Goals

With it being the new year, I’ve been hearing and thinking about “New Year Resolutions”. To tell you the truth, I don’t like new year resolutions. There’s that negative connotation with them that they will never actually happen. For example, lose weight, eat healthier, exercise more (or at all), etc. Now all these things are fantastic things to do! Getting healthy is wonderful. But do you notice something with all those resolutions? They are all physical ones. Not that they don’t also help with your emotional and mental health, but their focus is on the physical. When you live with RSD/CRPS your focus is always on your physical body; How does it feel today? Pain level? Where is most of the pain? What kind of pain? We all know the questions. So, having resolutions, that may or may not be kept, all focusing on the physical body isn’t always that great for us.

My preference is the term “goals”. You can make goals anytime of the year for whatever. There isn’t that connection between goals and the new year. So, goals can be an idea, an aim, or a fresh start for something at any time. When goals are talked about, they are usually equal in physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aims and desires.

My doctors and physical therapists often asked me what my goals were for my health. And initially I would say by Christmas I want to be able to walk, or something like that. But as the years have gone on and different effects of the RSD/CRPS have come up in my life I couldn’t always meet those goals that I had set. By then I had started to develop anxiety and depression and they would be exacerbated as the time I had set for myself to achieve my goal came closer or passed without the improvement that I wanted. I felt totally hopeless. I felt that I had given myself sufficient time to get better, so why wasn’t I better? What should I have done to reach that goal? These were thoughts that were constantly in my head. Sometimes I felt that if I had worked harder, I would have reached it. So, I stopped making them. I decided that I would get better when I got better; and I would work toward that but not set a date for it. This helped quite a bit, I wasn’t as depressed or as anxious.

But recently I’ve been thinking about goals that don’t focus on the physical but on the emotional, mental, and spiritual. I can be really hard on myself, I’m probably my worst critic especially when I’m having anxiety attacks and depression. I have brain fogs where I don’t remember if I’ve said something or what just happened a few minutes ago. I can’t always remember what I just read and if I do sometimes it makes absolutely no sense. I’ll be in the middle of saying something and loose what I was going to say next or can’t think of simple words. This is so frustrating! I know a lot of people with a variety of chronic illnesses can relate to this problem. With this anxiety, depression, and brain fog I can really feel down on myself. But I don’t want to. I know I can’t control all of that and it is not my fault. Now comes in my goals for the year; my emotional, mental, and spiritual goals.

-I will work to not be so down on myself. When thoughts come that are negative about myself, I will think of several positive things about me. (This can feel very weird, but I believe can be helpful. If you need help go to trusted family and friends or to this blog, we’re all here for each other).

-I will let my trusted family members know more about what I’m feeling. Now, this one is really hard for me. I am a very private person and don’t like to cry or really have any strong emotions in front of other people. (So it might seem odd that I decided to start a blog where I talk about all of that stuff but I want to help people with chronic illness and believe I can do that through this blog and opening up about my battle) I usually just hold it all in until after everyone else has gone to bed. But I know that I’m surrounded by people who care about me for a reason and that they can help me; I just need to let them.

-I am religious, I believe in God, and so I want to work to pray to Him more. In those moments when I feel most alone, misunderstood, and overall just terrible I want to remember to pray. I also want to remember to pray and thank God when I have a good moment or feel happy.

Those are my goals for my mental, emotional, and spiritual health. They may change throughout the year or I may add new ones. That’s the beauty of goals. They can change and grow, just like us. I’ll keep working on my physical health too. Exercising when I can. Eating healthy (which includes ice cream and chocolate 😊). But that’s not going to be my focus for now. Right now, I’m learning to accept my body and my life for what it is and appreciate everything around me and for me that means having goals that support my emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.

I hope these have inspired you to think of some goals for yourself. If you feel comfortable please share them with me! Remember, goals are made up of tiny steps, so don’t get discouraged if you aren’t making huge leaps and bounds towards them. You’ll get there. Just keep going, keep living, keep laughing, keep being your one amazing self.

Sam