Having an autoimmune illness does not mean you cannot live life to a full capacity however, it also means that life is going to have some complications. Depending upon what season of your life you are in your autoimmune illness can be less or more complex. There can be times when you do not feel like you have an illness and life is thriving, other times you might feel like all you can think about is your illness. Getting out of bed might feel like a chore and doing a task that felt simple last week might prove to be impossible this week.
I wonder about ways to make life less complicated in the midst of complexity, I become curious about expanding your options to slow life down on a deep internal level. How to achieve Zen in the midst of chaos when having an illness you have little control over is going to leave you feel powerless and sometimes hopeless.
An idea that automatically comes up is meditation. Meditating even for five minutes can reduce stress. I find that some of my best ideas come after meditating and I am able to organize my life in such a way that I am able to slow down, do less, and still be efficient. And with the slowing down that comes from meditating you can start to separate from your thoughts around your illness. By separate I mean your thoughts do not have to dictate your behavior, you can start to experience that your thoughts do not have to name you. You can start to own that you are not pain, weak, sick, ill; possibly you are in pain, you feel sick, weak, ill…etc. However, you are so many things, a child of God, a mom, a dad, a daughter, a son, a co-worker, a partner…etc. The list can go on, and does.
I also wonder about making room for all of the emotions, thoughts, feelings, doctor’s appointments, food issues, etc… What I mean by making room is allowing them to be without having to “fix” or “get rid of”, you know, that whole process that leads us to acceptance. I want to push you a little further… what about talking to a close person in your life, you know letting them know how you are doing with all of this. If there is someone who you can ask to just listen and allow you to talk about all of this, even the dark parts. I wonder how much that will change how you deal with this complicated issue.
All in all, having an autoimmune illness sucks. It makes life more difficult, unfair, and can be a hard life long lesson. However, this is just a part of life; it doesn’t have to define all of your life. So, the more you are able to expand and experience consciously, life becomes more tolerable. Not to be mistaken as easier, maybe, however, I want to promote a real life idea, if you can tolerate more than maybe you can experience life in a fuller capacity.
