The thing about fear is that it is a double edged sword. People forget that it is an important and useful emotion that keeps us from jumping from a cliff or putting our hands in the fire. Fear reminds us that we are mortal and that we need to have both caution and reserve in life. But if we listen to nothing but our fear we will become trapped within it an fail to do anything in life. Most of our fears are reasonable and healthy; like being afraid of falling. But some are nothing more then traps. It is important to know which fears to listen to. Let’s talk about why we have some of them and what to do about it.
Continue reading “The Power of Fear”Month: October 2021
102721-1651: Courage
It is too much to get up today
The pain completely overwhelms me
There is nothing left
My cup is empty
But, I must get up
I must face the pain
If there is no courage
There will be nothing
My cup is empty
But filling it requires Courage
Choice
One thing that no one can ever take from you is your power to choose. It is something that you cannot even take from yourself. If you choose to allow others to make choices for you, that is a choice. One that you make each time that you comply with their decisions. There are times that we are compelled to do things by outside forces such as the law, but we still have the power to choose how we will respond. The thing about making choices is that it doesn’t grant you the power to do anything that you want. You are limited by circumstances and by what your imagination can come up with. But you can always choose something. Will you comply with what you have been compelled to do or will you resist? That is a choice and the results of those choices are likely to be different.
Continue reading “Choice”Apples and Oranges
One thing that is very real and very frustrating in the world of chronic illness: Misdiagnosis. The more rare your disease and more complex your medical case, the more likely that you will be misdiagnosed before someone gives you the “real answer.” The truth is that diagnosing patients is complex and, frankly, it’s really hard. Most medical tests don’t lead to a single diagnosis, but rather suggest a list of possible answers that must then be compared to the patient’s list of symptoms. And the fact of the matter is that most of us in the chronic illness community have struggled with this reality.
Continue reading “Apples and Oranges”101620-1027
You broke me
and I’m tired of you judging me
for the scars you gave me.
Medical Boundaries
Hello, my zebras in spoonies thanks for coming. I’m glad that you’re here. So I’ve been talking about boundaries a lot over my last couple posts and this is also going to be about boundaries. Specifically, I want to talk about medical boundaries, this comes up a lot for those of us who have chronic illness.
Continue reading “Medical Boundaries”Bean Dip
One of the best not good for you foods out there.
Continue reading “Bean Dip”Types of Boundaries
Hello, my zebras and spoonies! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today. I’m glad that you’re here. So today, let’s talk about boundaries and relationships some more.
The first thing is that it’s absolutely essential to understand is that love equals respect. Doesn’t matter what type of relationship that we’re talking about, if it’s going to be a good, healthy relationship, it is going to be one that is founded upon and centers around, mutual respect. That means that both people’s needs matter equally, and that both parties are going to work for both people’s needs to be met at all times. And that doesn’t mean that there’s going to be times that one person has bigger needs than the other, and that there’s going to be times where one has bigger support needs than the other and that that dynamic doesn’t shift back and forth but that the overall arc is going to be that both people’s needs are being met, equally. It really comes down to respect and respect is really about boundaries and having boundaries in relationships.
Continue reading “Types of Boundaries”Boundaries
Hello my zebras and spoonies thank you for coming and hanging out with me. I’m really glad that you’re here today. I’m going to be talking about boundaries. It’s something that I talk about a lot because I think that it’s super important. So, what are boundaries? Let’s start at the basics. Setting boundaries is about listening to yourself and your inner voice, and drawing social lines where you are made uncomfortable. So everyone’s boundaries are different, and that’s really super important because that necessitates that we as mature, responsible adults need to communicate with each other about where our boundaries are. We can never assume that other people know what our boundaries are or that we know what other people’s boundaries are because everyone is different, and their comfort zones are different. We all have things that could trigger past traumas or trigger sensory issues or whatever. We all have different things that make us feel uncomfortable or unsafe in our lives, and those are the areas in our social interactions that we need to draw boundaries. So setting boundaries is an act of self respect and an act of self preservation. It is the most essential act of self care. When someone does something to you that makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable. It comes with a mental health cost. It uses spoons that are so very essential in our lives and we can’t afford to be wasting spoons on stupid stuff that we just shouldn’t be wasting them on; so boundaries can help us with this by just saying to someone, hey this is my boundary. And then, holding them to that.
Continue reading “Boundaries”022012-0828
There are things that must be captured;
reeled in like giant, angry fish
screaming out bloodied protests.
Things we never want to take in.
Yet they make us
so much more complete
then the things of glitter, lace and fluff.
Zebra Pig 