Be the Person You CAN Be while Living with MS
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Get the three keys to being the person that you can be while living with MS. Before you were diagnosed with MS, you had certain strengths that you don't have now. Then you have others that grew like a flower into something even more beautiful after your were diagnosed. This happened for me.
TIP SUMMARY
Tip #1 - Know your strengths (top 3)
Tip #2 - Know your values (top 3)
Tip #3 - Believe in yourself (or start)
What to learn how to become the person you want to be while living with MS? Get coached by Jen. =>> Click Here.
[Full transcript]
3 Tips to Become the Person You CAN while Living with MS
Well, hello there, it's Jen, DeTracey the founder of Women Thriving with MS. I help guide and support women who want to move from that surviving this striving to thriving place in their life. And it's a journey, right?
I've been living with multiple sclerosis for over, over 11 years now. And today I want to talk about celebrating and knowing the person like being the person that you can be.
It's so easy to look at all the things that you can't do in life. Well, being a woman who lives with multiple sclerosis, I think that's the place when you're smacked with diagnosis, when you're smacked with that information and the physical, mental, emotional things that come with it, it's easy to go down into the pit.
We have all been there. All humans have all humans have been there. The fact is that when you can be the person that you can be in the world. It is so much more empowering, so much more empowering. This is a journey that has been an ongoing one for myself.
For those of you who have been watching on, on this Facebook page, Women Thriving with MS are part of the free Women Thriving with MS and Fatigue private group. You know that not every day of this journey of my life is all flower, roses and sunshine. As we might say,it's been a long path. There are always going to be ups and downs, right?
That's life. Life is a bit of a roller coaster. Our job is to try and stabilize that roller coaster. I personally am not one who cares for drama. I try and avoid drama as much as possible. I find that that helps me so much with calming my nervous system.
Today, when I talk about three keys to being the person that you can be, and for me, I needed to look at these areas in myself to get to this place. Because maybe before you were diagnosed with MS, you had certain strengths that you don't have now. Then you have others that grew like a flower into something even more beautiful after your were diagnosed. This is what happen in my life.
I always cared about other people, and I've always been a person of service giving to others, but where I lacked the most, I think in my life, just from my upbringing mostly was around having empathy for other human beings. Being able to tap into that empathy as opposed to shutting down. That has been something that since living with MS and since working on myself, I have more of now.
Especially since understanding how the brain works and how we as human beings operate in the world in general. I was able to discover, yes, I have the ability to be a compassionate, empathic person. To be able to give empathy and to have understanding. I feel it in my body, maybe I did before, but I wasn't really aware of it in that way.
I think the key is that no matter where you're at in living with MS, how much things may be progressing or in a standstill for you, or slowly changing or rapid fire change, you still have strengths. You are not MS. It's a piece of you. It's a part of you, but it's not who you are. Yes. It impacts many. possibility almost all areas of your life.
It fact, a lot of areas of my life and requires a lot of planning because of MS, but you have strengths. You have beautiful juicy strengths within you. That's who you are. It's so important to remember. I think another strength that I have is the part of me who likes to come up with the solution to my own problems.
It's great when we solve problems for ourselves, but sometimes other people do not want us to solve their problems for them. As you know, as women living with MS, you often do not want advice from every Tom, Joe, Joan, and Cynthia.
I was so inundated when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, that a part of me shut off. I did not want help from anybody. I went to the other extreme of dealing with myself in a place of isolation, loneliness, and despair.
So there's that balance, but no matter where you're at in your life, you have strengths. So I want to ask you to think about what would be your top three strengths that you have that bring you to this place, that you can be yourself, that you want to be because they come naturally to you.
It's not even something that you have to do or practice. It's just a part of who you are. I know that there are women in the Women Thriving with MS and fatigue group. And even in the weTHRIVE membership who are very creative people that they can create beautiful things, art. That is one of their strengths, their super powers.
So what is it for you? It doesn't have to be something big and fantastic. It can be a small thing. I think one of my strengths in some ways is my stubbornness, because it keeps me going when I'm having a hard time. What about you? What are those three core strengths for you?
Here's a recap of my three strengths:
1. Empathy/Compassion
2. Solving own problems
3. Stubbornness
My stubbornness to keep myself going doesn't mean I don't rest. It's important. So what are those three strengths for you?
Next, what are your values? What do you hold as important to you?
For me, inclusion is important.
I would've never started Women Thriving with MS to serve women, to coach women, to guide women on how to move from that surviving to striving to thriving, if I didn't believe in inclusion. It started with me just saying, okay, I want to connect with other women that live with MS. I don't want to be isolated anymore.
I want to share the journey that I've been through, and maybe that might help somebody, but also when I'm doing coaching, I'm not giving advice. Coaching isn't even about that. It's about pulling the natural beauty and discovery out of each of the women that I work with.
It's about tapping into the powers that exist in you, strengths and your values. So for me, inclusion is important. That's why it's so wonderful to be the found of Women Thriving with MS.
If you're not part of the Women Thriving with MS and fatigue, community, come join. It's free. We'd love to have you. Another value for me is fun. And it's not like I'm doing fun things all the time.
