What has helped us

As we have explored healing from illness, it has been a lot like growing up a second time: we have the chance to learn the basics of life again (this time, at least for us, in a healthier way!).  Children are intuitive about their body's needs, and at some point we lose that gift. Healing for us has meant, in part, reconnecting to the signals of our bodies.  And starting to honor them, possibly for the first time in decades.

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We are learning to nourish ourselves, to digest, to get healthy levels of sunlight, to reorder our bodies' inner clocks, to breathe (I don't know about you, but we've been holding our breath for 20 years).  We are learning how to truly (truly!) rest, how to set small goals, how to celebrate our wins. We are learning to add in more of the good, and we take in less of the bad.  We are learning how to align with our bodies and how to love on ourselves more and more, even when they can't do what we wish they could.  

 

We are learning how to grieve, how to be angry, how to say 'no,' how to see the joy around us, how to make our own good feels.  We are learning to follow our own path, to hear our own voices, to accept the pace of our own life right now.  We are learning how to hold uncertainty.  We are learning how to dream of more, even as we make the most of what is, today.  We are learning, believe it or not, to try less.  And we are learning, time and again, that so often getting to where we want to go means traveling an altogether different route than the one we thought we needed to take.  And maybe even a different one than we even knew existed.

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If you find yourself thinking this sounds too simple (or maybe you're thinking it sounds like too much), we get it.  The simple things for us have tended to be the most profound.  And simple definitely doesn't always mean easy.  Adding new routines or practices has been extremely daunting for us.  And we have found ourselves overwhelmed time and again.  This list has been the product of 5 years of illness, research, and trial and error.  And we're learning (as recovering perfectionists) that we don't have to do "healing" perfectly.  We just each need to choose the next step and take tiny action with as much grace for ourselves and as much hope as we can.  This is how we've started to rebuild our lives from the bottom up.

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Give us time, and in good and patient time, we will elaborate on each of these with more specific steps, rituals, or new ways of thinking for you to consider for your own health and well-being.  And then, start at the top, and slowly, over the course of weeks, with as much kindness for yourself as you can muster, start transforming your own life, your own body, your own mind. 

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