Jenny shares her life’s lessons and how to seek positive momentum…

The second priority, after letting go of standards, is letting go of false hope. As one’s frustration with one’s narrowing limitations grows, it can be tempting to believe those fluff-press articles about the latest panacea, or spam ads promising to tell (sell) secrets the medical establishment doesn’t want the public to know. One might instead do one’s own research and feel certain that this, (whatever “this” may be) is the sure cure, the magic bullet. And when (of course) it doesn’t work, maybe this? Or this…? Surely, one may feel, life can go back to normal, if a way can only be found…?

But what we have now is normal.

That’s not to say that just giving up is the way to go. For example, I get tired easily and have a hard time getting going in the first place. It often seems as though other people have an extra gear that I never did have even at my healthiest. I expressed this to my physician, who suggested taking a Vitamin D supplement. (I live in the gray Northwest too.) And darned if those little pills didn’t work! I don’t mean that they cured me (ha!), but within 48 hours I noticed a tiny reserve of energy at about the time of day when I expected to just run down. It’s enough for me to do one or two things that make life easier, such as making sure tonight that tomorrow’s cooking things are all clean–or deciding what to cook tomorrow in the first place.

Of course, when pain and weakness are continual distractions, it isn’t as simple as just deciding to do the thing. My physician worked with me to help me successfully take my vitamins despite my foggy brain: I have an alarm on my phone, and the pills live in my purse, which is always nearby at that time, and I take that pill in the middle of a crowd if necessary.

So maybe there’s some little thing that you could be doing for yourself to decrease the distractions of your condition and make your life easier overall. And maybe there’s some way, that might look a little peculiar to other people, to for you to help yourself do it.

Don’t waste your precious energy chasing false hope–but do look for those small but real things that you can do to support your health as it is now.

PS: The rule that if it works it doesn’t matter how weird it looks goes for matters not related to improving your health as well. I know of someone who kept forgetting to take certain necessary items out of the house in the morning because mornings were not a good time. But if he flipped an empty box over, put it in front of the door, and piled the stuff on it the night before–he remembered.