6 stepping stones to accepting chronic illness (even when it feels hard)
Living with a chronic illness is an experience, to say the least. Filled with ups and downs, challenges, doubts, expectations and a huge range of emotions. A couple of podcast seasons back, I received questions and write-ins from listeners navigating their own unique struggles, and I dedicated a few episodes to answering them. I’m throwing back (do people still say that?) to this one today, because it’s a topic that never stops being relevant.
This listener shared a thought that they’d been having - that so many years in the prime of their life had been wasted due to living with chronic illness.
This sense of loss and longing that so many living with chronic illness experience. Can you relate?
Here’s what I cover in my response:
Acceptance
Making peace with the "stolen" years
Finding purpose and fulfilment on the chronic illness journey.
You ready?
Image via Unsplash
1. Understanding that there’s more to acceptance than meets the eye.
Acceptance is a word we tend to hear a lot when it comes to dealing with life's challenges. Often, it’s negatively framed “you just have to accept this and move on”. Meh, that doesn’t fill me with much joy, does it you?
In her write-in, the listener acknowledged that she’s accepted many aspects of her chronic illness, from the physical pain, to the loss of her former life. She talked about having grieved and surrendered. She also talked about trying to keep her focus on the hope of a new and amazing life awaiting her on the other side of, in her words, “this nightmare”.
Even still, there remained a deep sadness about the years wasted. Years where she was too sick to even read a book, years spent watching life pass her by from the sidelines. As I read her write in, the question of acceptance lingered; whilst she had certainly worked with acceptance to a degree - more so in the accept it and move on sense - her journey toward acceptance still had some distance left in it.
Acceptance isn’t a one-and-done thing. Nor is it a threshold you need to walk through in order to get to the other side. I like to see acceptance as a companion that’s with us throughout life; there to lean on and into.
2. Opening yourself to the full spectrum of acceptance.
How would it feel to see acceptance as a gift to yourself? A welcoming and embracing of all that you are and all that you experience - and yes, that includes chronic illness. The beginning of being able to compassionately love and celebrate the parts of you that might not be all that easy to love (for all the conditioning). Acceptance creates fertile ground from which we can flourish, and it needs to felt in our bodies as much as in our minds.
Rather than liking it and lumping it - accepting it and moving on, how about I accept this, I embrace it, I allow this to wash over me and I’m ready to learn from it.
3. Seeing beyond (sneaky) selective acceptance and non-acceptance.
Hands up if you’re familiar with selectively accepting certain aspects of your life, yourself and your body, whilst rejecting others. 🙋♀️
Not sure what I mean?
OK, I think we can all relate to this one; “I like my {insert body part} but not my {insert body part}…”
Here’s the thing - we cannot selectively accept or reject parts of ourselves or our experiences.
We are whole human beings, and non-acceptance or selective acceptance of one part, kinda means non-acceptance of ourselves, bodies and our experience as a whole.
Bummer, I know.
If you’re a bit of an all or nothing person like I used to be, you’re likely struggling with that concept. You might even be ready to chuck this whole damn thing out the window. Don’t, please.
Remember that this is a journey and a practice and it’s full of nourishment and growth opportunities along the way. Every time you take another micro-step, maybe that’s accepting that today, you feel fatigued or today, your body hurts, or today, you’ve got energy and can do things you couldn’t yesterday, remember that it’s another coin in the acceptance bank. Just because selective acceptance doesn’t really pass, it doesn’t mean that acceptance in progress, doesn’t.
4. Learning how to embrace the present moment
I want to talk about the "other side" and the hope for a better future the listener mentioned, which is the listeners way of describing ‘arriving’. This is one of those things that’s helpful and harmful all at once. While maintaining faith and resilience is really important, it’s also important to focus on finding contentment and joy in the present moment, and not waiting until you reach the “other side” to allow yourself to feel any kind of peace and happiness. THIS is the golden thread that weaves throughout all of my work.
