Keeping Going

It’s been seven months since I last wrote a blog post.

I’m not entirely sure where that time has gone. Partly, I’ve struggled to think of what to write about. But if I’m honest, life has also been a bit too full.

The past few months have felt sticky. It’s been one of those periods where it seems as though one thing goes wrong, then another, and then another. There’s been a run of unexpected problems, very expensive repairs, ongoing stress, and a seemingly endless list of things demanding attention. Little by little, my anxiety crept higher and higher until it felt as though I was carrying it around with me all the time.

At one point I realised I needed a bit more support and was fortunate enough to be able to access private counselling. Having a dedicated space to talk things through was incredibly helpful. Sometimes simply saying things out loud to someone outside of the situation can make a big difference.

During one session, I mentioned that I felt as though my resilience was low. I told my counsellor that it was something I wanted help with because I didn’t seem to be coping as well as I normally would.

Her response caught me slightly off guard.

She pointed out that people living with chronic illnesses are often far more resilient than they give themselves credit for. After all, living with a condition like fibromyalgia requires us to keep adapting, adjusting and carrying on even when our bodies aren’t always willing participants. We learn to navigate uncertainty, disappointment, setbacks and symptoms on a regular basis.

I’ve thought about that conversation quite a lot since.

I suspect many of us (myself included) equate resilience with never struggling, never feeling overwhelmed and always bouncing back quickly. But maybe resilience isn’t about feeling strong all the time. Maybe it’s just about continuing to put one foot in front of the other even when things feel difficult.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Alongside everything else, I’ve continued working on my fibromyalgia book, a project that has been progressing very slowly for several years now. Migraines mean that I can’t always spend long periods looking at a screen, so much of the writing has been done longhand before being transferred onto the computer using speech-to-text software. It’s certainly not the quickest way to write a book, but it has allowed me to keep moving forward when I otherwise might have had to stop altogether.

Progress may be slower than I would like, but it is still progress.

One of the things that has helped me most over recent months has been returning to mindfulness and meditation. I’ve spent quite a bit of time using the free Insight Timer app, which contains thousands of guided meditations as well as yoga and qigong practices. When anxiety is high, I find it very easy to become caught up in worries about the future or replay things that have already happened. Mindfulness doesn’t magically make those problems disappear, but it does help bring me back to the present moment, which is often a much calmer place to be.

Looking back, the last seven months haven’t been particularly easy. There have been times when I’ve felt exhausted, frustrated and overwhelmed. But perhaps my counsellor was right to say that resilience isn’t something I’ve lost after all. Maybe resilience is simply the decision to keep going, however imperfectly, and to accept support when you need it.