When Your World Feels Smaller...Again

I was working on a different post to today, about playing safe and succumbing to sabotage….but as I’ve watched the world unfold over the past week, that doesn’t feel as urgent or important as addressing what many are dealing with right now. With COVID cases rising in Western Canada in particular, where I am, and in other parts of the world as the second wave hits full surge, there’s a new sense of urgency, hopelessness and frustration mounting. 

My hometown back in Saskatchewan has been hit with an outbreak at two care homes, a child care centre, and a local business. So far. Staff and residents of these facilities, customers and members of the small community are being hit hard. Childhood friends’ parents, siblings and grandparents are testing positive, being isolated and in some cases, being hospitalized and placed on life-supporting ventilators.

It’s scary, and it’s personal. 

In other parts of the country, infection, hospitalization and death rates are rising (again), and so schools are closing (again), restaurants, gyms and other businesses are closing (again) and other restrictions are being put in place (again) to slow the spread of infection to enable the healthcare system to keep up with demand, so they can, you know, save lives. 

I want to offer some words here that may help if you’re struggling to be with this uncertainty, fear, despair and sense of foreboding.

If the thought of locking down during the cold, dark winter months has you feeling like You. Just. Can’t. Even.

If you can’t find it in you to strap on your mask and do it all over again, and maybe again, and maybe even again.

If you’re depleted and defeated and despairing.

Here are some tips, perspectives and inspiration to keep you going. Take what helps, set aside what doesn’t, reach out if you need more, and pass this along to anyone else who may need it. 

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed / angry / afraid / hopeless / whatever.

Basically, it’s okay to feel it all, especially the hard, negative, uncomfortable stuff. Be in it. Allow it in, observe it, be curious about what it reveals to you and about you. When you are ready (you’ll know: you’ll be sick of feeling this way) only then begin to move forward. This is how we build resilience. For a refresher, read this. 

It’s okay to ask for help.

We’re holding a lot right now. Again. Still. There are people who are trained to help in times like these. There are also people who are untrained and who love you and want to help. Reach out and ask for help when you can’t carry it all alone. 

It’s okay to take care of yourself.

In fact, please do. And if you need it, here’s my piece on self-care as a reminder of how to prioritize and embed care of self in your daily life. 

It’s also okay to feel good, despite everything that’s going on.

Maybe you’re cushioned from the blows this pandemic is battering on those around you. You like (and are able to be) working from home. You like your housemates enough to spend 24/7/365 with them. You’re healthy. Maybe even happy.

If you’re already feeling good, why not shift that to feeling grateful? Engage in a daily gratitude practice to maintain the positive vibes and healthy outlook. It will boost your immunity, make you more pleasant to be around, and more able to show up and do your good work and support those around you.

And, if you need help to feel good, I love this happiness chemicals cheat sheet that’s circulating on various online communities right now, that I recreated.

Feeling good is good. Doing good is better.

If you're able and it’s safe, offer to provide assistance to the marginalized communities in your world, either through your money, your time or your effort. The homeless and at-risk population in particular has been hit hard by the pandemic -- lack of beds in shelters due to social distancing; lack of money to be made because of fewer pedestrians and shoppers, fewer people carrying cash and fewer transactions in the sex trade due to social distancing; lack of outreach supports due to lack of funding and volunteers who are themselves vulnerable because of age or health conditions. And now with winter weather underway, there is likely (for sure) someone who will benefit from your generosity and good fortune -- you just need to look and offer it. 

It won’t be like this forever.

It just feels that way. Several promising vaccines are in trial. There are smart people working on solutions, tracking and analyzing information, making sense of the chaos. We, through them, learn more every day. There’s hope. And let’s be real: it also won’t ever be exactly like it was before. That fact can be hard to understand and accept, so please don’t despair if it feels like too much.

What can help? Grieve what you miss, what you long for, what you regret. Then allow yourself to dream about how it might be when we can gather in large groups, hug our friends and families, and enjoy unencumbered movement and travel and care-free-dom again. Create a list of “what you’ll do first when...” Let it inspire you. Share it, so it may inspire others. Let’s dream together.

You can keep doing uncomfortable things, and you can do hard things.

Let’s be clear: for most people, wearing a mask is not a hard thing.

Washing your hands is not a hard thing.

Refraining from going to a restaurant or a movie is not a hard thing.

Being isolated in your home, whether that is a house, an apartment, a hospital room or a care home, can be hard.

Closing your business because it’s no longer viable is hard.

Being ill and hospitalized and ventilated is hard.

And living in ambiguity, in uncertainty, and feeling untethered is hard.

