Today I was chatting with someone who has MS and someone who has Fibromyalgia. They were telling me about good days and bad days. I said a don't have bad days I just have days that frustrate and challenge me, but thats not a bad day. I mentioned that there are little reversals of focus that have really helped me over the years. The first and foremost is my definition of health. Many people in our position envy other folks, "healthy" folks. We see vitality as something akin to the energizer bunny. We judge the book by its cover –even when we are the book. I have learned to see health and define healthy as something very different than most. Just as we should not measure intelligence based on what you can be taught. But instead by your capability to see and envision and use your mind uniquely and beyond convention, so then health should not be based on a state of normalcy or ability but on how we manage the states of stress and live without disability. I have seen disabled people who live happily in conditions that would cause most “normal” people to breakdown, give up, or become frozen with despair. As a primary example are many artists, academics and athletes with disabilities. Some were congenital some were contracted but these folks are not defined by their lack of… but rather by their achievements and by their "normalcy".
Redefining healthy is the first step. The second step is redefining what makes up a good day.
For me, I like to say that any day above ground is a good day. Waking up is my cake and everything else is icing. I know that sounds fluffy and cliché but I live that statement.
- In this moment I am writing to new friends, people who have a voice and honesty and are paying attention to what I have to say and are responding. That is awesome. I can speak, I can see, my list of I can’s goes on and on.
I meditate with an inner focus so that when pain arises I understand it, I don’t fear it, and (although sometimes this is tough) I don’t let it engulf me. When I am meditating If there is pain I look at it –I address it and then I mentally turn my back on it and change my attention. IF it keeps calling to me I treat my pain like a crying child, soothing thought, soothing words, listen to it, understand what is causing it and if it’s in my power to fix by adjusting my leg or adjusting my back, I do that. But when its deeper, and or is related to the unique situations that my illness causes –then I make a decision to keep meditating or not –IF I choose to keep meditating then the pain comes along with me on the journey –it is after all part of me and sometimes ignoring it or pretending it isn’t there is just another way of seeing myself as less than whole. I used to teach art to children. The first thing I would do is explain to the parents that art is meerly a physical embodyment of the emotions and visions of the creator. I worked for about an hour with the parents and only the parents of my new students to help them redefine art in their minds. Then I would help the kids overcome their doubts and to eliminate tha need to compare themselves to others. You see we are all artists in our own way. A stick figure is art, a blue tree and purple mountain with a smily face sun is art. We are all in our own unique way a wonderful and powerful work of art, but most of us have never had someone teach us how not to compare.
Redefining healthy is the first step. The second step is redefining what makes up a good day.
For me, I like to say that any day above ground is a good day. Waking up is my cake and everything else is icing. I know that sounds fluffy and cliché but I live that statement.
- In this moment I am writing to new friends, people who have a voice and honesty and are paying attention to what I have to say and are responding. That is awesome. I can speak, I can see, my list of I can’s goes on and on.
I meditate with an inner focus so that when pain arises I understand it, I don’t fear it, and (although sometimes this is tough) I don’t let it engulf me. When I am meditating If there is pain I look at it –I address it and then I mentally turn my back on it and change my attention. IF it keeps calling to me I treat my pain like a crying child, soothing thought, soothing words, listen to it, understand what is causing it and if it’s in my power to fix by adjusting my leg or adjusting my back, I do that. But when its deeper, and or is related to the unique situations that my illness causes –then I make a decision to keep meditating or not –IF I choose to keep meditating then the pain comes along with me on the journey –it is after all part of me and sometimes ignoring it or pretending it isn’t there is just another way of seeing myself as less than whole. I used to teach art to children. The first thing I would do is explain to the parents that art is meerly a physical embodyment of the emotions and visions of the creator. I worked for about an hour with the parents and only the parents of my new students to help them redefine art in their minds. Then I would help the kids overcome their doubts and to eliminate tha need to compare themselves to others. You see we are all artists in our own way. A stick figure is art, a blue tree and purple mountain with a smily face sun is art. We are all in our own unique way a wonderful and powerful work of art, but most of us have never had someone teach us how not to compare.
Most of us have never seen ourself and all we do as normal. Normal is a unique definition, are you using someone elses or do you have your own?
Listen to the mustn'ts, child.Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.
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