It’s Amazing!
Managing a chronic disorder or illness can seem like a full-time job. Taking the medication, wondering about the medication, getting to all the therapists’ appointments, watching the diet, getting enough sleep, keeping the house clean and paying the bills each month. Whew! There’s no time in life for stopping and smelling roses.
And what about those roses? How smooth and soft their petals are, how incredibly their colors blend and shade into one another. How the scent of them goes deep inside when you take a deep breath of rose-scented air. Nobody has time to not smell roses.
Look up at the sky every time you go outside. It’s so big, it goes on forever. Noticing things like that helps enormously with mood stability and stress management. And it doesn’t really take much time out from the busy schedule. But it might just change completely the priority list of tasks for the day. Never mind 100 years from now, what can you do today that will make a big difference to your life a year from now?
Meditation or medication?
Patients come to us with strong ideas about what will help them. Some are adamant that they want to avoid medication. Others come saying “I already tried controlling diet and exercise and that didn’t work”. We try to encourage people to think outside the either-or box and consider your needs in the context of your whole life. Mood instability affects everything, so treatment and management have to be worked into the whole, not stuck on the surface.
One of the most important disciplines we recommend is also one of the most under-appreciated: the capacity for amazement, joy, and awe. Scott Peck, in his book, The Road Less Travelled, comments that we shouldn’t be surprised by illness, the really surprising thing is health. If you go slowly, puffing and groaning up the stairs, take a minute to be surprised at how well you’re doing.
Remember the feeling of the first deep breath after a week of coughing, sneezing colds. Consider all the things your body can do and all the things your mind can encompass and be amazed at the sheer fun of being alive. The world we live in is a really surprising place and we never have to feel like we’ve seen and done it all.