New Year, New Attitude.

All of us that have chronic illnesses have said it at some point when that clock counts down to the new year.

“This year I will ________ (fill in the blank with)  Feel better, go into remission, be cured, not need as much assistance or medication, or many of the other things” we say with conviction.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.  Never losing hope is incredibly important when dealing with chronic illness. But what happens when a miracle cure doesn’t appear in our future and we are stuck with the same old disease year after year?

As my mother once said, “If you can’t change your situation, you have to change YOU in the situation.”

Growing up, I never understood what the hell she was talking about until I got sick.  That’s when those 14 words changed my life. Getting the autoimmune disease Myasthenia Gravis wasn’t a choice for me.  How I dealt with it was.

We all have a decision to make when faced with frightening and depressing information.  We can let it destroy us or use it to make us stronger.

When I was first diagnosed, I was bewildered as to why I would get a life threatening autoimmune disease after already having cancer multiple times.  Did God hate me?  Did I do something wrong in a past life and Karma was now kicking my ass?

But here is what I learned.  The why doesn’t really matter.  What’s important is what we do from that point on.

That’s when I decided to pull out of my pity party and see if I could look at illness from a different perspective to see what I could learn from it. Here’s what I found that helped me to gain wisdom from my disease instead of letting it run me over:

1. It’s not your fault.  You didn’t do anything to deserve getting sick nor are you being punished.
2. There are little miracles to help us every day you just have to find them. And sometimes you have to look REALLY hard.
3. It’s not always about you. When I was bedridden, I would constantly worry about what this experience of having their mom just lay there unable to be with them was doing to my young children.  As they grew, I was an amazing sense of compassion develop in each of them and a sense of understanding and empathy I could have never taught them another way.  My daughter now leads massive food drives for the hungry and my son works in orphanages all over the world.  Talk about turing lemons into lemonade!
4. Others are watching. What do you want to teach them?  Strength and determination are contagious.  So is self victimization.
5. Self-Forgiveness. We typically carry a truck full of baggage with us when we get sick.  Forgive yourself for it all.  You will feel lighter and stronger for it.
6. Letting go is key. If you can’t do what you used to, it’s ok. You probably can do some pretty amazing other stuff now like model hope and faith to others.
7. Detach but don’t disengage. Illness is something you have, it isn’t who you are. Never own your disease as a part of you.  It’s just a thing you deal with on your journey through life.
8. Remember what you can do, not what you can’t. Before I got sick I was a marathon runner.  Within months of my last race I was in a wheelchair.  Even though my physical body was limited, my mind was not.  But I could still write.  I ended up writing a best selling book from all the time I had in bed.  Lemonade…
9. Keep an attitude of gratitude. Staying positive is very important when dealing with health issues.  Keep a log of all that you are grateful for and refer back to it when you are feeling down.  For more info on the health benefits of gratitude, click here.
10. Find ways to serve others. When I was really sick, I fostered kittens.  Doing anything, no matter how small, pulled me out of my misery and made me feel like a contributing member of the human race again.

Following these steps can help us release the hold illness has on us and refocus our mind to our higher calling.  Disease is nothing more than a giant arrow pointing down a different path.  Don’t ever give it more credit than it deserves.