Helpless, powerless and frustrated don’t have the magic touch like the 3 Stooges. Unfortunately, the trio is often experienced following an illness diagnosis. It can be a dark place, but it’s important to know that they are the cues to attaining wellness. Helplessness often leaves people victimized. How will you reframe this experience? What can [...]
Archive for July, 2008
Helplessness, Powerlessness, Frustration
Posted in after the diagnosis, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, Emotional Health, Having a Voice, living with chronic illness, Living with Illness, tagged Add new tag, health empowerment, illness survivors, victims of illness on July 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Negotiating with Your Illness
Posted in after the diagnosis, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, Emotional Health, Having a Voice, living with chronic illness, Living with Illness, tagged AIDS, Health Negotiations, HIV, Virus on July 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Throughout our lives we all come up with ways of coping with stress. Over time as our stressors increase we may have to devise new and improved methods of coping. I can’t think of anything more stressful than receiving a chronic or life-threatening illness diagnosis. This is the time to call out the big guns…don’t [...]
Telling The Story
Posted in after the diagnosis, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, Emotional Health, History, living with chronic illness, Living with Illness, tagged bearing witness, health insurance, spiritual stamina, story telling on July 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
How many times have you told your illness story? If you’ve been a part of a support group the answer is too many times to count. If you haven’t you may have told the story to close friends, extended family, significant others, but every time you tell the story you need to think about how [...]
Caregivers are Undercover Agents
Posted in after the diagnosis, care for the caregiver, Caregiving, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, living with chronic illness, Living with Illness, Uncategorized, tagged couples facing illness, doctor-caregiver relationship, patient-caregiver relationship on July 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Welcome to Caregiver Friday! I’ve been thinking a lot this week about all the roles that the caregiver takes on to support someone they love who is sick (or needs extra care like older adults). One of the roles that the caregiver takes on is that of undercover agent. You are the person who watches [...]
You Are Not Your Illness
Posted in after the diagnosis, authenticity, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, Integrity, living with chronic illness, Living with Illness, tagged identity and illness on July 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I’m amazed at how many people following a chronic or life-threatening diagnosis abandon their identity for that of a sick person. The thing I want you to understand is that this is a component of your life, not who you are. The disease is something you have, not something you are. I used to run [...]
Know Your Illness
Posted in coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, In the Know, tagged complications of illness, diabetes, eating disorders, health educators, patient education on July 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
We get a diagnosis and we think we understand all that entails. Often patients aren’t aware of the complications that accompany a particular illness. You focus on the primary diagnosis and are surprised when something, you think, pops up out of the blue, but to the medical professionals it’s not a surprise. As an example, [...]
Let Intuition Be Your Guide
Posted in after the diagnosis, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, Having a Voice, In the Know, living with chronic illness, Personal Conviction, Relationships, tagged doctor-patient relationship, intuition and healthcare, medical confidence on July 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Many of us make decisions based on facts. Facts are good, they are grounded in some form of reality and yet there is a force greater than the physical reality that can help us make better decisions…our intuition. How often do you pay attention to your gut feeling? Do you use your intuition when it [...]
Sympathy-Empathy-Compassion
Posted in Emotional Health, Relationships, tagged compassion and illness, couples facing illness, families facing illness, living with chronic illness, living with life threatening illness on July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
They say you shouldn’t judge a person before you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. If that’s true then how do we cultivate empathy in others. Those who are facing health challenges could hold classes for the loved one’s in their lives to explain the complexities of their illness and all the ramifications of treatment. [...]
Caregiving is Like Being an Air Traffic Controller
Posted in care for the caregiver, Caregiving, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, Emotional Health, Self-Nurture, tagged caregiver health, responsibility and caregiving on July 4, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Happy 4th of July and welcome to Caregiver Friday. I’m in awe of caregivers. Not only do they show compassion and understanding to the person they’re caring for who is ill, but they have perfected the fine art of multi-tasking. Ever looked at the calendar of a caregiver? It’s filled with reminders of appointments, lab [...]
Can’t We Turn Off Our Feelings?
Posted in after the diagnosis, authenticity, coping with chronic illness, coping with life threatening illness, Emotional Health, living with chronic illness, tagged Emotions and Healing, Emotions and Health on July 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
There are definitely those days when it would be great if our feelings were like a faucet and with the turn of the handle they stop flowing. On the other hand, is that really the case? Would we be better off if we could regulate our emotions so systematically? I hear hundreds of stories a [...]
