Do You Have Something to Get Better For?

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Thomas Robinson

Have you ever thought about what you would do if got well? I haven’t done a scientific survey, but my sense from all those with chronic illness I’ve talked with is that most people haven’t.

Of course you want to get as well as you can. But what if the likelihood that you will get better depends on knowing what you will do if you do get better?

For a long time, I’ve had a strong sense that things do work that way: knowing what we do if we get better increases the probability that we will. But a new client I’ll call Karen, who suffers from chronic fatigue, described that sense better than I have. She said, “I have known that I won’t get better until I have something to get better for.”

Because of the situation another client—I’ll call her Terry–was in, I shared what Karen said with her. She was almost crying as she responded, saying that while she hadn’t realized it before, what Karen said was also true for her.

Is what is true for Karen and for Terry also true for you? I’m sure that for many of you, the answer is yes. And if your answer is yes, congratulations! By saying so, you’ve taken a big step toward getting better and having a better life.

The next step for Karen, for Terry, and for you if your answer was yes, is to find a “something to get better for.” Unfortunately, our upbringing, our roles (especially women’s roles care taking, nurturing, and people others first), and our illnesses can make it hard for us to do that. But when put our intention on finding a solution and we don’t censor ourselves, we humans are very creative – that’s how we’re made.

One pitfall some people fall into when trying to come up with a solution to a problem like this is thinking they have to get it right the first time. You don’t! If you try something and you find it’s not very enjoyable or fulfilling, then congratulate yourself. You’ve learned something about yourself, and you can use that new knowledge to find your “something to get better for.”

Best wishes in your quest!

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You Truly Need Gentleness and Compassion–from Yourself

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Thomas Robinson

If you have read more than a few of my posts, you know that I frequently recommend that you be gentle and compassionate with yourself when you are experiencing painful symptoms or having a hard time because of your illness. I do that because I have seen, again and again, how people’s lives change significantly– and often dramatically– for the better when they do.

I have also seen, again and again, that many people have a hard time being gentle and compassionate with themselves. But that isn’t all that surprising, because few if any of us were taught to do that by our parents, teachers, or mentors. I sure wasn’t.

However, it is definitely possible to learn how to be that way with ourselves. I have, and so have the many people I’ve taught.

Some of those I taught learned how to be gentle and compassionate with themselves when I asked them how they would feel and what they would do for someone they cared about who had the same illness and the same symptoms and pain they did – and then asked them to have the same feelings for themselves. Others understood the concept when I asked them what they would do if they found a helpless injured bird. For those clients who were especially hard on and critical of themselves for not being able to do all the things they could before they became ill, I asked them if they would criticize the bird for not being able to fly. Their answer, of course, was always no, and they usually realized that their criticism of themselves was not justified or called for. Still others learned to be gentle and compassionate with themselves when I had them imagine how they would feel if their beloved dog or cat got injured, and then had them imagine how the animal would feel when it got the compassion and reassurance they would automatically and spontaneously give it.

Clients who were directly involved in helping people in difficult situations make their lives better often had very dramatic “aha’s” when they suddenly realized that they could give themselves the same gentle, compassionate caring they were giving others.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I have seen many, many people with chronic illnesses experience significant and often dramatic improvements in the quality of their lives when they give themselves gentleness and understanding. Here’s what a client with recently wrote about giving herself compassion and how it helped her: (Note: the hard work she refers to is giving herself compassion. It can be hard to do at first, but the results make the effort very worthwhile.)

“My coaching sessions with Tom over the last several weeks have brought me a level of peace, understanding and acceptance about living with a chronic illness that I never envisioned was possible. His masterful approach to helping you to extend the compassion to yourself that you would extend to a treasured friend experiencing similar challenges is brilliant and effective. You do the hard work, gently and compassionately guided by Tom, and before you know it you have opened yourself up to see beyond your condition to all that you still have to offer. For the first time in a very long time, I look forward to each day with joyful expectations.”

Roberta
Somerset, NJ

Because of the difference it will make in your life, I encourage you to give yourself all the compassion you possibly can. And if you are one of those who have a hard time doing that, I hope you will take a good look both inside yourself and in the mirror, and realize that you truly deserve lots and lots of compassion.

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Doing Different Things to Try to Get Well

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Thomas Robinson

When we have a chronic illness, we often try every thing we can think of to get better. Unfortunately, some of the things we try provide little or no improvement. For example, I went on a very strict and difficult to follow diet for almost a year. Some of my Crohn’s disease symptoms quickly and miraculously went away, only to come back a few weeks later even though I continued to adhere to the diet.

Other things we try can and sometimes do provide really good results. A client with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) whom I’ll call Dave went on a special diet for two years. On top of that, he did yoga for one and a half to two hours a day.

