Finding My Resilience
Lessons, tips, and reflections to inspire others with POTS & Chronic Fatigue on their journey to thrive
Navigating Brain Fog with POTS: Tips and Insights
Living with POTS and chronic fatigue can present a myriad of challenges, one of the most common ones I’ve experienced in my journey and through working with clients is brain fog. I’ve found some great approaches to help along the way.
My Journey from Anger to Self-Acceptance with Chronic Illness
Living with chronic illness isn't just a physical challenge; it's an emotional and mental journey as well. In this post, I want to share my personal journey of embracing healing, shifting my mindset, and finding self-acceptance while navigating the ups and downs of POTS, chronic fatigue, and hypermobile EDS. If you're struggling to let go of anger and fear, and searching for ways to regain control of your life, know that you're not alone.
From Couch to Kitchen
A friend recently asked me how I got from lying on my couch to having energy to cook in my kitchen. The couch-to-kitchen process has not been far from linear. I faced many setbacks I had to navigate through. What got me into the kitchen again was finding my passion to thrive - the “why” behind my motivation.
Navigating Setbacks
Setbacks are frustrating and challenging to navigate. I have encountered many of them along my journey to finding wellness. I learned how to navigate setbacks through changing my mindset, listening to my body, and having a plan.
Tools for Forward Movement: Part 4 Relationship with Food
Figuring out how to get the nutrition my body needs to thrive has been one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of my journey to wellness. I often felt like I took two steps forward and one step back. To find healing, I needed to change my mindset and my relationship with food.
Tools for Forward Movement: Part 3 Physical Activity
Figuring out what type of physical activity works best for my body has taken years, even as a physical therapist. To move forward in this area, I learned to listen to what my mind and body need for wellness. I let go of pushing myself to do a fitness regimen that I thought was the ideal one and found the one that keeps me balanced.
Tools for Forward Movement: Part 2 Self-care to Recharge
I like to think about self-care as recharging myself. To use the analogy of an electric car, if I keep driving along and never stop to recharge, my battery runs out and I get stranded. Recharging my battery daily has been an essential step to move forward in my wellness journey especially managing two chronic illnesses.
Tools for Forward Movement: Part 1 Time Management
It has taken me a while to figure out how to manage my time. As a recovering perfectionist, I tend to get caught up in the details. I get distracted trying to make sure the outcome is just right and lose track of time. There are 3 things I have done that have really helped me stay on track: mindset, priorities, and energy.
Resolution Frustration
Over the last week, I’ve been thinking about how I can better define what progress towards my New Year’s resolutions will look like. Coming from a rehab background, I am very familiar with SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely. It’s a great framework for goals. However, it is very finite which makes embracing change as a part of life challenging. I realized that I needed to figure out a different approach to resolutions.
Letting Go to Move Forward
This time of year like many, I am thinking about what my New Year's Resolutions for 2022 will be. Looking back on uncompleted resolutions from last year I realized something: I needed to let go to move forward with my goals. By holding onto my ideals of what my career, my health, and my mindset should be, I limited myself from making progress toward my goals in 2021.
Befriending My Illness
For years, I saw my chronic illness as my enemy. I used up energy battling and suppressing it. What I didn’t know was how much this ongoing battle was draining my mental, physical, and emotional well-being. The battle cannot be won because my illness is not my enemy, but a part of my being. I learned to accept the presence of my illness. I no longer saw it as my foe but as my friend and teacher.
Setting Boundaries for Balance
Setting boundaries is a difficult thing to do, even more difficult during the holidays. For me setting boundaries includes saying no to attending an event, not running one more errand, or pushing myself to cook when I’m already feeling tired and stressed. Setting boundaries is an act of self-care. It's a step in the process of finding resilience for wellness.
Cornucopia of Wellness: Part 3 Mindset for Movement Forward
A big part of forward movement has been changing my mindset. In the past working full time as a physical therapist, my mindset was to keep working until my body completely fell apart. My body did not agree with my mind. This lack of mind-body balance led to burnout multiple times.
Cornucopia of Wellness: Part 2 Movement
Movement has been an essential part of my wellness plan. It has become a theme in my journey to just keep moving forward in some way. Finding physical movement has been restorative. Having Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and POTS has added unique challenges.
Cornucopia of Wellness: Part 1 Wellness Plan, Nutrition, and Life Balance
The cornucopia itself symbolizes abundance and includes a variety of flowers, fruits, and corn typically, reminding us to be thankful for the abundant blessings we have like food on the table. This time of year, seeing displays of cornucopias reminds me of the many different but related components of wellness we each need to thrive. The cornucopia of wellness for each person varies, however it can have similar components including a wellness plan, nutrition, life balance, and movement. In this post I am going to focus on having a wellness plan including nutrition and life balance.
Self-Advocacy for Resilience
Learning to advocate for myself has been one of the steps in my journey to find resilience for wellness. Self-advocacy did not come easily for me. It has been a learning process to advocate for myself on a day to day basis whether it be interacting with a doctor, friends, family members, colleagues, or even strangers.
Finding Resilience Using A Food Diary
Just like any other diary, I can now look back and see how my diligence and struggles to keep a food diary led to progress in my journey to heal my gut and find wellness. This tool has helped me make connections and see patterns that I missed for years…
Water (and Salt)Your P.O.T.S.
I am not referring to watering your garden, which of course you should do for the plants to grow. I am talking about Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), one of the diagnoses I have been learning to live with over the years. Normally an individual’s heart rate remains steady varying 10-20 beats per minute (bpm) when standing up. With POTS an individual’s heart rate increases by 30 bpm or more within the first 10 minutes of standing[1].
Walking: It’s Not Just For Exercise
Going for a walk can be more than just exercise. Indeed, walking is a form of light to moderate intensity aerobic exercise depending on the speed and distance walked and adults should aim for 30 minutes of it 5 days a week according to the American College of Sports Medicine and the CDC [1]. It’s a cheap, convenient exercise option that most individuals just need a good pair of supportive tennis shoes
State of Overwhelm
I have found myself in a “state of overwhelm” throughout my journey of adulting, especially the past 2 years. Thinking about all the responsibilities or things I should be doing, daily, weekly, monthly. The paperwork I need to get done, doctor and therapy appointments to prepare for and schedule.
