Fighting chronic illness, battling chronic illness, controlling chronic illness, managing chronic illness…

However you spin it, those terms and notions are borne from the idea that chronic illness should be resisted, fixed and rejected, which I wholeheartedly disagree with.

Let’s look at what it means to not work with your chronic illness in a bit more detail.  

Working against your chronic illness is the status quo, and it’s fed by the fix, resist, fight, reject narrative.

You might be more familiar with the feeling and belief that you need to always be working towards healing or curing your chronic illness, but what you might not recognise is that this also means you’re living a life defined by rejection/non-acceptance.

Amongst other things, the sad thing about living a life defined by non-acceptance and rejection is that it’s near on impossible to select what you reject about yourself.

You are a WHOLE human being!

Non-acceptance/rejection can manifest in the following ways;

• Disconnection from your body.

• Disassociation from your symptoms, the fluctuations of your chronic illness, and your Self.

• Mis-understanding your chronic illness - feeling like it’s out to hurt and harm you.

• Rushing through life as a result of symptom avoidance.

• Putting your life and happiness on hold for when you’re ‘healed’.

• Withholding love and acceptance from yourself.

• Treating yourself and life as a project; working ON it rather than living IN it.

• Selective rejection doesn’t exist - when you reject one part of you, you’re rejecting all of you (because you are a WHOLE person who can’t be broken down into parts!)

• Lack of trust in yourself.

• And much more 😥.

Although it can feel really scary to bring your chronic illness into the fold of You and your life - to work with it as your ally and guide - I promise you this…

Life is SO much better when you do.  There are many reasons why this is true, but today I’m focusing on the top 5 (IMO).

1) When you work with your chronic illness, you start living in an informed, intentional, fulfilling way.

All the time you’re working against your chronic illness, you’re ignoring a huge part of what works and matters for you and your body.  

Think of it like embarking on a journey with half the directions missing.  

Leaving room for experimentation and exploration, it’s good to have a bit of a clue of where you’re headed, what you might to see along the way, the gear you need to pack, etc., right?  

You want to know the bits that will make your journey as joyful, aligned and fulfilling as possible, and that’s what you’re given when you tune into your chronic illness and allow it to guide you.

2) Fighting chronic illness stops you from tending to the parts of you that really need your love.

Believing that you - or at least a part of you - is broken/needs fixing/is unworthy (which by the way are ALL common practice for the chronic illness status quo) really takes its toll.  

Your self-worth, self-trust, self-esteem get worn down over a prolonged period of time, and your ability to show yourself acceptance and compassion diminish.  

The best news is that you can use the intelligence of your chronic illness to rebuild all of those things.  The result of rebuilding those things is that you lead a more joyful, whole, fulfilling, purposeful life.

As an aside, when you’re coming from a place where all of those things are depleted, it can be really hard to make aligned decisions when it comes to your health, and very easy to grab onto all the shallow and surface level plans/protocols that promise a certain thing and have been designed for and by someone else.

3. You get to go after your wants, needs and desires in a way that’s aligned and therefore, ‘successful’.

I want to start this one by saying that you get to define success however you damn well please.  On occasion, you might not get to that ‘end result’ as you’d hoped, but that’s OK, and here’s why.  

Going after your wants, needs and desires in an aligned way, means you’re also going after them in a connected way.  That connection means continuously checking in with yourself and asking ‘is this still right for me?  Is this still what I want?’  

No matter what, you’ll learn and grow from that kind of journey/experience (and disheartening feelings of failure are much less), and in my eyes, that’s success!

4) You get to slow the eff down and really sink into LIVING!

There’s so much avoidance and rushing that comes from trying to fight and manage your chronic illness.  

We’re not taught how to sit with pain and discomfort (the very reason I teach that in Your Chronic Illness Ally), and we therefore default to numbing and distraction, rushing and dis-engagement.  

The very nature of chronic illness means it can’t be ring-fenced, and that numbing, distraction, rushing and dis-engagement bleeds into the rest of your life.

Something I’m continuously practicing is slowing the eff down!  I want to see and experience everything my life has to offer me; not in a cram it all in kind of way, but in a delicious, colourFULL, complex, multi-layered, syrupy way.

Working with your chronic illness means learning how to sit with and work through pain and discomfort (exploring them beyond the initial pain and discomfort!).  

Doing so removes a level of fear from life, and adds a level of safety.  

It’s a drop your shoulders, slow your breath, relax your jaw kind of experience and I’m here for it!

5. Fighting your chronic illness stops you from being able to live life on YOUR TERMS!

What is good for me?  Will this help and support me?  Will this help me grow?  Will this make me feel good? How can I make this more suitable for me?

These are all the kinds of questions you ask yourself when you’re working with your chronic illness.  When you’re trying to manage and control your chronic illness, those questions might look a bit more like…

Will this piss my chronic illness off?  Will this set me back?  Will me chronic illness stop me from doing this?  Will this make me feel sh*t?  How can I bend myself so that I fit into this?

Do you see the difference?  How does each set of questions make you feel?  Hopefully the first set = expansive and hopeful!

When you stop seeing your chronic illness as a hindrance and evil force - and start seeing is as your guide and superpower - opportunity blossoms and boundaries become your friend.  

You stop seeing yourself as something that has to fit into life, and start seeing life as something that you get to design and mould around you, to give you what you both want and need.

How do you think working with your chronic illness could benefit you? 

If you’re looking for deep support, guidance and a shift in the way you live with your chronic illness, check out Your Chronic Illness Ally or get in touch with me about 1:1 coaching.

I’m Alana, Chronic Illness Coach, Writer and Podcaster

After 10 years of trying to fix, fight and ‘cure’ my chronic illness, I decided to chuck away the rule book and instead embrace my chronic illness as my guide, ally and superpower… and I’ve never been happier or healthier!