His efforts paid off: on a scale of 1 to 10, his health went from a 5 to an 8 and his energy went from a 5 to a 9! He felt great about what he had accomplished, and justifiably so.

However, doing yoga every day took up an awful lot of his free time. And preparing the food for his diet also took a lot of time and took a lot of work as well. So much that he became resentful and angry because of all the time he needed to spend to stay healthy and stopped doing yoga and following the special diet. Predictably, his health and energy levels went back to 5’s.

It’s easy to see why Dave would feel resentful about his situation. But at the same time, he actually had a choice about whether or not to do those things and how much time to spend doing them. To help him see that choice, I asked if it would make sense for him to establish a three weeks on, one week off schedule. We both knew that his symptoms would probably get worse during his week off, but then they would get better again when he resumed his yoga and diet regimen.

From my question, Dave realized that his regimen didn’t need to be all or nothing, and that it was completely up to him to decide how much time and effort to devote to it. That realization dramatically reduced the stress he was experiencing and the resentment and anger he was feeling.

As I write this, he is still deciding what to do. When he makes his decision, I know it will be the right one for him.

One final comment: Dave is taking responsibility for his health, which is what I strongly encourage everyone to do. But I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting or recommending that change the amount of medications you’re taking or do anything that is against your doctor’s orders. You should discuss all changes like that with your doctor first.

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What’s so great about situation-specific self-compassion?

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Thomas Robinson

What’s so great about situation-specific self-compassion is that it is an extremely powerful tool for healing. In this post, I’m going to tell you what it is and how it differs from “normal” self-compassion.

Over the past few months, I recommended to several clients and others who have been going through very difficult challenges that they give themselves self-compassion, and they responded that they were doing that. But they weren’t- at least not in the way I meant.

From the descriptions they gave me and from their answers to my subsequent questions, I realized that the self-compassion they were giving themselves was broad and general, and was like the compassion a person would feel for an acquaintance or a distant relative who was going through a hard time. Maybe it was somewhat stronger than that. But it wasn’t self-compassion that was specifically about and for the challenge they were going through at the time. And because it wasn’t, it wasn’t very healing for them.

So I told them about situation specific self-compassion. And I told them that a good way to give it to themselves would be to imagine that someone they loved and cared about a lot was experiencing the same difficult challenges they were, and think about how they would feel knowing that.

They all said that they would feel lots of compassion for the person, and empathy too, and that they would want to comfort them. Some said that they would also feel sad or hurt because of what the person they loved and cared about was going through. That often happens, and it’s the main reason that it’s often hard for us to give ourselves situation-specific self-compassion.

Once they were in touch with the compassion and other feelings they would have for someone they loved and cared about who was going through the same challenge they were, I asked them to have the same feelings for and give the same compassion to themselves. Doing that didn’t make their difficult challenges go away, but it went a long way toward healing the emotional pain they were feeling.

I know it can do the same for you.

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Life is a Team Sport. How’s Your Team Doing?

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Thomas Robinson

I think life is a team sport. But not in the way you may think I mean: I’m not talking about being a team player at work. Nor am I talking about looking at your family as a team, or anything like that.

The team I’m talking about is all your different personalities.

All of us have several personalities. I have one who is fearful, one who is determined, one who is compassionate, one who is a procrastinator, and several more besides. Whatever yours are, you have several of them too. And if you’re like me – and I bet you are, you feel really good about some of those personalities, while there are others you would like to get rid of.

But we can’t get rid of them. Like them or not, the personalities we don’t like are just as much a part of us as are the ones that we do like.

As you now know, when I said at the beginning of this post that life is a team sport, the team I was referring to was the team of personalities each of us has. And in the same ways that a football team (or any other sports team) won’t do well if the team members are fighting or arguing among themselves, we won’t do well in life if our team members are fighting or arguing among themselves. So the only way your team is going to win lots of games is if they learn to play well together.

Carrying the analogy a little further, the way for them to learn to play well together is to make sure they have a good coach: you! And as their coach, you want to make sure they each know that winning games – and the game of life – is what really matters. And you want to make sure they know that getting upset or angry at each other has a negative impact on the team. You also want to find out what each team member’s strengths are, and assign positions based on those strengths. And when I say that, I’m including those team members who have an illness and symptoms. From what they’ve gone through, they have wisdom and knowledge the other team members don’t have.

This post is actually very personal. I have some personalities I think are wonderful and that I’m very grateful to have. But I also have a couple of personalities, one in particular, that I’ve struggled with for years and that have sabotaged me more times than I can count. When I finally realized that they were with me to stay and that I couldn’t get rid of them, and that we (all my personalities) are all in this together, my life got a whole lot better. And I started winning a lot more games.