It's just that I recognize that is important to me to have fun in my life. Fun for me can be sitting down and reading a really good book. Being totally immersed reading, learning something new is also a fun for me. Fun can be bingeing through a series on Netflix. A series that is SO good. One I can't wait to find out what's going to happen next.
Binging for me is not an all nighter. I don't do that. That's not my speed. It's about spending time with my family. It's about going out and doing things with friends when I can. It's about reaching out to people and connecting. It's about being around friends, where we can laugh, laugh at ourselves and each other.
So that those are important values to me, inclusion, fun and connection with others - family and friends.
What are these values for you?
So if you were to ponder, what are those three core values that come to mind for you about being the person that you can be? Because they're already in you, just like the strengths are in you.
You don't have to go looking for them. They're already there. They're already who you are, so that you can be the person you can be.
The third tip is about believing in yourself. I say, hallelujah. That right? Do I believe in myself? Every day of every minute of every day? No. I get pushed up against a wall at times.
Maybe someone says something to me and I feel bad about myself, or I doubt my ability, or I feel like an imposter. For example when I am on camera and I'm talking to all of you.
I don't feel that way anymore. I did in the beginning when I started the Women Thriving with MS and fatigue group, when I started doing the membership, weTHRIVE yeah, sure. Because when you do new things, there's going to be a learning curve. The more that you can stretch yourself in certain ways, build that capacity, you get past it. Which I believe as a woman who lives with MS you and I are always stretching ourselves.
You're always building capacity because you're met a struggle at times sometimes more, sometimes less and you figure how how to get through it. As many of you know, I have been traveling around Greece. I have 70 days and I stayed in one place for a whole month. And now I've been moving around and I'm realizing, oh my gosh, how much downtime I need to recover each time I relocate.
In Greek culture, it's about community. It's like you're going this place and then your going to that place to visit and be with family. I had to find strategies for myself to manage my energy.
I believe in myself and I have that inner confidence of knowing what I can and can't do activities because I'm maxed out or will be soon. I set boundaries for myself.
This morning I went out for a short period of time with my sweetie's family. I was then invited out to a coffee shop and I declined. I have that inner understanding of what I can and can't do and where my capacity is.
I'm managing all kinds of things during this 70 day away from home adventure, like working through an MS relapse. While in Greece, I started getting some blurred vision and vertigo. My goodness, I believed in myself enough to know that I could manage it.
I knew if it happened during my travels, I could pull through. Now, there's been some days in the last week and a half where I've felt pretty barfy nauseous and struggled with energy. So I curled up into a ball for hours to slow myself down. But because I believe in myself, I don't feel bad about who I was or what was happening. It simply was very unpleasant at times. I didn't know how long it would last.
I didn't feel bad that I can't do that family activities all the time. I'm like, okay, I'm taking care of myself so that I can get better as quickly as possible. I believe in myself because I know my limits. Now, sometimes I'm push through participating in an event because I really want to. Who hasn't ever pushed over their limits? You've pushed over your limits.
We all have. I mean, and that's about how you are being yourself. Sometimes we are going to push through because we know that what we're going to experience is going to be serve our needs and our values. And then we're willing to like curl up in bed the next day.
These are choices that we make. When you believe in yourself, you can get clear about those choices, because if I have a big day tomorrow, then I know the next day maybe a little rough or a lot rough. That's when you get to know yourself as a women who lives with MS. Then you can be the person that you want to be in the world because you can make those choices, those decisions for yourself.
Right now I'm sitting down, I've got some beautiful flowers next to me. I'm sharing this with you, which energizes me. I'm just here with you. I'm not in cafe having a coffee.
I get to be here with you. That's me believing in myself, taking care of myself and understanding my values and my strengths.
So I'm inviting you to do three things:
1. Think of what your top three strengths are. Celebrate yourself for them, because that is a part of being the person that you can be.
2. Ponder what are the top three values that you hold that are most important to you.
3. Find the ways you can believe in yourself.
How are you navigating the world in this time and space in your life, living with MS? No matter to what degree you're experiencing it and the symptoms, mobility, brain fog, pain, fatigue or whatever those things are for you - remember - at the core, where is that belief in yourself right now?
What are the parts of yourself that you can already believe in right now?
Whether it's self-care or being aware, having this heightened awareness around the cycles of MS in your life that is believing in yourself because you conscious aware.
I think these three things, knowing your strengths, knowing your values and believing in yourself. Even if you only have that belief in yourself, 10, 20, 30%, if you focus on that, it will grow. It will grow.
Am I at a hundred percent? I believe in myself, no, I'm perfectly imperfect.
I continue to grow in that area, believing in myself. And I think that makes a big difference. So there you go. I'm going to pack up the rest of my luggage and get ready to catch a bus back from a beautiful place Edessa, the waterfall city.
It's a beautiful little town with rivers and waterfalls and I'm heading back to the second biggest city in Greece, which is Thessaloniki. So I know today's a travel day. I know that I'm going to be very bivouacked tomorrow. I believe in myself. I also have one commitment that I need to rally for tonight.
Know yourself. Know your strengths, your values, and what you already believe in within yourself. And this is how you can be the person that you can be. I'm Jen, DeTracey the founder of Women Thriving with MS. And I'll see you soon. Have a great day.
What to learn how to become the person you want to be while living with MS? Get coached by Jen. =>> Click Here.
