Reclaim meaning and purpose in life after illness or injury – Blog archive
Reclaim meaning and purpose in life after illness or injury
You have a greater awareness of the fragility and preciousness of life and want to live your life with meaning and purpose and enjoy it again. These blogs help you do that.
Why you need a fuck it list this year
I’m going to make the case for why you need a fuck it list this year and how to create one. You probably have a bucket list for all the fun things you want to do in life before you die. The bucket and fuck it lists go hand-in-hand. One is what you want to do. The...
How to have a life purpose when living with chronic illness
Is it possible to have a life purpose when living with chronic illness or a serious injury? Or being a carer? You may think it’s no longer possible. A pipe dream. And that can feel devastating. Lonely too. Especially when you look at people around you getting on with...
When you get left behind in life due to your illness
It’s not uncommon to feel you get left behind in life due to your illness or injury or caring responsibilities. It can happen in variety of ways. It may be that you’re still at an earlier level in your career as compared to peers. That can happen when you have to...
Why you don’t need to move on from your illness
When others tell you to ‘move on from your illness’ or ‘shouldn’t you let it go now’ whenever you speak about it, you can feel guilty. Like you’ve done something wrong. It can also feel like your experience of the illness or injury, treatment and everything it means...
How to improve your mental health with five a day
What do you to improve your mental health? Like we are encouraged to have five types of vegetables and fruit every day, what are your five go to activities to maintain or improve your mental health? Our mental health is being tested right now What with everything...
Three things that will make your new years resolutions successful
You can make your new years resolutions successful by doing three easy things. If you set resolutions now or at another time of the year, chances are you want to succeed at achieving them. Yet sometimes things get in the way which means you don’t, despite well-meaning...
How to deal with your life now versus how it should be
Figuring out how to deal with your life now versus how it should be can be hard. Frustrating. Sad. Something has happened to you and your life that wasn’t in the plan. And it means that the life you had planned for yourself – your life how it should be - may no longer...
My top 10 life lessons learned from illness
Last week I wrote about how to make sense of the life lessons learned from illness or injury. And I continue on that theme by writing about what those life lessons actually are. The life lessons will of course differ from person to person as we are all different, have...
How to make sense of the life lessons a health trauma gives you
A health trauma, whether your own or a loved one's, brings with it a whole lot of life lessons very quickly. They’re yours for the learning if you so choose. But I can understand why you may not want to. You’ve been given them in one fell swoop. That along with the...
Why is speaking your truth about your illness important?
I feel that speaking your truth about your illness or injury (or a loved one’s) is important. But I appreciate you may not want to talk about how you are affected. You may think this would be burdening others with your problems, or you would be seen as a moaner. But...
How to transform your deepest fear into positive action
What is your deepest fear about the changes you want to make this year? Even if you don't set new year's resolutions. You may set intentions to change, goals or objectives at another point in the year. Whenever you set an intention for something to be different, to...
How to identify what your illness taught you this year
You may not like reading ‘what your illness taught you’. As if you have something to learn. As if the illness is the teacher, the one in control, and you the pupil, the one who has to listen and do what the teacher says. Living with a challenging health issue can feel...
How to make the most of life after illness
Make the most of life after illness – This was one of the biggest things I learned from having a serious illness and being a carer. Life is fragile. And short. Much shorter than we expected or intended. For me, one way to make the most of life after illness has been...
Why I hope social prescribing by doctors won’t be around for long
Social prescribing is becoming a popular concept in healthcare and treatment. GPs in England can prescribe dance classes for people who are lonely. Doctors in Shetland, Scotland can now prescribe nature. The UK Prime Minister Theresa May has also launched the...
How to increase your self-worth after illness or injury
Trying to increase your self-worth after illness or injury can feel like a mammoth task. You’ve been thrown into this unknown land of serious illness or injury, you can’t do what you once did, and you don’t know what to do to feel better. Feeling like you have lost...
Why adjusting your personal high standards after illness or injury helps
Adjusting your personal high standards after illness or injury often helps people to live well with the impact but can be such a hard thing to do. So when clients say to me they have personal high standards for themselves, they are proud of them because they have...
Guidance for living well with a serious illness or injury
You may not be given guidance for living well with a serious illness or injury: what to do, what to avoid, etc. And in the early stages, a lot of your energies are focused on treatment, surviving the ordeal and recovery. But then a few months or even years after the...
How to restore purpose and meaning in your life when living with illness
Restoring purpose and meaning in your life when living with a limiting illness or injury can feel nigh on impossible at times. Particularly if the illness or injury means your symptoms fluctuate unpredictably, or you don’t get support you need, and/or you have to...
How to transform the struggle of a serious health issue into acceptance – Part 3
Accepting a serious health issue can be hard so for the past few weeks, I’ve been describing strategies you can implement to transform that struggle into acceptance. The strategies have focused on mindfulness, how to be the fly-on-the-wall of your life, dealing with...
How to find a hobby to improve your mental health
A month ago I wrote a blog on the 10 ways in which a hobby can improve your mental health when living with the impact of a serious illness or injury. But after writing the blog, I thought of something I did not address in it. It was a question put to me by someone...
How hobbies improve your mental health when living with a health issue
Have you ever thought about how hobbies improve your mental health? Living with the impact of a challenging health issue can be draining in many ways and adversely impact your mental health. The routine of illness/injury can quickly take over. It feels like the...
How the presence of death can help you live your life well
How can the presence of death help you live your life well? That question may feel odd to you, off-putting even. Death is something we proactively think about in our society. We tend to only when someone we know dies. Yet within the context of many challenging health...
How to turn big dreams into reality with a changed body
Making a decision to turn big dreams into reality when you're living with a challenging health issue can feel momentous. Maybe you committed to doing something that feels physically challenging to you. Or you just redid your CV and completed a job application in an...
Read more“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
by Martin Luther King, Jr.
You need to take the first step in faith to enable good things to happen
The when you take the first step in faith quote is really resonating for me right now. "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." by Martin Luther King, Jr. You know how you really want something to be...
