Miscellaneous
One of the hardest things in life is letting go, learning how and when it’s time to let go, we need to let go of the what’s, if's and maybe's. For a very long time I had lost my WHY. I had lost my purpose in life! I had to let go of what I once had and have faith in my new journey and accept who I am now and learn to be present and stop being frightened, vulnerable and lost in the past ME. I had to start living. I had to choose a new path and start over. I had to accept I could take a step back if I was unable to take a step forward and I could always do a complete U turn. I gradually regained my functionality, and although this isn’t quite perfect and every day I still struggle, I started to live and live selectively. My biggest decision …what now? … What should I do next? I no longer expect anyone to understand what we are going through, and this illness doesn’t define who I am or who we are anymore. I am now the best version of my former self and every day I choose to live with this invisible illness, with its limitations and its challenges. This is who I have chosen to be. This illness no longer defines who I am. Together we can get better. This is our journey to unlock our visibility! Key takeaways We need to accept our lives have changed and these changes have affected our abilities to continue to navigate life, but we can still learn to move forward We need to remember one of the core beliefs of Stephen Hawkins - Bvisible …’disability need not be an obstacle to success, we deserve our voices to be heard and impact the future’ We need to remember what we can still do and not on what we can no longer do and learn to invest our energy into things we enjoy We need to heal, be at peace with this illness and learn to live again and accept the world will continue to move whilst we remain on pause, without anger, resentment or guilt We need to avoid conforming to pressures and societal expectations – we need to accept its ok to cancel or change plans at the last minute To truly move forward, we need to acknowledge and accept what this illness has done to us and what really happened to us, its ok to want to heal before moving forward We must learn to make peace with this illness every day and we can’t learn to live with this illness if we are still fighting it We must accept our lives are now full of challenges and full of limitations and we need to keep moving because it we are not moving, if we are not thinking then we are not living. It’s not about how quickly we move; it’s about not stopping This invisible illness may be significant in our lives, but its invisibility means its insignificant in every bodies else’s and we need to accept this I know I am one of the lucky ones, I had a choice, I regained some of my functionality and I choose to live, but to live selectively This is our journey unlocking our visibility! Together we can still make a difference. Valuable resources: Action for ME and the NHS Connect with me on Facebook Visit our official website www.jak-group.co.uk With thanks to: Jamie York and Rob Moore Oli Corse (Intro and outro) purple-planet.com (Music) braydesign.co.uk (Darren Bray – Graphics)