Have you ever pondered the question, "Why is life so hard?" or "How would it be if things were different?" Living with chronic illness, these questions come up quite often, but if you allow yourself to sit with them and focus on the mess, you will begin to see its beauty. You see,
it's not that life is so hard or that we wish that things were different; it is that most often, we choose to turn a blind eye to the beautiful messiness that life is and decide not to embrace it for all that it is, and all that the chaos in front of us, and inside of us has taught us.
Living with three chronic illnesses myself, Epilepsy, Cerebral Palsy, and Hydrocephalus, I focused my attention and intention on these daily questions. I would wake up with the intent to have a bad day because things are different, and I would focus my attention on that all day long. In 2013 after my three failed brain surgeries for my seizures, I made the conscious choice to look at my life differently and see life from a different perspective; I chose to see life not just as a mess but as a beautiful mess. And every day, I embrace my beautiful chaos gratefully.
Every day you have a choice; you can either choose to look at your cup half full or half empty, you can choose to focus on the chaos and its mess, or you can choose to embrace it and be grateful. Living with chronic illness is not easy, but the more you allow yourself to embrace all of its beautiful messiness, the more you will be able to grow through it, not just go through it.
Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it. -Michael J. Fox
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