Chronic Conditions and a Stop Sign on Thinking

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In 2010, during my year as Lady Captain at the Golf Club,  I was thirty years old and struggling.  After a virus, I was left with a chronic illness.  My life as I had known it was gone, twice daily gym and a mile swim every morning with daily golf and hitting balls countless times a week... Overnight this gradually went..... 

I thought my life had ended, and I spent the next few seconds, hours, days and years an anxious wreck.  I spent hours going back and forth to hospital, private appointments locally searching far and wide for the meaning of life and how to become well again.

For anyone that is chronically ill, whether this is physically or emotionally, like me you have probably experienced the same misunderstandings, the same crazy bullshit “well, you look okay to me” comments from clueless uneducated people that increases isolation, sometimes even depression.  For me these clueless comments caused nothing but frustration. 

At times, now even virtually 9 years on,  I still have to face such ignorance, ridiculous comments and looks when I park in a disabled bay.  It makes me want to pull out MRI Scans from the start of 2018 and show them the state of my legs, just because I walk around still it doesn't mean the pain I am in is not absolutely unbearable.  In a heartbeat I would swap with someone just so they knew what it feels like to been chronically ill, to know you will not get any better and actually nothing can really be done is something that words alone cannot explain. 

Everything I knew - gym, golf and swimming all gone. If people at work, for example saw pictures of me back in 2009/2010 they would see a totally different me. 

So many people offer advice: ' Ode won't don't  you try; 


CBT


tai chi


astrology


vitamins or illegal drugs


Rest more or Exercise more


Eat better


Do affirmations


Start yoga or meditation or mindfulness


In 2010 - 2011, I was curious, and I always searched for a ‘cure’ for my brokenness.  Obviously I never found this magic cure and from 2012 started a slow painful decline.  

My thinking came from inside me, the happiness or unhappiness I felt, this was all dependent on my thinking in each and every moment.  Under my thinking is an innate wholeness that is always accessible to me in any moment, if I just remember to see that my reality is entirely experienced through thought in each moment.

Like everyone, I have spent hours of my life analyzing how to be happy, how to stop being negative, how to be less attached, how to be more empowered, how to be more whole. Don’t get me wrong, it can often be interesting, for me it was more important to get out of my head and into my heart,  I allowed my thinking to just flow and stopped analyzing it.

Over the last eight years, my wife has helped me learn about acceptance.  I know that in life, it is easy to try and force happiness and positivity.  I cannot let go of thinking because it's part of being human. 

When I allow my thoughts to just flow through me instead, dancing with them through my life, I am able to create space where I would once have analyzed how to solve them; and it's in this space where my clarity can arise and I am therefore able to see the truth.


The truth is, as humans, we are all vessels of energy, and, I believe, part of something greater that has a plan for us and through this human life, I believe we are all blessed with the amazingly abundant, creative power of thought and all we all need to do is simply let go and ho with the flow.

I am trying to not allow any comments to penetrate my mind.  I am trying to let go of this toxic mindset as it will only ever bring me down.  I need to embrace pleasant feelings and allow this is overshadow all the darkness.  

I am approaching my 40th in February and I am trying to become a whole person, I am not perfect but I feel more and more complete as each day passes.  My chronic rare condition has changed my life but also given me time to focus on different aspects of life. 


I wish I could think myself better but I cannot but changing my mindset and working through acceptance has helped me a great deal.  


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