Turning Straw Into Gold

Thanks you for this "enlightening" article. Toni has much hard-won wisdom. Her book "How To Be Sick" has been very helpful to me, as well as many others learning to live consciously with chronic illness. The principles she teaches are clearly applicable to life in general-- for as she points out, every life has some form of suffering.

Thank you again for the way in which you unpack these difficult and painful concepts and experiences and give us a way forward a way "out" of emotional paralysis. I never dreamed
at such a late stage in disease and in life that one book could do as much as yours has for me and so many.
Thank you for being part of the P-T community -- I know I am not alone in needing to learn more about how that straw becomes golden in our lives and minds.
Alida
http://fromthisterrace.com

Someday, I'd love to see a post from you on how to actively pursue improvement in your life while still accepting the current reality. It seems like a great idea in terms of disease. After all, viruses don't infect us because they want us to suffer. They don't want anything. They exist and reproduce as natural selection allows.

But people, people are another story. I'm healthy, but if I weren't, I know I'd find it difficult to simply accept the way some healthy people treat sick people. And what if the insensitive person were your spouse, and you depended on him/her for your very survival?

Cinderkeys - Thanks for reading my post and for commenting. I don't see any contradiction in trying to improve my life while still accepting my current reality. When I say "acceptance," I just mean that my life as it is today, at this moment, is my starting point. From that starting point -- that place of acceptance -- I'll never give up looking for new treatments or for new ways to live well with chronic illness. But I feel so much more at peace if I start with an open acceptance of my life as it is right now.

It is indeed difficult to accept the way some healthy people treat the sick. I spend a lot of time in my book discussing how I came to terms with it, hoping that my experience will help others. Bottom line, the way people treat me is about them, not me. They may be uncomfortable around illness; it might remind them of their own mortality. That's just one example. If the insensitive person is a spouse for whom you depend on survival, the task becomes very difficult. It's easier said that done, but we can learn to feel compassion for those who don't treat us well; they must be suffering greatly to be so insensitive. They may also be living with a lot of fear. Of course, we have to protect ourselves and that could mean seeking outside help if the spouse or other caregiver is abusive. You've given me food for thought and perhaps I will write about it one day!