Tag: mental health

chronic illness, gratitude, Health, life, mental health, MS

From Chaos to Calm: Your 3-Minute Reset After MS Diagnosis (or anytime)

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

Everything just changed. Your mind is spinning.

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.
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life, mental health

Learning to Be

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

The world has stopped. The unthinkable has happened and we’re in crisis mode, trying to get our heads around this ‘new normal’.

I’ve been here before.

No, not exactly like this, obviously. But almost five years ago, my world stopped when I finally admitted I couldn’t teach anymore. I’ve been adapting to my new normal ever since. It’s been a bumpy ride, but there have been many surprising blessings as well.

Learning to be. This is a big one. We are so inundated with messages telling us we need to be doing something all the time. There’s a culture of busy-ness, where the more you’re doing is like a badge of honour. When you have a chronic illness, that’s not really an option because the fatigue, among other things, is so killer that You. Just. Can’t.

So you spend a lot of time at home, sitting around, isolated, without a whole lot of options for entertainment. Sound familiar? I’m sure it’s a new experience for most healthy people, and it can be uncomfortable just sitting in your own skin sometimes. Or maybe that’s just the MS. 🤔

But just being, instead of always doing can be a wonderful opportunity to get real with yourself and figure out what’s really important. We’ve been conditioned to believe we need to be working, be productive, be entertained, be adventurous, be travelling , be consuming, be socializing.

We’ve forgotten that sometimes it’s important to just BE.

When you stop doing and sit quietly with yourself, your mind has space to process. This is why meditation has become so popular. But you don’t even have to be that organized about it. I’m not knocking meditation in any way, I’m just suggesting that you pay attention to whether you take any time during your day to stop doing and just BE.

Staring at nature is my go-to for times when I need to stop and be for awhile, even if it’s just out the window, or the nature channel on TV. I guess that’s technically doing something but the mental health benefits outweigh any slicing of that proverbial hair.

We’ve been running on the societal treadmill for so long that doing nothing, just BEING is a difficult thing for many people right now. I get it. Like with anything though, a shift in perspective can change this strange situation we’re finding ourselves in, into an opportunity to examine our values and decide if we really want to go back to the “old normal”.

As much as I miss teaching, I am grateful every single day for my many blessings. Learning to be comfortable with just being and not doing all the time has helped me enormously in accepting my new normal. I hope it helps you too.

Just be.

Hummingbird in flight feeding
Look what you can see when you stop doing for a few minutes. Just be.
Photo credit: Amanda L. Callin

❤️ Amanda

Health, life, mental health

Love. Not Fear.

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

View at Medium.com

It has been far too long since I’ve published anything but this article is important enough to share. If you allow your fear to spiral out of control, that lowers your immunity and makes you more susceptible to getting sick.

Stay informed, but focus on connection and gratitude. Turn off the screens and get outside. Wash your hands, and stay home unless it’s essential to go out. Stay safe and healthy out there!

❤️ Amanda

life

Christmas: pressures and perspective

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

So, I was ‘voluntold’ yesterday by my youngest that ‘we’ were providing the vegan gingerbread house kit for her and a friend for the class contest on Friday. Ummm… okay? 🤣

I love that she knows I love to bake so assumed I’d be happy to do it. Happier that it doesn’t occur to her that I’m carefully pacing myself at the moment so I can make it through the holidays without the MonSter rearing it’s ugly head too far. One of the perks of an invisible illness when it comes to your kids, at least when you can…

But it’s always smart to remind yourself, chronic illness or not, that it’s not worth pushing beyond your limits. Everyone owes it to themselves to take time for self-care, to take things off their plate when necessary and to ask for help sometimes.

The whole season should be about being cozy and spending low-key personal time with your people. Let go of the consumer, commercial side of it and focus on what matters. You can only do what you can do, and good enough is good enough. Otherwise, you…

The best thing I’ve started doing since I finally got decent running shoes is getting my butt out the door every weekday for a 20 minute walk. Sometimes it’s a few minutes more, but never too much because in the past I would get back into ballet or yoga and go too hard, setting myself back several steps. So now I’m the tortoise not the hare, and I find I look forward to my walk each day and it sets me up well for the day ahead. There are days when 20 minutes doesn’t get me too far…

But I’ve only missed one day, when the wind was too much for my sensory issues, and then the last couple of days when I needed to brave the crowds to finish the Christmas shopping. Now I will get out there every day if possible because I know it’s the single best thing I can do to make it through our busiest Christmas season ever, and enjoy it.

Finally, chronic illness or not…

Depending on how things go, I may post one more time about the vegan gingerbread house. If it’s a total fail, maybe not, so…

Wishing you all a restful, joyous holiday and a healthy, peaceful New Year.

❤️ Amanda

MS

Raw

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I need to know

Do other MSers feel it too?

A sudden rawness

Burning

Tingling

In the tongue

Lips

Palms of hands

Soles of feet

Eyelids

MS?

Is it the myelin being destroyed

By my own cells?

Most uncomfortable

Anxiety-inducing

Go away now.