Last month we talked about taking a moment for yourself. Doing something you love just for you. This is incredibly hard to start so we talked about starting small. Taking a minute to yourself to breathe, looking out the window, a moment to just be you before you go to bed. No matter if you thought about it, tried it, struggled, or succeeded, the thought is now in your mind and that is a great place to start. We started these exercises in probably the hardest season of the year, the holidays. There are so many expectations during this season and often it can be chaotic. So congratulate yourself for starting something new at this time!

As the New Year is almost upon us, many people will start to have their ‘year in review posts’. This I have found can be quite damaging: it shows people travelling, getting promotions, getting married, raising children, travelling some more, etc.  To a person with chronic illness/disability most of these can feel like unattainable mountains that they cannot climb. And the inner harsh critic comes out to tell you that you are weak, lazy, a drain on societies resources, etc. This is not true! This is such a great example at not judging ourselves based on other people’s triumphs and experiences. There are some key things to remember: basically no one posts about the trials they experienced or even bad pictures of themselves on social media, but believe me they have hard times too they just don’t show it; comparing yourself to an able-bodied person is like comparing between apples and oranges, they cannot be compared; and remember even if someone else has a chronic illness/disability, even the same one, their experiences will be different than yours, so please don’t judge yourself. So when those posts come up and you start to feel bad about yourself, remember these things:

• You are enough
• You are strong
• You are loved
• No one knows your experiences and body better than you
• Surviving and persevering every day is courageous
• You are supported and not alone

Be kind to yourself during the end of this year and the start of the next. Continue to work on taking small moments for yourself, you are worth it. If you know someone with chronic illness/disability please check in with them.

To a New Year that we hope has less pain.