I bet that you and your team can win a lot more games too!

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Tom Robinson, who has Crohn’s disease himself, helps people with chronic illnesses feel a whole lot better, and then he helps them find inspiring dreams – and achieve them!

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Are you doing the best you can with what you’ve got?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Thomas Robinson

Having a chronic illness sucks. I wish you didn’t have one (or more than one, if that’s the case) and I wish I didn’t have one. If I could wave a wand and cure people’s chronic illnesses, I would do it – now.

However, that said, I have learned, both from coaching people with dozens of different illnesses for the last nine years and from having one myself, what affects how well we feel that I want to share with you. What I’ve learned is that how well we feel when we have a chronic illness doesn’t just depend on how bad our symptoms are on a particular day. There is another factor that has a big effect on how well we feel  – sometimes more of an effect than anything else. That factor is our sense of how well we are doing meeting our life and illness challenges.

I want to be really clear here: I’m not saying that we need to do an excellent job meeting our life and illness challenges to feel good about ourselves and life. We don’t. Common sense tells us that how well we do meeting those challenges will depend on how much fatigue we have, how much pain we’re in, and many other things.

But the closer you come to doing the best you can meeting your challenges, and the closer I come to doing the best I can meeting mine, the better we’ll feel.

I first learned about this concept in a two-year masters in management program I went through in the mid 90’s when I was working for a high technology company in Silicon Valley. One of the program’s best instructors told us that one of the two things employees need to know to feel good about working for a company is that it—and everyone in it—is doing the best they can with what they’ve got*. From coaching people with chronic illnesses and from living with one myself, I’ve learned that the same concept that applies to employees in a company also applies to us.

Are you doing the best you can with what you’ve got? If not, what can you do so you are?

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Tom Robinson, who has Crohn’s disease himself, helps people with chronic illnesses feel a whole lot better, and then he helps them find inspiring dreams – and achieve them!

*For those who are interested, the other thing Dr. Schmidt told us that employees need to feel good about working for a company is that “We’re all in this together.” In other words, both sacrifices and rewards are shared by everyone.

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Do you need to take a time-out?

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Thomas Robinson

More than many others, those of us with chronic illnesses often get frustrated, discouraged, or upset because of how our illnesses affect our families and our relationships with others, because of all the things we want to do but no longer can, because we often face an uncertain future, and because of numerous other reasons as well.

One thing you can do that has worked well for many people with chronic illnesses—including me—is to give yourself a time-out.

Now as I’m sure you know, time-outs are often used by parents and teachers to discipline children that are misbehaving, and to give them some time to think about their behavior. So I want to make it very clear that I’m not suggesting that you discipline yourself.

Rather, what I am suggesting is that if you get upset, discouraged, or frustrated for any illness-related reasons, that instead of staying that way that you caringly, lovingly, and compassionately give yourself a time-out.

During your time-out, you can listen to music you enjoy, read a book, take in the beauty of flowers or a sunset, or just relax.

At the end of your time-out (and you get to decide how long to make it), the situation that prompted your feelings may still exist, but chances are that your negative feelings about it will be much less than they were.

Best wishes using this and the suggestions in my other posts to have a Happy New Year and your best life possible!

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Tom Robinson, who has Crohn’s disease himself, helps people with chronic illnesses mend their broken spirits and then he helps them find inspiring dreams – and achieve them!

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Coaching People Who Have the Deck Stacked Against Them

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Thomas Robinson

Coaching those with chronic illnesses has been very rewarding. I’ve gotten to work with people who haven’t been able to find the help they need, and the suggestions and ideas I give them continue to make a positive difference in their lives long after their last coaching session with me.

But while it’s very rewarding, the coaching I do is often difficult. The hardest thing about it is facing the reality that health-wise, some of my clients don’t get better, and some of them continue to get worse as time goes on.

So far, a client I’ll call Jason seems to be in that latter group. He has amyloidosis, which is the formation and buildup of an abnormal protein. While the sites of the buildup vary depending on the individual and the type of amyloidosis he or she has, the buildup causes cell toxicity and organ damage that can result in its failure.

The type of amyloidosis Jason has is called familial. He inherited it from his mother, who died from it when she was 47. Jason is 34, and he is understandably afraid that he will die at a relatively young age. And at times he is consumed by feelings of helplessness, especially when starts or attempts to work on a long-term project. He often thinks, “What’s the use?” and abandons the project.

