Welcome to Phoenix Rising!
Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.
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First of all, thanks for the laugh.
"I accept that I can't accept that and move on."
Priceless, Cort.
Second- this is really great writing, and worth chewing on more than once. I read this second chapter in your Quality of Life blogs twice last night, and again this morning, and I keep finding things I relate to. I also find things that I know I don't fully understand or have down...yet. But I am really enjoying this journey you've started documenting.
I also found myself this morning putting into practice a taste of your philosophy. I wasn't thinking about your blog when this happened - I was at the gym working out and my back was sore. For whatever reason, near the cable set I was using were no less than 4 guys, all around my age, looking seriously fit. They all took turns at the bench press doing like a 325 pounds...as warm ups! My first thought in my head was "crap, I remember when I could do some real weight on the bench press." But no sooner had that sort of selfish, self-pitying thought entered my brain, than your alternative perspective followed it!
I said to myself "What the heck am I complaining about? I'm at the gym, I'm working out. So what I can't do what I used to do. I accept that. I'm going to enjoy what I can do."
And you know what? It worked.
I didn't have any negative thinking the rest of my time at the gym.
And amazingly, my back stopped hurting quite as much.
The Bible says "As a man thinketh, so is he."
You may have something here.
Hi Cort - I've also been following your blog on this with great interest because I'm also trying to start meditation and am about to start again, after a long interruption. I'm curious about whether you're following a particular book or something to decide how to proceed. I'm about to start John Kabat-Zinn's programme as described in "Full Catastrophe Living" - I find I need a structure and a map.
Hey Cort,
I really enjoyed this article. Thanks for writing it.
I have done a lot of inner work during my 3 decades with this illness, and have often often found that acceptance is the key to freedom, at least on the emotional level. I always have to ask myself, though, "Am I willing to accept this," and the key word really is WILLING... whatever it may be. When I am not willing, then I try go with the flow of non-acceptance. I paint cathartic paintings of my illness, or get in the bathtub and wail as loud as I can. After that I usually feel some relief.
Very interesting and enlightening post. I have struggled finding the me without the action, the doing. Me, self, exists as it always was, but have to find and connect to it again. We in the West so often define ourselves by action and when action and accomplishments disappear, we are lost, for a while. Yet, the action part of me was not me, per se, but applied to me. As a child I was called spacey. Able to zone out and become absorbed in the smallest parts of things, without doing anything. That is the me I am trying to find again. Funny, to have found this, just after starting meditation again and yoga which is new and reading about Ramana Harashi. The lattice of coincidence. All is as it should be.
Peace
Wendy