WHAT’S FIBROMYALGIA TRYING TO TELL YOU?

Sometimes it’s good to take a step back and evaluate what your body is trying to tell you. Whether it’s from a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, RA, MS, lupus, CFS, etc., or even looking further into your symptoms such as pain, fatigue, and IBS your body has something POWERFUL to say!

Many years ago, I put together a wooden jungle gym like the one – ALL BY MYSELF!

The most difficult part was getting the rungs to the ladders and overhead monkey bars to fit together. You see, the ladders would start off OK, and then go wonky somewhere down the line.

I’d fit each rung into the left hand side rail, and make sure the fit was snug. Then, I’d try to line up the right hand side rail by fitting in each rung one by one, but it would go out of alignment before I reached last rung.

Each time, I got frustrated somewhere down the line, blaming the rung that I was stuck on thinking, “If only this ONE rung would slide into place, then it would all work out OK.”

Of course, that wasn’t true. The problem wasn’t the rung I was stuck on. It was the unit as a whole. The entire thing was out of alignment.

I ended up having to go back to the beginning. I had to pull out the instructions and review them yet again. I had to make sure each rung fit into place perfectly and was at a proper 90 degree angle to the side rail. Some of the rungs worked fine just as they came from the box – others had to be sanded and a persuader (aka, a hammer) was necessary to make them fit.

Deciphering health problems is a lot like assembling jungle gyms. We get “stuck” on specific symptoms such as pain, insomnia, IBS, etc. and feel that if we could fix “that one thing” then life would be grand – everything else would fit neatly into place.

Not so, Tonto.

It’s not that simple.

Chronic illness is an indicator (OK, a pretty BIG indicator) that something in your life is out of alignment – out of balance. Each symptom is like one more “rung out of place.” Your symptoms are telling you that things don’t fit together very well.

Are you listening? Have you gone back to the basics? Have you referenced your instruction manual (might I suggest purchasing your own or dusting off your copy of FibroWHYalgia)? Have you looked at possible root causes of your “misalignment?”

Sometimes going back to the basics requires you to re-evaluate where your priorities in life are out of balance. What self-care activities do you do regularly?

It’s interesting that we’re all looking for that “one” fix — as if we could force everything into alignment by using our own persuader of choice. Perhaps it’s time to take a step back and look at things from a different angle?

Take a new look and let me know what discoveries you see. I look forward to hearing about the progress of your health construction project!