Acknowledge yourself for all you’ve done and grown and learned this year: your adaptability, your stick-with-it-edness, your ability to get up each day and keep trying. Celebrate that you’ve made it this far. You’ve made it nine months through a pandemic.

You know what else takes nine months? Growing a new human being. How have you grown over the past nine months? Consider all the skills, choices, ups, downs and sidewayses that you’ve incubated, nourished, hoped, dreamed, grieved, supported, tried, failed and delivered through the past nine months, and give yourself some credit.

And maybe some cake, too. Celebration calls for cake. 

The bottom line, for now.

Uncertainty is difficult for us humans. Extended uncertainty is really difficult. Most of us tend to like certainty, structure, routine, a sure thing, some boards to bounce off of (a winter/hockey metaphor for you there). We’re figuring out how to be and do in these strange times, making it up as we go, still, nine months running. 

And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s even a bit emotionally liberating for some of us. 

What rises to the top of your priorities when the world is shutting down or closing in/up around you? 

What can you set aside, set down, settle so you can attend to what’s most important, most helpful, most comforting right now? 

What falls away? 

What reveals itself to you and in you? 

How can you hold this uncertainty as an opportunity for choice, clarity and discernment? 

If you’re called to explore these questions, or need help of any kind (a referral to a service provider, recommendations for resources, or anything else to help you carry on) please reach out. Let’s take care of each other.  

Inspired Action Alert

I want to call out the impact of being moved to inspired action despite a negative circumstance. A childhood friend, Shannon Grant Tompkins, started a Facebook page after her father was hospitalized due to COVID last week to bring attention to the real people this pandemic is impacting. By inviting folks to share the human faces of the pandemic, she’s creating community, an avenue for witnessing and space for healing, which is what we need right now. You can find it here: Beyond the Statistics: The Canadian Faces of Covid-19. Please send some positive healing vibes her dad’s way.

Finding Gifts in Chronic Illness

I remember the first time I heard someone describe their experience with a rare form of cancer -- including intrusive testing, rounds of chemo, a near-deadly infection and a stem cell transplant -- as a gift. 

Whaaaaat? I’d thought. 

But then I saw how they lived -- really lived -- after coming through that ordeal, and I started to understand their perspective. 

And then I had my own experience with a cancer diagnosis, and the limbo time of not knowing how bad it was, or what treatments would be needed, and what outcome might be likely, and that perspective sunk deeply into my bones. 

Getting a scary diagnosis can be a wake-up call for many folks. It was for me. 

And while my cancer experience was relatively easily and quickly resolved with positive outcomes, the lessons that came from it have stayed with me. 

Life is short, so focus on what and who really matters. 

You don’t have put up with bullshit. 

Live in the present. Let go of the past. 

And all the other things you see in trite memes on the interwebs. (And, they’re true.) 

The immediacy and urgency of a scary diagnosis, and coming through the other side, often feels like permission to change things up in our lives. 

I wondered, could that be the case for people with chronic illnesses too? I mean, getting handed a life-limiting or life-altering diagnosis (rather than an imminent or potentially imminent life-ENDING diagnosis) throws your life into total disarray, too. It causes you to question and assess and adjust and learn and stretch and adapt like nothing else, just so you can keep living. 

My experience of having a chronic illness is that it’s like a heavy pack that I can’t ever set down on a hike that never ends (until it does!). It’s a slog.

Could that pack have some gems hidden in it? Could I see a long-term illness from that same perspective -- as a gift? Could that pebble in my shoe that’s piercing my tender arch as I walk through life, actually turn out to be a sparkly little diamond?

I began asking myself: 

What’s the gift of a chronic illness? 

What has it offered, created or inspired in my life? 

What have I learned because of it?

How have I grown because of this illness?

Here’s what I can directly attribute to living with Type 1 diabetes for nearly 40 years: 

1. I’m a master planner and am incredibly organized. I can see an outcome and work backwards to create the minute steps and sequences to arrive there. I love calendars and schedules and had to learn early on how to plan ahead for all outcomes and be prepared -- packing extra food, all my supplies and backups for any outing, whether for an hour or two weeks in a foreign country. It’s why I landed naturally in communications strategy and execution, and strategic planning and project management as parts of my career path.

2. I’m in tune with my body in a way a lot of other people wouldn’t be. I know what it feels like to have plummeting or skyrocketing blood sugar, or the particular cause of a headache based on how it feels and where it starts. I know when to expect a yeast infection based on my blood sugars, or what my blurry eyesight means, or what this level of energy or lack of energy means. I know to expect low blood sugars when my hormones are cycling at certain times of the month. The number of times I pause during a day and listen and feel into my body to inform my choices -- whether to eat, sleep, walk, get on a call with a client -- is likely in the range of 100-200 times a day. In fact, a study out of Stanford several years ago found that diabetics make 180 extra health-related decisions a day compared to non-diabetics. Those decisions are based on both quantitative and qualitative data; checking in with our bodies is second-nature.  

