The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
-Socrates
I’m working on something new so keeping my posts short these days. This needs no explanation, and from a reasonably reliable source 😉, so I’ll just leave it there.
I know that optimism is not at odds with wisdom. It’s quite the opposite. I think of cynicism as cool but lazy, while hope is desperately uncool – it has sweaty palms and an earnest smile on its face. What I know to be true is that one hopeful person will accomplish more than a hundred cynics. Why? Because the hopeful person will try.
Why do we feel like we have to earn the right to breathe?
One of the biggest struggles I had after diagnosis was letting myself rest without the constant inner soundtrack of “I should do more, I’m being lazy, Why can’t I just push through?” It was crazy making.
This struggle to rest without guilt is not unique to the chronic illness community, it’s a cultural epidemic.
How We Got Here: Productivity=Worth
From the time we’re children, we’re conditioned to tie our value to our productivity. It’s how the capitalist wheels keep turning.
This is reinforced constantly through media, marketing, and cultural attitudes. We didn’t realize it was happening, it’s just the way things are.
So everyone within the system is wired to believe that resting is selfish, lazy, or a sign that you’re a failure.
The Gender Layer
Generations of women have been proving their worth through domestic labour while the men had the “important” job of earning money.
Despite women now entering the workforce equally, the scales haven’t balanced.
Women are still managing most of the thousands of details that go into running a home and raising children. A lot of it is the invisible labour of managing birthdays, extended families, school activities, medical appointments, grocery lists, etc, etc, etc.
We take it on because we feel that it won’t get done otherwise. Often that’s true.
Husbands don’t think about it because they’re watching the football game, out on the golf course, or snacking on cheesies on the couch you just vacuumed.
This isn’t to bash on the husbands (okay, maybe a little), or to glorify the ability of women to multitask (though we do kick ass), but it is the way our society is set up.
What is the cost? Women make up 80% of autoimmune diseases. Our bodies are literally screaming at us, and often we don’t listen until they conk out completely. Ask me how I know.
We’re conditioned to abandon our own needs to act in the service of others from the time we’re tiny. We’re raised to be good daughters, nice friends, perfect mothers. Taking five minutes to think about our own needs means we’re being selfish.
When Chronic Illness Forces the Issue
When this plays out in the context of chronic illness, where you simply can’t fulfill the all the functions you used to push yourself through, you feel guilty. Then guilt turns to shame. And you feel like a burden.
Shifting gears and stepping off the hamster wheel of capitalism is a blow to the ego. It takes some serious recalibration of your mindset.
The guilt doesn’t just switch off. We can rewrite the script though.
Reclaiming Your Inherent Worth
We all need to claim a new role, women and men alike.
Women don’t have value because they clean the house and cook dinner and hold down a full-time job.
Men don’t have value because they bring home a paycheque and know how to fix the lawnmower.
Every single human on the planet has value and worth just because they’re here. Period. Full stop.
Nothing needs to be proven or earned, it’s just a fact. You have value because you are.
You matter, your needs matter, and we all need to rest.
What Real Rest Actually Looks Like
Binging three seasons of Shrinking, or scrolling Instagram for two hours is not rest.
Neither is folding laundry while chatting to your best friend.
True rest is stilling your body and letting your mind wander.
Stare out a window, watch the leaves dance in the trees. Stare at your toes and daydream.
Five minutes a day can make a huge difference.
It takes practice. Your mind will want to go over your to-do list, or snark at you that you’re lazy.
Claim your time. Fight for it. It’s an investment in yourself that will pay off 1000x in the future.
If you want to read more about the necessity of resting, check out this article in Psychology Today.
Rest is not a reward for finishing everything. As if that’s even possible.
When I was young, way back in the olden days, I was in such a hurry to grow up. As a tween, a phrase that didn’t even exist in the 1980s, I wanted to make my own decisions, eat lots of junk food and stay up as late as I wanted. As a 15 year old, I thought it was very adult to be going to the bar, doing tequila shots and dancing on the speakers. Yikes! The sweet absurdity of being in such a hurry to become someone older.
When my kids were little, I often reminded them that life only goes in one direction, so don’t be in a hurry to grow up. Then I was diagnosed with MS, and I found myself wanting to go back to the before: before I got sick, before my kids had to worry about having a sick mother, before I had to give up my job. I was wishing for a time machine when that phrase popped back into my head. Talk about irony.
It was from my experience as a misguided youth that I gained the wisdom to pass that phrase on to my children, to encourage them to slow down and not wish away their childhood. Yet, there I was, newly diagnosed, desperately wishing there was a rewind button for life. How easy it is to dispense retrospective wisdom, not knowing how much you’ll need it one day yourself.
With the diagnosis, everything I thought I knew about moving forward got turned inside out. MS took not just my health, but the sweet oblivion of how precarious health can be. The luxury of not constantly thinking and worrying about my body. The career I loved, teaching 6 year olds to read, count and sing in French. The before and after line that changed everything and left me with the desperate, completely human wish to go backwards.
When the phrase popped back into my head, at first it felt cruel, like a mockery of the bleak future promised by the neurologist. Life only goes in direction. The doors to reclaim my health locked from the other side. The crushing grief of accepting there is no before to return to.
It took years to move through that resistance to something like peace. I’d hear people say “my illness has been a blessing’, and think they were completely unhinged. Slowly, reluctantly, I started to understand what they meant. There’s a clarity that comes from being forced to stop. From learning to be a human being instead of a human doing.
The brutal, beautiful truth is that suffering is one of life’s most effective teachers. The things that MS has given me that nothing else could: presence, gratitude and a recalibrated sense of what matters. Not a silver lining so much as a different kind of light.
Something you can try this week: Spend five minutes with the “before”. Let yourself miss it and feel the grief. Then consciously close that door and ask, “what is available to me today?” You don’t have to feel grateful yet, just curious.
❤️ Amanda
” A tree doesn’t regret losing its leaves because it knows it’s time to shed them for a new, beautiful life.”
You want relief. You want answers. You want to feel better now.
After the relief of finally getting my diagnosis, an answer to my 23-year medical mystery tour, the overwhelm took over. My first neurologist handed me the stack of medication information and told me to pick one. Yeah, I fired him.
I didn’t know where to start. So I did what most of us do. I looked for answers everywhere else.
There’s so much information out there. Diets. Protocols. Supplements. Exercise routines. Many people claim to have the one “best” way to handle your life-changing diagnosis.
But here’s what I learned. You’re the only one who can decide what your healing journey looks like. And when you’re caught in a storm of information and emotion, you can’t hear your own wisdom. You need to find ground first.
MS can make you feel powerless. But creating calm, even for three minutes, is something you can do right now.
Here’s your reset:
Set a 3-minute timer.
Place one hand on your heart, the other on your belly.
Take slow breaths into your belly, the way a baby breathes. The way humans breathe naturally before stress teaches us to hold our breath in our chest.
Close your eyes or look at the sky.
Notice one thing you’re grateful for or hopeful about.
That’s it. Do this once today. Nothing more.
This isn’t about fixing everything. It’s about giving your nervous system permission to settle. Because healing can’t happen in chaos.
Do you have a quick reset to share? Let me know in the comments.
I see you. You’ve got this.
❤️ Amanda
Mindset shift: Chaos to calm. Take 3 minutes to breathe and stare at the sky.
Walk a Myelin My Shoes 