Finding Acceptance with a chronic illness

A questions I get asked about a lot is how I managed to accept my chronic illness. I wanted to dive in and look at what we really mean by acceptance and, more importantly, whether we ever truly find it.

When you’re first diagnosed with a chronic illness, you really do go through a grieving process. So often there’s relief followed by a tsunami of emotions which can feel all consuming.

When looking at the grieving process, the end point we’re all aiming for is acceptance. We want to wholly accept ourselves and this new thing in our life.

But what does acceptance mean?

The first part to finding acceptance with your chronic illness is truly asking yourself what you mean by that.

There are so many ways to define acceptance; is it approval? Feeling content? to endure it?

Acceptance can mean a wide range of things from merely enduring something for what it is, which doesn’t sound like a happy way to live, or to really feel content in something.

To me, acceptance means self love, it means being content and happy with who I am as a whole.

So sit and ask yourself what you really mean.

There is no end point

I think its important to say that acceptance isn’t a final destination. It’s a journey and it’s okay if you pass through, stay there a while and then need to work more to get back to acceptance.

My own personal experience with accepting my chronic illness is I’m accepting of it around 98% of the time. Which I’m happy with. I still have wobbles, and that’s okay. And it’s taken me 8 years to be able to comfortably say yes, I’m there.

The route to finding acceptance with a chronic illness

It can be a long journey, and it’s a never ending journey. But your route to acceptance can also be an exciting and fulfilling one.

Which is why I’ve created a course specifically designed to help you find acceptance in a fun and healthy way.

The Roadmap to Wellbeing is a course I’ve designed to help you create your own map to acceptance and wellbeing. I’ve put together all the tools and advice which has helped me these past 8 years and condensed it into a five module course.

Throughout the course, we will work together to work through your chronic illness mindset blocks and understand how we can shed the guilt we feel and look at how we can create positive changes to a thriving mindset.

You will understand how your mindset really effects your healing process and how to create positive energy, even when you’re in a flare up

You will learn how to put your best foot forward and give your body the time, space and energy it needs

You’ll have the tools to effectively communicate with your friends, family and healthcare team to get the support you need to thrive.

But most of all? You will learn how to take charge of your health all whilst being in a supportive community private facebook group where you can talk to like minded individuals and I’ll bring all my energy to the group too and be there to guide you personally through the course

You will notice that there is a slight travel theme to this course and that’s because travel for me = freedom. I use wellbeing to manage my health and to give me freedom.