Lupieliving

I’m so over my illnesses.  Unfortunately, they seem to love me and are holding on tight, causing me to stumble through my days, letting me just survive.  It frustrates me so much!  And frustration is evil, often inviting other friends along for the ride.  Hello anger, anxiety and depression!

I usually find that “frustration” is the ringleader of these unpleasant emotions.  So I am trying to deal with not being frustrated, to nip this negative feeling in the bud before things get out of hand.  It’s not easy.  In any given day, my illnesses stop me from doing a lot of things.  This happens when I don’t even have many things on my plate.  For example, I love restorative yoga and meditation.  If I was a healthy person, I would find the time and energy to go almost everyday.  In fact, when I was working, I sought out yoga before or after work, sometimes during the lunch hour!  But now, I am frustrated by how limited I am.  I look forward to my ONE restorative yoga class a week.  It’s Wednesday’s at 12pm, the most optimal time I can find.  Even still, I can’t make it every week.  Today was tough, but I was all ready to push through.  However, even after I changed into my yoga gear and packed my water, I was too sick to actually make it.  I slunked back into bed, texted a lupie friend that I won’t be able to make it and immediately started to feel sorry for myself.

I was frustrated (“I’m missing yoga!”), which made me angry (“why do I have to miss yoga, I was looking forward to this all week”), which made me sad (“why am I always so sick”), which made me anxious (“what if I am too sick to make my doctors appointment later today too”), and so on.  I didn’t want to stay in this negative place.  And the only way out for me was to shift my thinking.

Here is how I do it.  First, I really think about what is making me upset, here, missing my weekly yoga class.  Second, I try not to let this frustration spill over to other areas of my life.  For example, not making yoga does not mean I will fail to do everything today or this week.  Third, I try to meditate and be mindful of how I can compensate for my frustration.  Can I do stretches at home? Lastly, I try to make a hopeful plan.  Can I bring myself to look forward to yoga next week? 

Stopping my frustration from growing helps me to spend precious time and energy to take care of my mind and body, so that even though one opportunity was missed, I can focus on the next thing coming.