Announcing the Spring Book Giveaway! I'm excited because these are quality books that can really have a positive impact on your health and wellness. They include
The Now Effect by Elisha Goldstein,
The Healthcare Survival Guide by Martin B. Rosen, and
Life Disrupted by Laurie Edwards. Three winners will be selected (one book each), so enter the giveaway
by Wednesday, May 9th! Sometimes the challenges we face coping with chronic illness can be downright overwhelming. We all experience those moments of weakness where we give way to the groundswell of emotions arising from our illness or other forms of adversity. It can be so difficult to stay focused on hope, mindfulness and healing well. One of my Twitter friends posted recently: "The enemy is not pain. The enemy is despair." That is so true. But there is hope. So this is for my
friends who may feel like giving up..... About a month ago I saw my doctor for a followup visit. I had just gone through another round of specialized tests for my autoimmune arthritis which had been escalating in intensity over the Winter. The results were inconclusive. No clear patterns. No diagnosis. No ready treatments. No answers. The only proof I had was the unrelenting pain that pervaded my body's tired and achy joints and muscles and the endless, draining fatigue.
Mindfulness was not a term I was familiar with when I was diagnosed with chronic illness 17 years ago. Looking back, I wish I had known more about how to practice it in my life. It would have saved me a lot of worry, distress, and hopelessness. I've since learned that mindfulness is a set of skills for healing, intuition, insight, calmness, focus, resilience, and hope that you can use to counter the inevitable adversity of chronic illness.
Last December I got the call that no one wants. The biopsy came back positive for prostate cancer. My world caved in. My brain shut down and my emotions ran to fear and depression. That word cancer brings with it fear. I couldn’t help but think of how my mother died of pancreatic cancer. When you hear that word you feel your life collapse. Thoughts of pain and your own mortality try to shove their way into your brain.
