Category: Ramblings and Rants

List 5 things you’re grateful for today.

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to invite you to spend some time thinking about the things that you are grateful for and the reasons that you are grateful for them. It is very easy to focus on the negative things in the world and get lost to them. They can swallow us whole. But there are still good things in this world. Regardless of how small those things are, list them. Sing their praises. Then, come back to that list when you are struggling. These things are points of emotional and spiritual power.

I am grateful

  • For my husband who has always accepted me just the way that I am.
  • For my daughter who has always been able to make me laugh.
  • For videogames that have been a way for me to escape from my thoughts when they are too much.
  • For the small pleasures in life such as the first sip of a hot cup of coffee, the sun rise and the feel of a fuzzy blanket against my face. These things offer me comfort when I feel lost.
  • For the crafting supplies that have enabled me to be a creative person which has been healing.

These things that we are grateful for are things that we can come back to when we are having a difficult time. Are there people on your list? Perhaps they are people that you should be reaching out to when you find yourself struggling. Are there activities on your list? Excellent! Then things are things that you can do when you are struggling. Often times, we write down our lists of gratitude and then we tuck them away, giving them no further thought. Instead, I want you to really think about your list of gratitude. What on that list can help lift you up when you feel like you are falling down?

Well, that’s about it for my rambling today. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like what you read, click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!

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Embracing the Spirit of Kindness

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about the idea of embracing the spirit of kindness. It is a personal philosophy that I live by that I feel has made my life a lot better. When I was an adolescent, I made the decision that I wasn’t going to be the person that I was becoming. I decided that I was going to be someone better then I was. That was my first step towards this philosophy.

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One Word: Chaos

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

What is one word that describes you?

WordPress Prompt

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to explain why I think that CHAOS is the word I would pick for this, assuming that I could only pick just one word. First, when I think of this word I am thinking of how this word is defined by physics: “behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions.”

Once someone gets to know me, they tend to realize that my behavior, just like everyone else’s, isn’t random nor unpredictable. But for those people first meeting me, they often complain that I am unpredictable. This is because I frequently respond to things in a way that people generally don’t so I am not meeting their general expectations. It is also because there are numerous factors that goes into how I respond to a situation which means that I will often respond differently to the same stimuli given different context.

This is actually the case for all humans. We are not static things. We are dynamic and every changing. We are constantly being effected by our environment. This causes us to constantly change the way that we engage with the environment. I think that this sensitivity to small change is often seen as a negative thing so we try to hide it. But it is just the nature of being an organic thing. We cannot separate ourselves from the environment we are an extension of it.

So, go out there and embrace the chaos!

Well, that’s about it for my rambling today. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like what you read, click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!

Buy me a Coffee

The Catch 22 of Chronic Illness

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I just wanted to talk about the catch 22 of chronic illness. What’s the catch 22? How difficult it can be to judge how much or which activities are going to be alright and which ones are going to cause problems. One thing that almost every provider and most spoonies talk about is how important it is to manage and prevent your symptoms. What isn’t talked about enough is that this isn’t a simple equation that’s all worked out for us that will determine how to behave in order to achieve the best outcomes.

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Confidence

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

How would you rate your confidence level?

WordPress Prompt

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about my self confidence, because it doesn’t work the way that most people think that it does. I’m great at bravado. I can jump into action and make it seem like I am really confident in what I am doing when I am feeling something altogether different inside. This has made it rather difficult to talk about some of the insecurities that I feel because most people who have met me don’t believe that I have them.

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Joining a Support Group

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about joining a support group and why I think that you should. The internet is a large place with a vast number of people visiting it every day. There are groups on every social media platform that offer us ways to connect with others that are struggling in the same fashion that we are.

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Patient-Provider Relationship

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to express some of the thoughts that I have on the patient-provider relationship. I think there is much to be said about the importance of the provider patient relationship. Trust is what good care is built upon. I know that I cannot care for patients that do not trust me. Nothing good can come from any relationship that lacks trust. And right now, healthcare providers are loosing trust.

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Comfort Foods

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about comfort foods. We’ve all got them. Those things that we like to eat and drink because they help us emotionally feel better. They are foods that we associate with the goods times in life. For those of us with chronic illness, they are also foods that are safe for us to eat. Ones that won’t lead to us having a flare or trigger sensory issues.

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I Struggle with Ableism

~ Zebra Pig ~ Leave a comment

A reading of the blog.

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about ableism and how I personally struggle with the ablest thoughts and beliefs that I was raised with. When we think about someone having discriminatory thoughts and behaviors against a group of people, we generally assume that it is a person that is outside that group. But the truth is that part of the discrimination within our society is within the people that are being discriminated against.

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