When you're struggling...how do you survive?

Now that pain is a part of your life, on the days that you're struggling...how do you choose to survive? How do you survive the mental pain? How do you survive the emotional pain? How do you survive the physical pain?  HOW DO YOU SURVIVE?

Living with a chronic illness is a daily battle some days. To battle your thoughts against your body, your body against your thoughts...your thoughts and your body against your reality...its a battle...daily. What we do for us will see us through the daily battle with ourselves, for ourselves.

How do you survive? What do you do to help you get through your days? When your pain is threatening to over take you or has even stolen your voice...how do you survive?

The choices we make for ourselves when we are feeling our pain can either empower us through it or it can drag us down further into our rabbit hole of negativity. The choice is ours to make but sometimes we don't always make the best ones...have you ever noticed that in your life? Have you ever done something that you thought would make you feel better, only to later have feelings of guilt for having done what you did? Me too. 

Take a look at the following...do any look familiar to you? How are your surviving your pain? You may not find how you're surviving listed here...there are many ways we can choose to survive this life...if you don't find your choices here, please give thought to how you are are surviving...are your choices in your best interest or someone else's? What choices can you now make for you moving forward? 

Positive Survival Skills

• seek out and surround yourself with the people in your life you can count on when you're struggling
  
• do what makes you feel good...soothing your emotional, mental and physical pain with care and consideration to your personal needs...your choices do not cause harm to you or those around you
• educate yourself about your illness and how you may learn to live with it - explore your options to treatment including alternative forms of treatment - have a plan for how you will mange your illness and needs
• soothe your needs without causing harm to yourself or behaving in manners that could cause harm - meditation, visualization, positive self scripts, talk therapy with a counsellor 
• talk to yourself with care, love, understanding and acceptance of all that you are including your pain..be gentle with the words you use when thinking about your life.
• have goals that you are working towards to better manage your health and your life - exercise, counselling, diet etc...
• accept that pain may be a part of your life now but you still have a life to life for you
• take accountability for your life and the choices you have made...if you don't like what's going on...make different choices

Negative Survival Skills

• self isolation - from family and friends...from aspects of your life you once enjoyed
  
• self-abusive behaviours - harming yourself physically...cutting, picking, burning, PICA
  
• drug and /or alcohol abuse - do you escape your life in the bottom of a bottle? pills or alcohol? do you use illegal substances to numb your pain?
  
• eating disorders - eating too much to soothe your emotions or not eating all because you just don't care anymore...or are you somewhere in between?
  
• engage in reckless behaviours without thought or care to your safety
• soothing your emotions with unprotected sex with multiple partners or other dangerous sexual behaviours
• talk to yourself with demoralizing negativity beating yourself up for things that have happened
• stopped caring about your life...an "I give up" attitude
• blame yourself or others for what is going on in your life

The trick to surviving a pained life is taking care of ourselves...our emotional, mental and our physical pain in ways that won't leave scars on us afterwards, that won't leave us feeling guilty later...ways that will promote our lives in a positive healthy way....we can choose differently...we can survive this without hurting ourselves...will you choose something different?

take good care of you