3. I know more about food and nutrition than most people, and the way those foods, in combination and alone, impact my body. I know the carbohydrate, protein and fat counts of most foods without looking at labels. I know how I will feel after eating a bowl of pasta or a handful of grapes or one Halloween-sized chocolate bar.

4. I can do mental math to calculate the amount of insulin I need to take to be able to absorb any food safely into my body and maintain blood sugars in my target range, while weighing other contributing factors like exercise (how much? how long? what kind?), how much onboard insulin is coursing through my veins, hormonal fluctuations, and the digestion rate of food I’ve eaten earlier and will eat later. 

5. I have a high pain tolerance from stabbing myself with lancets and needles and inserting cannulas and other subcutaneous devices over the years, as well as going for regular blood work...every three months I get stabbed by the professionals. To give you an idea of how many pokes and injections I’ve had… over 38 years at an average of 4 blood tests a day (understanding that on day when my blood sugar is bouncing around, I’ve tested in the range of 15-20 times), I’ve had my fingers poked over 55,000 times (which is why I have no fingerprints on some of my fingers); over the 20 years my insulin was delivered by needle, I have injected approximately 22,000 of them; and since switching to an insulin pump 18 years ago, I’ve inserted almost 2200 infusion sets.

6. I’ve created healthy boundaries in my life to ensure I don’t burn out (again), get dehydrated (again)...or mentally come undone (again). I’ve learned to say no, to assess my energy inputs and outputs, and protect myself from physical and mental harm. I’ve learned what my limitations are and how to truly care for myself so I can be productive and feel like a contributing member of my family and society. 

7. I know how to navigate the healthcare and health insurance systems, and how to advocate for myself. I learned how to trust my gut and use my voice to get what I need from the systems I fund that are supposed to serve me. 

8. I’m compassionate toward others, especially those who manage a disease, condition or are dealing with upheaval. We don’t know what others are dealing with, and empathy goes a long way in giving others the benefit of the doubt and some grace to get through their day. 

Through the conversations I’ve been having with others who answered the call to share their experiences -- long-term illness managers, their partners or spouses, their parents or adult children -- I’ve collected some of the other gifts that chronic conditions have revealed in their lives. I’ve paraphrased and directly quoted their brilliance (without revealing identities) below:

I’m super resilient. 

I can do hard things, and make them look easy.

I have a high pain tolerance: I can take a lot, and keep going. 

I’ve learned to really prioritize what’s important to me, and to focus my energy there, because I can’t do it all, and my capacity will change over time. I’m squeezing the best out of my time. 

I’ve found community through sharing honestly, and received positive affirmation and validation and support in response. Even though it was scary, I shared publicly about really personal things, like the impact of the condition on my new marriage and our sex life, and found support in my community. 

I’m independent and self-sufficient. I learned how to take care of myself at a very young age. 

I’ve learned to ask for help and, more importantly, to accept it. 

I’ve learned to live for each moment; this is all we have and it’s not going to get better than it is today, so seek the joy in each moment. 

I find hope and joy in the small, everyday things. When each day might be my last, I’ve learned to savour my people and everyday comforts -- my favourite chair, my cozy sweater, the taste of apple pie. 

I’m still fucking awesome! Despite [this condition], I’m still a contributing member of society, an amazing parent and partner, and I’m living a life that’s good and meaningful. 

These feel like a balm to my heart, when I think about all the struggles and challenges and extra burden these folks carry, just to get through a day. 

If you’re in the same boat -- managing a long-term condition -- and it gets you down, I encourage you to sit with these prompts to begin to open up the possibility of gifts that you have received because of your condition. These can be a place to turn for comfort on those especially hard days we all have from time to time. 

Without this condition:  

I wouldn’t have learned…

I wouldn’t have tried…

I wouldn’t have met…

I wouldn’t have…

If you want help to explore the gifts of your condition more deeply, or you’re really struggling to believe your situation offers any gifts, I invite you to consider participating in Positively Chronic, a 6-week mental fitness program to help rewire your neural pathways from negative thinking to positive thinking. Through it, you’ll build your “mental muscles” to be able to more quickly and easily find the gifts and opportunity in any situation or event. It’s been a game changer for me in how I manage the mental burden of living with a chronic condition, and I know it can help you too. Reach out if you want to discuss how you could benefit from participating.

Here’s what I know is true:

You are stronger than you think.

You have already done many hard things.

And, you are loved, no matter what.