Embarking on a journey can be both frightening and exciting. When the journey is about health — your own health — you may feel that the frightening far outweighs the exciting.
If you’re someone who’s chronically ill, consider your current status: Are you where you want to be? Do you feel satisfied with your level of wellness? Few would answer “yes” to that question. Understanding the health journey process goes a long way toward removing the “frightening factor,” and that’s where the following illustration helps.
When I describe what I call the Rebuilding Wellness concept at speaking engagements, I tell it this way. Think about fixing up a home. Maybe it appears rundown; the eves sag, the paint has peeled, and the once-green lawn has gone beige. Nothing that some operating sprinklers and a new coat of paint can’t fix.
But, if you put some thought into it before the elbow grease, a home that has visible problems might have others, too. It could have problems that aren’t visible, bigger ones beneath the warped siding. What if the roof leaks or the plumbing is bad. Even worse, what if the foundation has cracks – serious cracks. Would slapping on a coat of exterior paint suffice as the ultimate remedy then?
Our health issues are the same way. By the time symptoms appear on the surface, the problems that caused them have already run amok elsewhere. Chronic illness takes time to manifest. It stands to reason that the application of solutions will be no quick fix.
So, where to begin? Consider the type of “cracks” that are affecting your foundation: nutritional deficiencies, extreme stress, toxin exposure (internal and external), infections, injuries, and/or hormonal/thyroid dysfunction. Take a look at what you think affects you most. Begin an action plan to remedy these problems and fortify your “home.”
Tackling these “cracks” one at a time is a big job, but I promise, Rebuilding Wellness is always a worthwhile investment.
Sometimes it’s not possible to start with what affects you most because it would involve a financial investment that you just CAN’T make (for example: the toxins in your home make you feel worse, but your only other option is living on the street.) Even if moving is not an option at the moment, there are other places you can start; and you can be improving while you work on whatever you need to do to be able to move.
Hi Sue, I wanted to pass along the Versatile Blogger Award to you – thanks for your guest post and for all your great work! I wish you all the success in the world
Click here: http://lovingwithchronicillness.blogspot.com/2010/08/versatile-blogger-award.html
Thanks so much! I love what you’re doing with your blog and health messages, too!
Sue, your post is just what I needed to read today. I have had a chronic sinus infection for 5 weeks; have been on 2 different antibiotics. If I don’t clear up soon, I will have to look further into this. I have been thinking ‘oh no, here I go again looking for another answer’; yet I know I need to in order to have better health.
I have been reading a lot of things on other sites and on the face book news feed this past week and I stopped because mostly people are expressing negative thoughts and feelings. How I love this blog and the uplifting messages you bring us Sue. I said before and my daily mantra remains “It’s my life and I am taking it back!”. I’m so happy to have found positive guidance on my quest for wellness! I want to scream from a rooftop,( but have tried polite prodding instead) it’s time to work on feeling better and not concentrating on all the broken things in our lives. I know it took many years to get my body in such a state of disrepair, and it’s going to take a while to fix it, but I find that much more appealing than concentrating on what’s broken. Making small changes in how I think, eat and exercise have already helped me, and I am excited about how much more I can achieve!