Self-Love in Sickness and in Health: 6 Tips

During the couple of months, I have suffered with not only diabetes, but a bout of shingles, two wisdom teeth coming through and two mouth ulcers. Ouch. The point of this post is not to seek sympathy (although that is always welcome, preferably in the form of cake and coffee). I'm going to write a little bit about maintaining a good relationship with your body, even through illness.

As you might have gathered from my blog so far, a lot of my observations and advice have been on the importance of self love in wellbeing. Your most solid, reliable and rewarding relationship is the one you have with yourself, and feeling loved by you, the person who knows how to love yourself the best, is a great feeling.

But it can become difficult in illness. When your body's working well, it's easy to feel gratitude for what it's doing for you. But in the middle of a horrendous cold, when you're surrounded by tissues and empty packets of Lemsip, it's easy to start thinking things like:

• Why can't my body just get better?
• Why do I always get ill? 
• Why can't my body just work like everyone else's? 

It's really easy to think those things, and they can go really unnoticed as negative automatic thoughts (I wrote about these in this post). So it's worth watching out for these thoughts when you're ill. The compounding effect of my illnesses over the last month has led to me having a couple of thoughts like these, and it's something I've had to stay really on top of and journal about.

So how on earth are you meant to deal with illness and love yourself?

Firstly, the most loving way to love your body is unconditionally. That is, in sickness and in health, in all shapes and sizes and at all stages of life. If your love for your body depends on it being a certain size, then all that love will disappear once it changes. In the same way, if your body love depends on it working well and feeling good, anytime you are ill you will leave yourself feeling unloved.

1. Affirmations.
   These are great for reminding yourself that your body is great. It really is. Even if you're not well, there is a reason you are not dead: your body and its immune system. Your body works constantly to try and keep you healthy, even if it does seem to get ill a lot. Louise Hay does some good body-loving affirmations on her website (here).
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2. Look after yourself.
   If you need rest, REST! Don't drag yourself into work at risk of making yourself worse or finding the entire day difficult. It's really important to look after yourself. That includes having baths and not just laying about in your room all day, if you feel up to it. It also includes finding a good TV series to watch on Netflix.
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3. Stock up.
   In order to take care of yourself, you need the supplies. Medicines, bubble bath, tea bags, whatever you need. Imagine you are an adult taking care of their child - you would try and make them as comfortable as possible. Do the same for yourself.
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4. Gratitude List.
   It's easy to get caught up in a vicious cycle of negative thoughts, without noticing the good things. Write a list every night of 5 things you are grateful for. It could be your housemate making you a cup of tea, getting an extension on that deadline or Lemsip really working.
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5. Take notice of your good days.
   If you are chronically unwell, it is important to realise when you're having a good period. If you're unusually mobile or well, take notice. Write it down in your journal. Tell people about it. Enjoy it for the amazing thing it is. Don't let it slip by and constantly think about next time you're going to be ill.
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6. Talk to friends.
   Being ill can mean you're a bit isolated - obviously people aren't usually that keen on catching your lurgy, and you know that, so you end up sat in your room. But just because you're in your room, you don't have to be isolated. Germs can't travel through the phone line or over Skype, so take this as an opportunity to catch up with long-distance friends and get a bit of sympathy at the same time, rather than your housemates who are probably distracted by the snotty tissue you're holding. 

Keep loving yourself and remind yourself that this will pass. Whether it's a cold, or something longer-term, you will have moments of peace again, and you will have times you can get out of the house and have a bit of fun!

Image from here

The 5 Natural Stages of Grief

Have you ever lost someone? The kind of loss I'll be talking about in this post is not only when a close relative passes away. Loss could be breaking up with a partner, grieving the loss of a partner or person years ago, losing an inspirational person (e.g. when a loved celebrity dies), leaving education, losing your job. We experience loss a lot more than we think we do. So how can we best deal with it?

There are five main stages of grief, as defined by a lady called Elisabeth Kubler-Ross from Switzerland. She outlined them as follows:

1) Denial

The first main stage, which helps us to survive the loss. The world becomes meaningless and life doesn't seem to make sense as we go into a kind of shock. Days blur into one another and our goals are about getting through each day. This allows for the pacing of feelings, and only enough feelings are let in that we can handle. 

2) Anger

This stage can feel endless. It will hurt, but the more you let yourself feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate. We might have other feelings underneath the anger, but anger is the emotion we are used to feeling the most, so other feelings come out as anger. Your anger might spread - you might find yourself feeling angry at the little things, or focusing your anger on one particular person. You might find yourself feeling angry at God if you are religious or agnostic, and this can be one reason why some people turn to atheism. 

3) Bargaining

This can come during anticipatory grief - if a loved one is very ill and you want them to live. It can also happen afterwards as we start to think 'what if' and 'if only' thoughts, or 'if I could go back in time what would I do differently?'. This can also be accompanied by guilt. This part focuses our attention on ourselves and can lead to treating ourselves badly if it is not rationalised. This is a natural part of grief, but remember it is your body's way of trying to negotiate our way out of the pain. 

4) Depression

After bargaining happens, we begin to come back to where we are at in our lives. Our feelings of emptiness and sadness come at us on a deep level. It might feel like it will last forever and you may end up withdrawing from your life. This is a normal response and it would be unusual not to feel this way. This can help us to get through this part of our healing process. 

5) Acceptance

This is a new stage where we begin to accept reality. We recognise that they have gone and learn to live with it. We readjust our lives and start to reach out. This doesn't mean we are suddenly 'ok' with what has happened, but if the grief process has been given the time it needs, we start having good days again and reinvesting in our lives as they are. 

Here is a chart of the grief process: 

The important things to take away from this post are:

• Grief needs time. 
• Be kind to yourself through this process and remind yourself it is natural. 
• If you feel angry, try not to do anything you might later regret. Keep your anger expressed in healthy ways - it is a normal part of grief. Turning it on yourself, your friends or precious objects that remind you of your loss can be hard to deal with later. 

Let me know how you get on or any thoughts you have and share this post if you've found it helpful :) 

Image 1 from here

Image 2 from here
Read more about grief here