“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
Continue reading “What does hope mean to you?”I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
BY EMILY DICKINSON
Hello my Zebras and Spoonies! Thank you for coming and hanging out with me today. I am glad that you are here.
Today I want to revisit the topic of how I cope with my chronic illness. I made a previous post about this that focused on the philosophy that I use when thinking about my chronic illness that allows me to better manage the challenges I face. You can read that here:
You can also listen to the pod cast here:
But I am revisiting the topic to talk about it from a more practical perspective. I want to talk about some coping skills or tools that you can use to help get you through the tough times. As I got to working on this, I realized that there was a lot of material here, so I’ve broken it into two parts. This is the promised second post about coping skills.
Continue reading “Coping Skills: Part Two”Hello my Zebras and Spoonies! Thank you for coming and hanging out with me today. I am glad that you are here.
Today I want to revisit the topic of how I cope with my chronic illness. I made a previous post about this that focused on the philosophy that I use when thinking about my chronic illness that allows me to better manage the challenges I face. You can read that here:
Continue reading “Coping Skills: Part One”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”Music is a core part of all of humanity. Every culture across the globe has some kind of music. All of humanity: we sing and we dance and we make musical instruments. We do this by ourselves. We do this as groups. We do this in times of celebration. We do this in times of stress. We have been making music for as long as we have been documenting history and evidence suggests that we have been doing the making of music before we have been writing. So this suggests that there’s something really essential, profound and powerful about music, which is why so many people research it, because we ask this question of “why music?” What is it about music, that’s so important that every human being on the planet, engages with music, on some level? Whether you are a performer or you’re just somebody who is listening. Whether you’re singing in the shower or tapping on the table to a song in your head. We all engage in the creation and listening and sharing of music. Why is that?
Continue reading “The Power of Music”Hello, my zebras and spoonies. Thank you for coming and hanging out with me today. I am glad that you are here!
Today, I’m going to talk about some of the myths around stimming.
Well, first of all, what is stimming? Stimming is a self stimulatory behavior, and it is a sensation seeking that can ease feelings of anxiety, frustration and boredom. Some people find stimming pleasurable, or fun or relaxing.
Continue reading “Stimming”Hello my Zebras and Spoonies. Thank you for coming over and hanging out with me for a little while. I am really glad that you are here.
Something that we don’t tend to think of as a stressor in our lives is our life transitions. These are the times in our lives that we are having a role shift or a major change in the way that we are living. Some examples of these are marriage, the birth of a child, retiring, the death of a significant person in our life, a disabling accident, or having a chronic illness that develops to the point of disabling us, getting a new job, traveling to a new location, a new place of living, getting a new house or a new apartment, getting divorced, graduating from school (high school or college), empty nest syndrome, and many others. All of these are times in our lives where we change the roles that we’re playing. With that comes a shift in our identity and how we see ourselves.
Continue reading “Life Transitions”Music is a great way to say the things that we often can’t. It can express feelings when we hurt too deeply to talk about it. These are some of the songs that I feel speak to the chronic illness journey. Any songs that you feel speak to your journey?
When we talk about “nothing lasts forever” people generally start hearing the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas playing in their heads. Yes, this idea does mean that we will not last forever. We are mortal. But there is a lot to this that is very powerful if you let it be.
Continue reading “Finding Comfort in Impermanence”I hope that you guys are finding things to keep you busy in this strange time of staying home. I myself am getting a little stir crazy, but am doing my best to keep my ADHD brain from exploding.
For those of you that don’t know, I have bronchitis and because I am a nurse I have been swabbed for COVID-19. First, I am not in any kind of medical crisis. I have some mild shortness of breath and a bit of a cough. I get bronchitis almost every year and it is likely more of the same, but I have to be sure what’s going on before I can return to work. I am still waiting on the test results and have no idea when they will come back. The labs are pretty busy right now. Long invisible lines.
Continue reading “Update 040120”
Zebra Pig 