I had planned for our trip to Idaho to be relaxing, refreshing & stress free. I planned to do daily therapies (rife, ionic foot baths, stretching, etc).

I am usually able to separate from the stressors of daily life when we are on a road trip like this and decided this would be a good time for me to reset my focus on healing.

So far it hasn’t worked out that way.

This trip has been more difficult. The stressors I thought I left behind followed me. Bills & paperwork & decision making – things I thought had been dealt with – all of a sudden snuck up on me. Finding rv sites has been harder than normal and the trek in generally just feels more challenging.

One of my pet peeves about this stupid illness is that my “up times” are too often filled with taking care of daily life issues and random problems that pop up. So my life is often filled with either that or laying in bed feeling crummy.

I hate that my family is stuck with me being either too sick to enjoy time with them or too busy trying to finish undone tasks.

My next post will show you how I get around that sometimes. But this post is all about juggling life as a lymie.

Life goes on no matter how I’m feeling. Life goes on regardless of whether I can function or not.

I can become pretty resentful & bitter when I feel like I’m missing out – when I feel like life is passing me by and leaving me behind.

It’s funny how it’s so easy to see all the things I can’t do – and it’s so hard to focus on goodness and joy when life isn’t what I want it to be.

It can be hard to maintain positivity. I see it all the time in myself and others – disappointment, discouragement, despair, desperation – hopelessness. 

Even with the improvements I’ve made, the fear of how bad it gets is always looming, right alongside the fear that I may never get better. 

I truly believe to fully feel the depth of either positive or negative emotions, you also have to feel the depth of the opposite emotion.

To understand joy, you must feel sorrow – to grasp hope, you must feel despair – to cherish love, you must feel apathy. 

And vice versa.

But for me, the negative emotions can be triggered like a light switch – and it feels like I have to climb a mountain to reach the positive emotions.

Why is that? Maybe it’s just an adhd thing, but I don’t think so. I think the road to joy is supposed to be hard. We have to work for it. We have to choose it.

Many corporations use a management program called Senn-Delaney that teachers leaders how to project positivity and productivity into their teams.

One of the tools they use is called “The Mood Elevator”.

It is such a powerful tool that Larry Senn dedicated an entire book to the subject.

The idea is that the higher your mood, the better you can see what’s going on so you can make wiser decisions.

Alternatively, as your mood moves further down the elevator, the less you’re able to see and think clearly, and the harder it becomes to make smart decisions.

When you are nearing the bottom emotions (stressed, angry, depressed), your body and brain are functioning in fight or flight mode which is designed to help you make quick decisions to survive. But those decisions are not ones you might make when you are using the critical thinking neural pathways. Those pathways are designed to shut down when you are in survival mode.

I’m not always quick to recognize that my mood elevator has dropped. Impatient, worried, defensive don’t always stand out.

And when I’m in the bottom half it can feel impossible to be curious or have a sense of humor about anything.

Common sense might tell you that you need to climb the elevator one level at a time – become curious, flexible, etc.

But I propose that the fastest, easiest, most direct path to any point on the upper floors of the elevator is GRATITUDE.

Gratitude – true, heartfelt gratitude – shifts everything. It makes the bad tolerable and the good so much sweeter.

With gratitude, optimism is sustainable.

MICHAEL J FOX

When I focus on the things I’m grateful for instead of the things I am frustrated or resentful about, there’s an overwhelming peace that washes over me.

Don’t get me wrong – gratitude can feel elusive at times. It’s like you know it’s there, hiding in the dark, you just can’t always grab hold of it right away.

Sometimes I make a list of the things I’m thankful for. Sometimes there’s one thing that will be frustrating me and I will try to find the good in that thing.

The beautiful thing about gratitude is that it is always available. No matter what you’re going through, no matter how you feel, if you look for it, and keep searching, eventually you will find it.

And along the way, you will pick up creativity, sense of humor, hope and wisdom.

And with that – I’m gonna leave you with a remix by Music Travel Love that has become one of my comforts.

I’m grateful for the people who make good music. And I’m grateful for you, whoever you are reading this.