This past week I have had to deal with a couple of significant issues in my healing journey.  It is effortless to slide back into our prior beliefs, and this causes problems with our lives.  Why I have slipped back into my old ways, I really can’t tell ya? Old habits are hard to break, Maybe?

As I have been working on changing my mindset, my old beliefs, and working to replace my old ways, I found myself in an internal struggle with myself.  It is easy to have happen.  Life is always a balancing act, if one goes gun hoe in one direction, they can count on failing.   Life is checks and balances.  The most important being that you balance your life every day.

Where I went wrong was that as I get to feeling better, I want to do the same things I did before I knew I was sick. That old thought of being the concurring hero, which usually throughs me to the ground.  I also get too big for my undies and think I know it all.  NOPE, life has a way of humbling the arrogant fool.  Lyme Disease has been a great teacher in how humble I can become.

Lyme Disease is a war every day in my body.  There is no battle plan, there is no way of knowing what I will face each day.   Having Lyme is like waking up to an ever-ending war.  These are some of the issues I face with Lyme Disease each day.  One day I can digest a particular food the next I can not.  Lyme Disease affects the digestive enzymes in my body.

One day I wake up feeling fantastic, but in a couple of hours, I will have severe pain all over my body, be extremely tired as well as depressed and angry for having to go through all this upheaval.

My hormones are up and down all the time, there is nothing I can do but be kind and gentle as my body fights to find balance.  Every Childhood illness I have ever had can come back because my immunity is in a constant struggle.  My emotions affect my state of health.   I sleep some night others; I am wide awake with anxiety and panic attacks. I am in a continuous battle with your mind, body, and spirit.

I can expect at least one or all of these symptoms every day: Headaches, cold sores, aches and pain in my joints and muscles, brain fog, digestive issues, food sensitivities, hair loss, and hormonal upsets.   It is like getting up and spinning a wheel of fortune.

Now that I gain some understanding of the ways Lyme works and how it affects the body, I can better understand why one minute I am happy and go lucky and others, I am angry and frustrated.  It is hard to be happy and feel so good one moment and then to suffer from a barge of awful symptoms, wondering what the hell I did to cause them.

I am finally leaning after many hours of research that it is not something I have done, it is the disease that has taken over my body. There is no reason to hate this disease. In fact, I am learning that it has been changing my lifestyle to better myself.

So out of desperation, and hours of research I have learned that the best way to combat this war going on inside of me,  is to send myself all the love and support I can all the time.  I changed my diet, my cleaning products, my personal care products, and set out to make my home a clean and protective environment.

I have to power to create the space I need to get well or at least to go into remission. Even though I was never taught how to treat myself with gentle, kind, respect, and love, I am learning how to do that now.  It is never too late to start over!

This is the worst thing one can do to themselves, weather fighting an illness or not, is to think that they can not change.  This life is not a race; there are no winners here, we all finish at the same winners’ circle.

When I get ahead of myself and start to try and live up to the expectations of what I was taught, I have to stop.  When my mind is working overtime, trying to tell me I am not enough or worthy of being taken care of, I have to STOP.  There are so many old programs and beliefs that we play over and over in our minds.  When I get caught up in one of those thoughts of what I should do,  the way I should be, I find that I fall back into a place of chaos, judgment, and despair.

When I do fall into these mind traps<, there is a way I find my way out.

I have been working on trusting my emotions. I stop so I can regroup and come at my situation from a loving place.  The most significant help is stating what I do want, not what I do not want.  Life is a battle, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Lyme has taught me how to be kind, loving, respectful, and honor my life journey.  As I am learning my pains, emotional upsets, setbacks are meant to help me to stop and look at what is going in myself.

I hope that each moment you are looking into that mirror, you are telling yourself how f***ing great you are.   You are perfect, and you are right where you need to be at this moment.  That doesn’t mean that there is not more to come. It is just that you are where you need to be at that time.  Become grateful for all you do and are.

Photo by Sara Shakeel: Follow her on Instagram, you all!

WWYHS