Where to start in reclaiming your hijacked life…
Step One: Create awareness by assessing each of the following …
Thoughts/Self Talk: Are your thoughts focused on pain, symptoms, illness/diagnosis? Do your thoughts focus on what is wrong, how nobody understands what your life is like, how unfair it is, how much you have lost, not sure how much more you can take, how much of a burden you are, questioning why you are being punished, why everything must be so hard etc.?
Feelings: Do you often feel sad, depressed, alone/isolated, anxious, uncertain, confused, frustrated, angry, and hurt? Perhaps feeling like you deserve what’s happening to you or like you are being punished?
Behaviour: Do you have patterns of behaviour such as spending much of your time in bed, on social media or on the internet doom scrolling through support groups? Are you researching your conditions endlessly looking for answers? Find yourself spending much of your time online in support or illness related groups? How often do you isolate yourself from others?
Negative Feedback Loop: Unhealthy thoughts, feelings and behaviours like the ones listed above create what we call a negative feedback loop. Unhealthy thoughts trigger unhealthy feelings, just as unhealthy feelings trigger unhealthy thoughts. Not surprisingly unhealthy thoughts and feelings create unhealthy behavioural responses and suddenly you find yourself stuck in a never ending loop that you can’t think or feel your way out of. This is often when we begin to feel hopeless and helpless about our situation and fear kicks in that life will be this way or worse…FOREVER! Catching and interrupting these patterns is vitally important to your health and wellness.
Stress Management: Consciously learning how to manage our response to stress as teens or adults, it may come to our attention that we do not have a healthy response to stress, or we lack the skills to manage stress. Once we have this knowledge we can learn how to; change our response to stress and how to manage it in a healthy and productive manner.
Movement: How often are you intentionally moving your body, exercising to the best of your ability?
Proper Nutrition for the body, mind, and soul
Body
Food: Most of us do not think about food as what it truly is, fuel for your mind and body. It is not about what we like, prefer, or enjoy. The body has specific dietary requirements to work optimally. Fuel your body with fresh, whole foods as much as possible and consider if intermittent fasting is right for you. Avoid high sugar, high carb, and processed foods as much as possible because they exacerbate many of your symptoms.
Hydration: Make sure your body is getting the water it needs to thrive. The average adult is 60% water, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, the lungs are 83% water, the skin is 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79% water and even our bones are made up of 31% water. Proper hydration is important, as it helps us to regulate temperature, prevents constipation, flushes out waste and toxins from the body, and assists in the performance of all bodily functions.
Mind:
The things (tv, movies, music, social media, internet, people, places, past/future) that you give your time, energy, and attention to impact your internal environment. Are you doom scrolling social media, spending a lot of your time focused on symptoms/illness, doing a lot of illness related research, spending time in support groups, living in the past, worried about the future, talking about illness, pain, mood, symptoms?
Your thoughts and feelings determine your behaviour. The way you think, feel, and behave equals your personality. Your personality becomes your personal reality. Your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours create the lens through which you see and experience the world around you.
Are you choosing how you want to think, feel, and behave or are you caught in a cycle of reactivity where your thoughts, feelings and behaviours are in reaction to circumstances? It is not surprising that most individuals dealing with chronic illness/pain find themselves reacting vs responding. How do you think these might be impacting your pain/illness? How can you get more intentional about your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours?
Soul:
What fuels your soul? Creativity, music, movement, nature, giving, acts of service, having a sense of purpose, feeling fulfilled? What can you do today to fuel your soul?
Step Two: Identify areas for improvement and determine if you have the knowledge, skills, accountability, motivation, and support needed to take action.
Step Three Option A: If you have the knowledge, skills, accountability, motivation, and support needed, congratulations you are ready to act!
Step Three Option B: If you are lacking in any one or combination of: knowledge, skills, motivation, accountability or support I highly suggest you schedule a free consultation with a coach.
They will assess and make recommendations for your unique situation. While the answers are within, it is normal to need the support, encouragement, accountability, knowledge, skills, and motivation that are provided by working with a coach.
If you have any questions you are welcome to email
Rhonda@coachwithrhonda.com
or
If you are interested in scheduling a free consultation call with me by clicking here.
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