quotes Archives – Page 2 of 2

In Chronic Illness

Keep Calm…and Stay Positive

August 25, 2013 No Comments

As most of you know, that due to the unknown cause of my neurological condition is starting to get me down. It is frustrating and disheartening when the doctors are unable to give you the answers that you so desperately crave. It is simple – being undiagnosed is dejecting and can causes psychological symptoms such as depression. All we crave is a diagnosis – a name for the cause of all that we go through on a daily basis. A name that confirms that we are not crazy or that the symptoms are all in our head.

Due to the weakness in my legs as well as the severe dizziness and fatigue that I experience due to my undiagnosed condition, I am often unable to get out of my bed and so confined to my bed for days at a time. Staring at the same four walls of my bedroom; a place where I spend a lot of my time anyway is not a positive experience. It is often a painful reminder of my predicament; a predicament that I am an undiagnosed chronically ill patient. Being confined to my bed, leads to feeling of loneliness and isolation – how many times when experiencing severe symptoms have thought you were the only person to be going through this experience? Is that a yes I hear? Me too.

However, Voltaire once stated “I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health”. A truly inspirational quote, and one that is supported by research – there is a lot of evidence that suggests that being positive makes you feel less stressed; has a positive influence on your immune system and has a huge influence on your overall well-being.

But how can we still remain positive when living with a chronic illness, which has such a negative influence on all areas of our lives?

Well, for me I have started to assemble a ‘positivity board’. A board with cards, postcards, or letters that are both positive and in turn makes me feel more positive and happy despite being bed-bound or dealing with unpleasant.

The board is no way finished but at the moment includes a couple of cards that I found in a local art gallery that includes positive quotes, for example “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take; but the number of moments that take our breath away” and my personal favourite “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass but learning to dance in the rain.” Also, on my board is a gorgeous card that was sent to me by a dear friend which has some really lovely words both outside and inside the card which I shall treasure and which brightened my day when I received it – a time when I really needed it.

I also found a couple of butterfly clips which I found in a local shop which I bought just to brighten the board and because of my love of butterflies.

Try making a board for yourself and fill it with all the things that make you happy or makes you feel a little more positive despite whatever circumstances that you often find it hard to cope with, or one which has a negative impact on your life.

Stay Calm…and make a positivity board!

If you come across any cards that has any positive quotes or perhaps with a lovely picture of a butterfly or sunflower or anything else positive, let me know in the comments section and help fill my positivity board!

Thanks everyone! xx

In Chronic Illness

WEGO Health Advocating for Another Carnival: Quote, end Quote

August 26, 2012 No Comments

Welcome to the sixth day of the WEGO Health Advocating for Another Carnival Blog! And thank you for all your support and kind messages thus far. Today’s prompt reads as follows:

Let someone else’s wise words inspire you. Find a quote that moves you in some way then free write about i. Don’t stop writing for 15-20 minutes. Now post!

The quote I have chosen for this prompt is:

I found this quote whilst browsing on Pinterest on a day where I was feeling particularly bad, lying in bed, bored and feeling utterly miserable due to the severity of my symptoms – than I found this and it just spoke to me almost immediately.

Anyone reading this who is also battling a chronic illness everyday knows how it can often get you really down mentally, as well as suffering physically. It can be so easily to just give up, and just stay in bed, rolling up in a ball and giving up on life. But although this seems like the best option, it isn’t going to solve anything. Even though it can be very tough sometimes, we have little choice but to battle on and live the best life that we possibly can and to find our own happiness. After all, studies within the field of positive psychology have shown that those patients who are happy and are positive in their outlook report less severity of symptoms and are often more physically well than those who are negative in their outlook.

And the quote also fits in nicely with the idea of a ‘gratitude diary’ that was suggested by a social worker who runs a local group which I attend weekly. The idea of a gratitude diary is to write between 3 and 5 things (or more if you wish) that you were grateful for and what makes you appreciate life – it could be anything from speaking to a friend on the phone, or going out for coffee with a friend to simply grateful for still being alive! It really is up to you! The idea of the gratitude diary is to strengthen emotional resilience and reduce stress, as well as teaching the mind to find the positives in a situation instead of dwelling on the negatives.

I have written a gratitude diary for a few weeks now, and it really does work! And it makes me more happy picking the positives of my day, and those activities that I have enjoyed and instead of dwelling on how bad I have felt because of my symptoms.

As I often experience tremors in my hands, I was recommended a great website in which after you sign-up you receive an email every night at the same time asking what you were grateful for. And then you simply reply to the email and all of your responses are then saved onto the website, and whenever you feel sad or ‘down in the dumps’ you can log-in and read all of your entries. And best of all it’s completely free and all of the responses can only be viewed by the account holder. To find out more go to:

www.happyrambles.com

Hoped you all enjoyed the post – and feel free to reply with any comments…

In Chronic Illness

HAWMC Day 2: Quotation Inspiration

April 2, 2012 No Comments

Well the 2nd of April is here, and so is the second post in the WEGO’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge. Today’s prompt is as follows:

Find a quote that inspires you (either positively or negatively) and free write about it for 15 minutes

So, thought this will be an easy challenge for me, as part of my daily journal that I keep I regularly write different quotes that I have found, positive ones that inspire me or lifts my mood, or perhaps something that ties in with a particular event that has happened that day.

However, it has been tough selecting just the one quote to use, but have decided on the following that I found recently on Pinterest that really inspired me, and it says the following:

This really spoke to me on a personal level as all my life, some people have made me ashamed of who I was – at school I wasn’t like everybody else – I was very quiet, reserved, and certainly was not part of the ‘popular’ gang. I was more of a loner, a ghost, somebody no one really noticed…

And there was my ‘issues’ with the dizziness – due to the condition, I had a problem with buildings which are open and have high ceilings, consequently, I used to panic quite a lot as I didn’t understand what was going on, and was unable to take part in sports as the hall in which our P.E. Lessons took place was very high.

This led to a lot of name calling, and left me ostracised from my peers, during a school trip to London where I became very unwell with the dizziness and led to a panic attacks, my ‘so called’ friends deserted me to go shopping, leaving me with a teacher whom I barely knew to look after me. As in the quote, people throughout my life and have left me feeling ‘weird’.

However, years have passed and I can now understand that who I am is not my fault – I have a legitimate medical condition which explains partly the type of person I am. And no-one has a right to make anyone feel ashamed of who they are – so what, if someone is a shy or quiet person, who would prefer to sit down with a book rather than going partying and getting drunk…

We are all different and unique – if everyone in this world was exactly the same, with the same interests and personality, then the world would be pretty boring, wouldn’t it? Nobody should have to hide the person that they are, and we should all free proud of who we are and celebrate our differences and what makes us unique – after all they are the reason that they people in our lives love us…because we are us.

And as the quote says, if we hide our true selves, we never know the people who will love us for who exactly we are.

I do believe this, although there have been times in my life, even recently when it is hard to accept or belive what the quote is trying to say, maybe I will write the quote and put it up somewhere I can read it every day…