Chronic Illness Q&A with Dr. B.
This question & answer column is for people living with chronic health challenges and their family caregivers, who want to learn to increase the odds of improving their health by learning to live with mastery & wellbeing.
I invite you to post your questions in the comments box below and I will answer them on a future Friday in this column.
I post to this blog three times per week. Monday posts are articles I’ve written. Wednesday posts are interviews—mostly video. Friday posts consist of your questions about living better with chronic health challenges, and my answers to them.
Someone recently asked me this question during one of my presentations:
Question: How can I best manage having to constantly change or cancel plans due to not feeling well?
Answer: For many of us living with chronic illness, pain, malaise, fatigue, and unpredictable physical disabilities, it can be extremely frustrating to not be able to predict how we will feel on any given day. Making plans with others can lead to frequent last-minute cancellations. This is where mindfulness practice can help. By learning how to be fully present with all our symptoms, we are able to learn ways to not be as bothered by them. We can also learn to use the skill of being fully present with our emotions to not only not be as bothered by them, but to actually use them to live more fully in our lives.
This website is offered as a free public service, supplying information that has been found helpful to certain people living with chronic health challenges. No treatment is offered on this website. The advice is general, and may or may not apply to your individual situation, and is not a substitute for psychotherapy or medical treatment.
What questions do you have about how to live better with chronic health challenges? Each Friday, I will answer your questions in Chronic Illness Q&A with Dr. B.
Just scroll down and type your question in the comment box and you’ll see my response to you in an upcoming Friday post.
Q. How to best manage having to constantly change or cancel plans due to not feeling well.
How does one find the balance between accepting their circumstances and being at peace with them and yet not tolerating them so that one might work towards changing them for the better?
Hi Rob,
I appreciate your wonderful question. I’ll answer this way: I would like to be healthier than I am. However, getting stuck in frustration, anger, or sadness only worsens my situation. However, what helps is to be fully committed to doing everything I can do to be healthier without being invested in the outcome. In the last week, we have received gifts of gourmet cookies and other delicious junk food. I’ll eat none of it, and taking care of myself gives meaning and purpose to my life. It allows me to live with a sense of mastery and wellbeing even if my health fails to improve at all.