Learning to Listen to My Body: A Journey with Chronic Illness

You are not lazy. You are not a bad person. You have value. I hear you. I dont so much as ask friends to slow down when we are walking a short distance. J don't them im too tired to turn my head and talk to them. I keep pushing thru it. Thank you for allowing yourself to rest. Maybe I can learn from you

This!! I consider resilience to be one of my personality traits, and it took me a loooong time to realize that didn’t mean pushing past exhaustion to get something done, it meant resting responsibly to be able to fight the next battle!

I've constantly had people tell me to be more active when they don't realize how much it hurts to move because of my back and how hard it is to walk around when I can't feel my feet and can't keep my balance especially during the daytime when my migraines are the worst, I tried to keep up with my friends when we were younger but after they got into car accidents they realized how hard it was for me and stopped trying to push me

I also have always been what my friends call a “try hard” always pushing myself to do everything and to do it well. When i got sick i had to learn quickly that the way i used to live only makes me sicker. In any case, it takes a lot of courage to choose to be kind to yourself rather than to follow ingrained expectations. Good job on resting today ❤️