I work as a counselor with individuals who have had a brain injury and their family members. I was recently talking with a family member who is caring for his wife who has experienced a brain injury this year. He shared with me that since his wife’s injury, it seemed like he was always focusing on the negative and what was going wrong for his family this year. He told me that he realized that he needed to shift his mindset so he sat down and wrote a list of all the positives he has experienced this year.
This was one of those moments that really made me stop and think about my own life. If I’m being honest, there are times when I struggle with my mindset, especially when it comes to my health. It is easy for me to get trapped in the negative and only focus on what is going wrong. Yet here I was talking with someone who had seen his wife go through a difficult and life changing injury and he still was able to find the good in his life. So, I decided to take time to write down the good that has come from my health journey. If you want to learn more about the details of my health journey, check out my story here.
Before jumping into the positives that have come from this journey of mine, I think it is important to note that focusing on the good doesn’t negate the hard times. Those difficult times are valid and it’s important to feel those hard moments and all the emotions that come with them. I believe that this is how we process and work through them rather than holding onto them and creating more issues down the road.
This isn’t a “fake it until you make it” type of post that is suggesting that you should be positive all the time. This is simply a reflection of how, even in my hardest moments, there has been good. It’s a shift in mindset that has been so needed for me personally and I wanted to pass it along with the hopes of it helping anyone else that needs it too. Even if you haven’t experienced health issues, this year has been difficult for all of us and this gratitude exercise could be beneficial for anyone regardless of what you are going through.
Taking Better Care of Myself
Before my diagnosis with celiac disease, I was not taking great care of my physical health. I grew up playing sports and my health was always important to me. I tried my best to eat a balanced diet and work out regularly. However, throughout the stress and busyness of college I lost the habits I grew up on. I wasn’t exercising and my diet consisted of mostly processed food. For me personally, this way of living wasn’t working great for me. But my health just wasn’t a priority with everything else I was going through.
Once I started feeling sick, I realized how much I was taking my health for granted. I just assumed that I could put my physical health on the back burner without any major consequences. Once I was diagnosed with celiac disease, I was determined to focus more on my physical health. This meant taking better care of myself. This has looked different over the years and I truly believe that taking care of yourself will look different for every person. But I am so grateful that this journey has shown me the importance of focusing on my health and making it a priority.
Emotional Health Matters
I’m about to get real humble here. I am a counselor and have a master’s degree in mental health counseling. So, I am well aware that emotional and mental health matters. However, when it came to my own health journey, my focus was always on my symptoms and physical health. But the thing is, our mental health and physical health are directly connected.
The more I worked on healing my body, the more I started to recognize this connection. In fact, the more I learn the more I realize that it is so common for physical symptoms to be a result of emotional wounds from the past that we haven’t healed. I know this is not the case for everyone. But I have definitely noticed this mind-body connection in my own journey. So, I started to make changes in my daily life to improve my emotional health. For me, this took the form of meditation, therapy, yoga, letting myself feel and experience all my emotions and mindfulness. Making my emotional health a priority has shifted how I manage my health as well as my life outside of my symptoms.
The Importance of Slowing Down and Resting
I have always been the type of person that is go-go-go. As soon as I finish something, I am on to the next thing. Furthermore, I push myself as hard as I can at whatever I am doing. I am what I consider a “recovering perfectionist”. There have been many times in my health journey when my body literally told me that I pushed myself to the limit and needed to rest.
I fought back, of course, and tried to push through the obvious signs my body was giving me. The end result was my body just pushing back harder. It got to the point where I had no other choice than to listen and slow down. Guess what? It felt SO good when I finally listened and allowed myself to rest. I am now at the point where I crave slow moments. Additionally, I can notice it in my body when I need to take time to take care of myself. I am still a work in progress in this area, but I am thankful that I have learned the importance of creating space for rest in my life.
Learning to Listen to My Body
This is an area that I’ve always struggled with. It’s so easy for me to live in my head and not pay attention to my body at all. I’m an overthinker who is constantly thinking of and preparing for future scenarios that may or may not happen. But throughout my health journey, I have come to realize the importance of the mind-body connection. Our emotions directly impact our health and vice versa.
I have also learned that our bodies store the emotional wounds that we have not worked through. For me personally, I know that a lot of my symptoms are directly correlated with needing to do the emotional work. I have greatly benefited from working with a somatic experience practitioner. It has helped me release past trauma, stuck emotions and move forward. My symptoms have literally forced me to stop and listen to my body. I am thankful for this as I find that I am most content in life when my mind and body are working together.
Having a Voice in My Journey
I am the type of person who is 100% okay with being in the background and pretty much hates being the center of attention. However, once I was diagnosed with celiac disease, I was forced to use my voice more and advocate for my needs. This is definitely an area that I am always working on but looking back I can see how far I have come.
When I was first diagnosed, I felt like I was a burden to others. Asking about ingredients all the time or how food was prepared, requesting to go to restaurants that I knew were safe or having to speak up while eating out to make sure my meal would be safe. I literally would get a pit in my stomach when I had to do any of this. However, I didn’t have a choice. I knew the consequences of being glutened were far worse than speaking up.
So, over the years I became more comfortable with advocating for my needs. This has translated to realizing that I deserve to have a voice in general, not just when it comes to my physical health. It has helped me break out of my shell and gain confidence in myself. I am grateful that celiac disease has empowered me to become more comfortable with who I am.
Good and Hard Can Exist in the Same Space
Another lesson that I have learned throughout this journey is that I grew up with the belief that everything needs to be good all the time. Furthermore, I should avoid anything that is hard or bad as much as possible. In my mind, the two didn’t coexist. Life was either good or it was bad. When it was bad, I had to do everything in my power to make it good again. When it was good, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and for things to turn bad again.
My healing journey has taught me that the good and hard times can coexist in the same space. Do I have days, weeks, and months that are hard and that my symptoms feel like they will never end? Absolutely. But even on the hardest days, there is good. I have been working on training my mind to see the good in even the smallest moments. This shift has given me such a relief because it allows me to let go of this idea that my life always has to be perfect. As a result, I am living more in the present moment and I can find more moments of being content.
Gaining a Supportive Community
Before I created this blog and my Instagram @theglutenfreegrasses, I felt very alone in my gluten free journey. I am very lucky that my family and friends have been so supportive since my diagnosis with celiac disease. However, I still felt like nobody really understood because you truly don’t until you are living it. I didn’t have anyone in my life that could relate to what I was going through. Then I created this blog and my Instagram page and realized that there is a huge gluten free community filled with amazing, supportive and empowering people. Connecting to this community has been such a blessing and gives me hope during those hard moments.
Taking the time to create a list of positives that have come from my health journey really shifted my perspective. I have been struggling with some lingering symptoms the past few months. So, it was a surprise to me when I came up with as many items as I did. This year has been one for the books for all of us. It’s been filled with never ending surprises, twists and turns. Regardless of what you are going through, I encourage you to try this gratitude exercise to see if you can find good even in the hard moments. If you are going through a difficult time, I am sending you all the love, light and positive thoughts.
Helpful Links
Throughout this post, I’ve mentioned some things that have helped me throughout my health journey. I’ve provided some more detail about some of them below.
- Meditation: I love using the Insight Timer app on my phone.
- Yoga: there are so many great in person and online classes. I love Yoga Download because I can select any type of class and do yoga from home any time of the day.
- Mindfulness practices: there are so many different mindfulness exercises that can be practiced daily to bring you back to the here and now. Click here for a worksheet that has some of my favorite exercises.
- Somatic experiencing: here is more information in case you want to learn more!
-Kelsey