I gave Jason some suggestions to help him manage his feelings of hopelessness and fear. Then, because my blog readers (that’s you!) also have many of years of experience living with a chronic illness, I told Jason I would write a blog post about him. I said I would ask you for your suggestions about what he can do to stay with his projects and have a satisfying and fulfilling life, in spite of having a life threatening illness.

Thank you for your suggestions and comments!

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Tom Robinson, who has Crohn’s disease himself, helps people with chronic illnesses mend their broken spirits and then he helps them find inspiring dreams – and achieve them!

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What Is Your Self-Care Account Balance?

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Thomas Robinson

I’m sure you know that when you have a checking or savings account, you need to put money into it before you can take any out. And if the total amount of the checks you’ve written and the withdrawals you’ve made is equal to the amount of money that was in the account, then you can’t spend any more money from it until you’ve made another deposit to it. And, of course, there are unpleasant consequences for spending more money than is in the account.

Besides knowing about checking and savings accounts, you very likely know that when you have a chronic illness, doing things for others – such as your partner or spouse, your children, and other important people in your life, is like writing a check on what I’ll call your energy and emotional wellness account. And just like with the other accounts, when the total of the “checks you write” exceeds the deposits you’ve made, your account becomes overdrawn and you suffer the consequences.

As I said, you are probably already aware of the idea that you can become “overdrawn” when you do things for others without “making deposits” by taking care of yourself. But knowing about it is one thing, and acting on it is another.

So as a life coach for people with chronic illnesses, I’m going to encourage you to take action:  Create your own currency and give it a name. (As an aside: several years ago in my family we created an internal monetary system and called the basic unit a “doogle.”) Then assign values to the things you do for others and the things you do for yourself. For example, on the minus side, taking your child to soccer practice could be a five unit task and fixing dinner for your spouse could be ten units, while on the plus side, spending time relaxing could be worth seven units and getting a massage could be worth fifteen units. You don’t need to assign values to everything you do, but it’s important to assign them to your most frequent and most draining tasks.

The next step is to keep track of your balance and take care of yourself so it stays positive. When you do, not only will you start feeling better, but when you tell your children that you can’t take then to their friends’ parties and other places they want to go because your account balance is too low, they will probably start becoming much more aware and supportive of your self-care endeavors.

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Tom Robinson, who has Crohn’s disease himself, helps people struggling with chronic illnesses feel a lot better and enjoy life a lot more.

Get his free report:

Has Your Chronic Illness Got You Down? Learn What to Do to Feel a Lot Better and Enjoy Life a Lot More

P.S. It’s Not What You Think

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Do You Have a Hard Time Forgiving People? Here’s Why, and What You Can Do Instead

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Thomas Robinson

You have undoubtedly heard or read how good forgiving those that have hurt us is for our emotional and physical well-being. And it’s true: many studies have shown that forgiveness has a very positive effect on our health. However, forgiving others is sometimes very difficult, but the people who preach about and advocate forgiveness often don’t acknowledge that.

If you’re one of the many people who have had a hard time forgiving everyone who has hurt you, I have some good news: You can get the same benefits forgiveness provides without having to forgive all those people.

To explain why forgiving can be so hard and how to heal emotional wounds when it is, I’m going to use the analogy of an automobile accident. Imagine that a driver is proceeding through an intersection. Then another drive runs the red light and crashes into her car, and the first driver suffers some deep cuts, a broken arm, and some internal injuries. In that scenario, it would be absurd for the emergency medical technicians, the emergency room doctors and nurses, or anyone else to tell her to forgive the other driver. And, of course, none of them would do that. They would all do everything they could to take care of her and give her the treatment  she needed so that she could recover as rapidly as possible.

And hopefully the injured driver would be doing all she could to work with her medical team so that she healed quickly. Obviously it would be silly of her to give anything less than a 100% effort to her healing process because of any anger she felt toward the other driver.

Once our injured driver had completely healed, her car was satisfactorily repaired, and her life was back to the way it was before the accident, chances are that she wouldn’t dwell on angry thoughts about the other driver. She would probably see that it would be in her best interest to do whatever she could to minimize the chance of her ever being in a similar accident, and then focus on living and enjoying her life.

Getting back to the title of this post, if you are angry at someone, then you have been in the equivalent of a car accident with them. And what’s called for is to get the treatment you need to heal your wounds from that accident.

Many treatments to do that are available. I’ve written about some of them in previous posts and you can learn about many others by doing a search on “healing emotional wounds” in Google.

My best wishes as you heal your wounds. And once they’re healed, chances are very good that your anger at “the other driver” will be gone.

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Tom Robinson, who has Crohn’s disease himself, helps people struggling with chronic illnesses feel a lot better and enjoy life a lot more.

Get his free E-Course: How to Raise Your Energy – and Your Spirit – in Just 21 Days.

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