A while back I had a rather brilliant idea to start a daily Tai Chi practice and to encourage anyone that wanted to join me in bringing more movement into their life. Then shortly after launching this plan back in January, I had the busiest month as far as new patients go than any other month this year. This is great in one respect, but in another, it put me very far behind and I have been playing catch up ever since. This placed a huge ball of stress right on top my shoulders. It was a detriment to my health and something needed to change to re-establish balance. I could have looked at not achieving my goal as a failure, but it has taught me how to better take care of myself and further my goals to good health. I also learned how to better pace my work schedule and organize my time. This recovery process has taken about 6 months. Now I am happy to say the goal of daily movement is back on my plate. As of today, I have initiated a daily practice of Tai Chi. I plan to follow through with the Facebook support group when I can to commit the time so we can all help each other navigate the difficult path of change.
This experience also emphasizes how living with chronic illness can cause your priorities to change, and that’s okay. The fact that life threw me a curveball and I had to spend a good amount of time learning to adapt to that and still maintain a certain level of function is a success, not a failure. I think we are often conditioned to think that if we do not achieve all of our goals in the originally planned timeframe we have failed. This perception of failure often leads to giving up on our goals along with a host of negative psychological effects. This is an especially damaging mindset for individuals with chronic illness. I prefer to think of it as living within my means instead of racking up a bunch of debt. Living with chronic illness is a constant reassessment and balance of priority, desire, necessity, and ability. It is never a failure to let something drop off or wait until later because those variables have changed. It is the smartest most successful thing we can do.