Reframing slowing down

[sueami]

I am a new member of this board, suffering chronic fatigue symptoms in recent years but haven't been to a specialist knowledgeable enough to offer a diagnosis, at least not yet. I struggle mentally with my crashes and having to slow down and cut activity after activity out of my life, and fears about how bad it's going to get for me.

Reframing is a very useful cognitive tool for me when I'm dealing with fearful thoughts. I had just woken up this morning thinking about monks and how little they "accomplish" in a day by most standards and yet I don't think of them as sick or impaired. So many of the things I have to let go of are not really that important to do anyway, if you take an extreme buddhist monk point of view.

Then I ran across this posting on facebook today, and it could just as easily have been titled Some Advice for Living with Chronic Fatigue. I'm going to work on thinking of this disease process as an enforced meditation retreat, a slowing down that can be a spiritual path -- at least for now. If it progresses in severity, I might have to find other ways to reframe. But anything I can do to lessen my stress and fearful thinking has to be helpful, I figure.

 

[minkeygirl]

Some good ideas but not all. Like 6. Very bad for someone with OCD like me.

 

[sueami]

Right, I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. I have trouble remembering all the self-care activities available and helpful to me, so I was thinking of rituals in terms of establishing some consistency around certain self-care, like meditation or yoga stretches. I suppose Number 7 would cover that problem.

 

[minkeygirl]

If I do something more than once or twice it becomes more of an obsession than a ritual and then it becomes an issue.

I also find my symptoms are too variable and I can't plan anything so I do what I can when I feel like it.

 

[greebo]

@sueami Thanks for the list. I've just put it as wallpaper on my laptop.

I'm approaching this from the other side. I've been more or less cured (I was misdiagnosed as having CFS. In fact I had severe B12 deficiency) and I want to keep the slowness and meditativeness of when I was very ill.

I don't want to live such a frantic and busy live most healthy people seem to want.
I'll keep your list in mind in the following weeks and we'll see if it helps me to slow down...

 

[gretac]

Yes!
I've often reframed the enforced quiet and slowed pace of CFIDS as like being a monk or a hermit on retreat. I have a chance to "pray" (shorthand for meditate, practice mindfulness, send healing energies out for peace, etc.) for the world in ways I wasn't able to in my pre-illness life of acting for the world! Who can say which is more powerful and important?