everything in bite-sized pieces so that we can determine if we handle the next bite. While we are chronically ill, we really are not given many choices in this. We (okay ME), can keep fighting it and crashing, or I can slow myself down again.

Ride out the issues. Have more patience with ourselves!! Do better than my example and take things as slowly as you need to.

Watch how I started my day with a bubble in my voice and a skip in my step. Tomorrow I will give you video 2 (of 3) of this and you will see me slowing down. Do what I say, not what I do!!! Ohhhh, stars.

Maribeth Baxter, MBNC (Certified Mind-Body Nourishment Coach)

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