by Kate | Oct 20, 2021 | Advocacy, Chronic healing, chronic illness, Well-being
A friend was behind in her book club reading. “I have to read four chapters,” she sighed. Editing herself, she amended “I choose to read four chapters.” I suggested “you get to read four chapters.” She was re-ordering her thinking as we listened. Living with chronic...
by Kate | Jun 15, 2021 | Chronic healing, chronic illness, Strength, Surrender
We human beings like to pretend we are in control. We imagine we live in a fair and predictable universe. Part of what makes illness difficult is that we realize the opposite is true. No matter how carefully we assemble the building blocks of health, disease happens,...
by Kate | Aug 5, 2020 | Chronic healing, chronic illness, Creativity, Disability, kind promises
This month’s kind promise is “I will reinvent whimsically.” This promise makes me smile and brings me a lift of energy. Just what I need in these pandemic-influenced times. Disability is the mother of invention. Illness means my body works differently than most bodies...
by Kate | Jul 22, 2020 | Chronic healing, chronic illness, Well-being
In these in-between times of pandemic, we each need a reason to get up and moving and sustain ourselves across quiet days of isolation. Purpose can be an animating factor. Purpose, suggests Kira M. Newman isn’t something we find. It’s something we “can cultivate...
by Kate | Aug 22, 2019 | chronic illness, Creativity, kind promises
You have, inside your skull, an engine of almost infinite possibility. It’s your imagination. With them, we can travel to faraway lands, relive memories, conjure fantasies and even affect our physiologies. After 131 college students were taken through an exercise...
by Kate | Jul 19, 2019 | Chronic healing, chronic illness, kind promises, Well-being
Are you sick and tired of feeling sick and tired? If you, like me, live with chronic illness and disability, the answer is probably “yes!” (If you, like me, live in Minnesota, your answer might be “you betcha!”) Sometimes the “chronic” part of the journey drags us...