Tag Archives for chronic illness

InkTober: Day 15 – Relax

Relaxing is hard work for me, even when I try to find ways to make it easy. I find it hard to relax, not because I live a busy fast-paced life, but because my body seems to have forgotten how. It’s often difficult to immediately position myself in a way that is comfortable. Sometimes, because my pain levels are high and my body is tense as a result, moving suddenly or too much agitates my already uncomfortable body and may increase my pain. Even with meditation or other mindfulness activities, I can’t easily relax my mind either. It bounces from thought to thought about when I will be better or simply productive again.

Relaxing is the last thing in the world that should be hard work, but for me it is.

InkTober - Day 15 - Relax

 

InkTober: Day 14 – Tree

I grew up in a big busy city, but always lived in neighbourhoods that had parks and playgrounds with trees nearby. When I was in my teens, I enjoyed sitting under a huge old tree in a park close to my home. I would go there when I needed to escape my family for a while, with a book to read or a notebook to write in. During those years, I spent so much time sitting under that tree, it’s a miracle I didn’t sprout roots or branches of my own. The cover of that tree’s branches became my personal time-out place. It became a place I went to when I felt any jumble of upsetting emotions, and I always walked away feeling calmer.

I don’t know if that tree is still standing in the grassy green field of that park. If it is, I hope others have benefited from the cover of its branches, and still do, the way I did.

InkTober - Day 14 - Tree

 

InkTober: Day 13 – Scared

Whether we’re willing to admit it or not, all of us get scared. It doesn’t take a free-roaming wild animal to start our adrenaline racing through our bodies. Some of us have inexplicable phobias about things ranging from the tiniest specks to the highest of heights, or things that, sometimes, no one else can see. Whatever our fear, being scared is a part of being human and sometimes it’s the emotion that reminds us that we are alive.

InkTober - Day 13 - Scared