Chronic illness inherently comes with its share of uncertainty. There are of course things you can do to reduce the level and impact of uncertainty, but we are human beings, not robots. As we change and evolve, and life happens, the manifestation of our chronic illness changes and evolves and happens, too.
All that to say, we can never be certain how long it will take to get to “the other side”, whatever that looks like. I once asked myself what would happen if I never got to the “other side” (it had really started to feel like a probability) and the answer truly scared me.
The “other side” is kind of a mythical place, that’s no secret.
It’s not because it doesn’t exist, but because it morphs into a new other side every time we reach it. We see this play out time and time again with money, wealth, weight, size, assets, achievements, ambitions…the list goes on.
So, if the other side never really comes, don’t we owe it to ourselves to not wait for it?
In that, I’m asking, how do you bring more of that “other side” energy into today?
For starters, you release the notion that things can only be amazing in the future - i.e. “when my chronic illness is under control/healed” and you decide that things get to be good, now, even if (especially if?) your chronic illness is flaring and getting you down. You look for how good, great or amazing is present in your life today, even in the smallest of ways, and you celebrate it.
5. Allowing yourself to see the opportunities within restrictions
Not being able to do the things you love due to the day to day realities of your chronic illness, is undoubtedly difficult. Especially when it’s a long-term occurrence and you’re looking back at “wasted” years, much the same as my listener. I’m not going to bypass this with a positive wash; it can feel rubbish. It can feel rubbish and there’s more to it than that.
Tell me the difference here…
“I’m so annoyed that yet again, I’m being held back from dong the things I love because my chronic illness is playing up again.”
“My body is trying to tell me something, and I’m ready to listen. Today it needs me to rest, and I know that this rest will serve me in the long-term.”
The more we fight what our body is communicating with us (via symptoms), the more we prolong those symptoms and the more stuck we end up feeling.
This reframe serves as a reminder of that and it’s where a bit of creative thinking comes into play.
Can you consider the possibility that restrictions also present opportunities? Rather than viewing them solely as limitations, explore the nudges they provide to help you discover new directions and avenues in life. Sure, you may not be able to do some/any of the things you used to love - and it's important to allow yourself to feel the full range of emotions that come with that, including frustration, sadness, and anger - but don’t let that stop you from seeing what is there.
How would it feel to play with the idea that your chronic illness is guiding you toward an aligned, joyful, and fulfilling existence, even if it looks completely different to the one you lived ‘before’?
This won’t come as a shock; acceptance is the kingpin in your ability and openness to give that a whirl. Non-acceptance will narrow your vision, making you focus solely on what you can't do. As you deepen your relationship with acceptance, the frustration and sadness you feel around your circumstances will begin to dissipate, allowing room for compassion, appreciation, contentment, happiness, and joy to enter your life. And remember, experiencing frustration and sadness is a natural part of life—acceptance teaches us to embrace these feelings and hold ourselves with kindness.
P.S. This works for looking back on the “wasted years”, too. There will always be things that you appreciate in the present, that have come from your past experiences. But you need to open your accepting mind to be able to see them. In that, there’s peace.
6. Celebrating that chronic illness adds to the tapestry of life
The modern human condition says that life should be only good, only happy, only successful, and that has us running from any experience that’s painful or uncomfortable in any way.
Life isn’t about finding way to not experience those things, it’s about finding ways to be at peace with experiencing those things.
I passionately believe in embracing chronic illness as an invitation to explore new aspects of life, to venture into territories that may have never entered your periphery, to question what serves you (and let go of what doesn’t), to be more intentional and considered about what you welcome into your life and what inspires your direction of growth.
It’s absolutely possible that there will come a time when you look at your life and can be thankful for the presence of chronic illness. For all the places it has (seemingly) held you back, it has let you roam free in others, and who knows where that might take you.
OK, time for the final pep-talk. Acceptance is a journey unique to each one of us. Take your time, be patient with yourself, and seek support when needed. Embrace the present moment and discover the opportunities that lie within restrictions. Above all, believe in the richness of your life, no matter the circumstances. There is so much to explore and experience as you navigate your chronic illness journey, as long as you’re open to it.