Living Each Day

Some days are good, some days are bad. That sentence is such a cliché for anyone with a long term illness. And believe me it works time, after time, after time to describe my life. I allow myself to leave the house on good days and stay hidden on bad days. Very occasionally a friend will bundle me into the car and let me stay hidden on their sofa instead of mine, which encourages a more eclectic mix of wallpaper viewing, but it's still a bad day.
Viewing each day like this with insight can be a good thing, but more often than not is does me no good what-so-ever. I can look back and wonder 'why?' for ever and a day, but the focus must continue to return to what is best for me now, at this moment. Yes, understanding of how I found this situation can release a lot of tension, give me aids as to how I can help myself better, but if I've slipped up it was probably because I was thinking, 'why?' and not concentrating on the moment.
I'm sitting at my dining room table at the moment. I've just flicked through my Facebook App, answered one email (deleted lots more!), and I'm about to enter my day. I've dressed, eaten a cooked breakfast, moved the wet clothes from the washing machine to the tumble dryer and as I sit I wonder.
1.Why do I feel as if I'm running on empty?
2.Did the meditation I did in bed this morning help me control that at all?
3.Should I really be sitting here typing at all?
4.If I do this that or the other today, will I feel better or worse?
Distraction is essential in controlling these questions, I find distraction in many things, but mindful distraction helps me find the better space over and over again. Distracting from these questions comes with practice. I started last year by writing a lot of it down. (You're party to some of that!) I also have practiced ways of processing my queries faster, the 'Why?' quickly becomes a 'do I actually need a solution?' and then if it doesn't a leave the thought unprocessed, it's an unnecessary process that will waste my energy. If the question needs an answer to allay my fears, then I will work through it at a much faster pace. 'How can I look at this question with love and understanding?' is a much better way to look at it than 'why are you always thinking these stupid things, you're never going to get better' - I find it easier to follow through if I look at it as if it was someone else's question. I sometimes need to discuss this with someone else, but I rarely have a question running through my head day after day after day anymore. It releases a lot of tension, it gives me back my freedom and I'm loving myself, creating self confidence and preventing the energy wastage that has no place in my world being wasted!

So today's questions (or this morning's questions!) are easy to answer:
1.It doesn't really matter, I feel that a lot of the time and I know my breathing helps control it if it's willing to be controlled. So let it pass.
2.Possibly, let it pass.
3.I remove 'shoulds' from my list straight away, shoulds are not going to help anyone.
4.Who knows? I live each day as it comes.

Use The Force Hannah

My legs are making decisions for me more and more, my heart, my head is more awake and ready to do things and my legs won't agree. I've walked on Monday, two five minute walks, to a friend and back. Yesterday I stood in front of the hob and cooked my breakfast and lunch. I'm still timing myself sometimes, out of interest rather than necessity I think...breakfast took 8 minutes and lunch 9. I cooked two portions of lunch, and had the second one heated up for breakfast this morning. (pieces of salmon with red onions and broccoli stems, cooked in a frying pan with a lid on to steam which meant I could sit down!)
Having done a bit of on-the-mat yoga yesterday morning, my legs could deal with sitting in the garden while I dug up a few snowdrops and moved them; the clumps are becoming extraordinarily tight and need to be separated. Today they are crying out for a break, my whole body is in fact and it is one of those days when I have to give in and let it be. My afternoon will consist of what I call 'healing' time. I could call it 'crash out on the sofa/bed and fail to do anything time' but that's not particularly helpful when it is a necessity and even typing this feels exhausting.
My legs get to decide when they walk and I learnt that the hard way a few weeks ago, when I was finding the car with my husband, having been to a coffee shop. I was struggling and hanging on to his arm, for what felt like dear life, all he could say to me was "Use the Force Luke" ! It made me laugh, helped me forget my legs and laugh at them when I remembered. It didn't help them work any better but I made it, all be it was half dragged, back to the car and it helped me remember that I need to ask my body what it CAN do, before I choose what I WANT to do. At some point my Wants will become more dominant, but until then, I'm asking my body and this afternoon it can't go for a short walk, even sit in the garden, it needs to rest and more importantly heal.