Coping with Chronic Illness-Creating Your Own Encouragement

Well, here's my first post about coping with chronic illness. For a while, I had been sunk deeply in depression and distorted thinking. In this post I'm going to talk about one of the things I used to help myself out of that deep rut. FYI, this is NOT a sales pitch. I'm just sharing a tool that I found helpful. You won't be asked to buy anything in this post.  :-)

Last year, I found out about some tools to help with goal setting and achievement. They were workbooks by Leonie Dawson. These workbooks, for your Life and for your Business, are quirky and encouraging resources to help you realize and accomplish your dreams and goals. I purchased them last year and didn't do very much with them. I decided when the 2016 editions came out that I would purchase them again and make a new and more positive start with 2016. I purchased the whole set that was offered, which was print and ebook versions of both the Life and Biz workbooks as well as a 2016 diary planner. I've worked with the workbooks and the planner and have gotten out of my rut and moved forward in a positive way.

Today I'm going to talk about how I used the Diary Planner. I didn't really think I'd use it very much because I mostly stay at home. Between chronic illness issues and my husband needing to take our only car to get him to work each day, I don't get out a ton. I decided to try to make some use of the Diary Planner since I had it. The planner has some EXCELLENT pages at the beginning and end of the month for setting goals for the month as well as examining the month at the end and seeing what you did and didn't accomplish as well as any lessons you learned. I've found these pages to be extremely helpful and valuable. They encourage me to set some goals. They also help me to evaluate my successes and failures for the month so I can hopefully do better in the future.

What I didn't expect was how helpful I'd find the daily pages. I got some ideas for different ways to use my planner from the Leonie Dawson Facebook group I joined. A big focus I've seen lately, from many sources, is setting your daily "To Do" list. I've tried doing this in the past and found it so discouraging! With my chronic illness symptoms varying from day to day, sometimes even hour to hour, I frequently didn't complete even a simple 3 item To Do list. This sunk me lower and lower... One of the ideas that I found was to write a list of EVERYTHING that you actually DID accomplish each day, kind of a reverse To Do list. That really struck me. A To Do list doesn't show all that you actually did get done. So I set my goal to write each day all the things I did at home. I also decided to keep a simplified symptom tracking in the planner each day also.

I was absolutely STUNNED to see how many things I actually did do on most days!!! Yes, they were basic things like feeding all the critters, making meals for myself, showering, etc. But there were days that I nearly filled the entire day's space in the planner listing out all the things I actually did. I found this SO encouraging!! Slowly, I stopped feeling so useless. It really showed me how much I truly was accomplishing each day. As a person with chronic illness, dealing with stress and frustration from not being able to work right now and feelings of uselessness, this was amazing to me. I hadn't actually realized just how much I really was doing.

Yes, it was "just" stuff around the house. But I realized that I was no longer needing to take an hours long nap every afternoon, or even all that frequently anymore. I realized that I was helping my husband prepare dinner many nights. I was doing laundry on an almost daily basis. I was rarely having to spend the evening resting alone in bed anymore, but was able to spend most evenings eating dinner and spending time with my husband. And more! I looked at all this and compared it to just a couple of years ago when I was practically bedbound and realized just how much different and better things are now!

I realized that on days when I wasn't able to do much, there was usually a very "legitimate" reason for that. Maybe I had a migraine that day or the day prior, or a big weather change was coming through which always messes me up physically, or maybe I'd done an outing the day before and needed to rest and recover the next day. I realized that recovering from events and outings was no longer as debilitating as it had been in the past. Now, I was MAYBE spending the following day in bed, if that, and while the next few days may be lower key, I was generally no longer having to spend up to a week resting in bed, fairly non-functional, after an outing or event. That is a HUGE improvement from even just a year ago!

What worked best for me was committing to writing my "Got Done" list every day. It wouldn't give me an accurate picture if I only wrote it once in a while. Daily for a month is a good starting goal. I set my goal for writing daily, but considered it a success if I wrote 6 out of 7 days in a week. This wasn't supposed to increase my stress, so I allowed for the occasional "off" day. I've actually been doing this since January 1st. :-) Find the best time of day that you'll likely be able to do this consistently. For me, that was right before bed. I do recommend writing for the same day. I found that if I tried to remember and write what I did the day before I usually forgot stuff. But I still did it even if it was the next day. Something was better than nothing...

I also kept a simplified symptom tracking in there also. Nothing too complicated, just my primary symptoms, what the barometric pressure did that day (a fairly major trigger for me) and any major contributing issues or factors (like a migraine or eating a new food that might cause an issue, etc).

When you're living with chronic illness, it can be really hard to see the forest for the trees. So often we understandably get bogged down in the negatives, the difficulties. While having a pity party once in a while isn't a bad thing and can even be helpful, only seeing the negatives can be really detrimental to both our mental AND physical health. Both are interconnected and influence each other. It can be so hard for us to see the small improvements, the little victories and successes. These are SO important though. So please find the tools that work for you to help you see the positive whenever you can. That may be finding and using various coping skills and methods. It may be talk therapy. It may be journaling. Whatever it is, please seek out, find, AND use (because they don't do any good if you aren't USING them) beneficial and positive coping techniques to help you as you deal with chronic illness.

What coping skills and methods have you found most helpful? What's your recent improvement, victory, or success? Please feel free to share in the comments!



http://leoniedawson.com/