Respect
“Respect your body when it’s asking for a break. Respect your mind when its seeking rest. Honour yourself when you need a moment for yourself.”
Author unknown
A Muddy Care participant sent this quote to me. It will soon be my eight-year anniversary to when I collapsed and my life changed irreversibly in three hours. That evening is one of those memories that hides away in my memory box for most of the year but at this time of year always pops into my thoughts. I call it my ‘Oh bollocks night’ as that is what my paramedic said when he looked at my heart trail and it’s pretty much the polite version of what I was thinking that November evening.
My chronic illness journey started in the back of a blue flashing ambulance with a paramedic I can only describe as my angel in green. Since that evening I have had to learn a new meaning to the word respect. Respect of medical professionals, of medical science, of others with chronic conditions and of my body. Sometimes I weep when my body is battered and bruised to almost complete demise by my immune system fighting an infection but it fights back, very slowly sometimes but it continues to demonstrate to me the extreme resilience it has in fighting my illness. My body and I have had several close calls in that it has been taken to the brink of almost complete exhaustion and collapse more than once and thus when I speak of respect for my body, it is with the highest form of respect.
Respect of ourselves is key in sustaining our resilience. It’s about listening to ourselves, about being kind and fair to ourselves and enabling us to spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically recharge ourselves when we need to. Our bodies are to be admired and treated fairly by ourselves. They are to be listened to by ourselves. It is a skill that takes time but once you start, your relationship with your body does change. You begin to understand your body better and it enables us to detect when we are struggling earlier. This can help minimise the effect of a flare, episode or relapse. So try each day to spend a little bit of time listening to you. Make it a habit, a habit to sustain your future.
By Claire (AKA C1 and CEO of Muddy Care CIC)