🌻 Fresh Start for MS [Strategies]

 Get The Relaxation Guide   ---  Watch Jen's YouTube Videos

Women Thriving with MS Membership
Get the on the waitlist

All Resources
Get access. 

SUMMARY 

What are you avoiding most that could move you forward in your life right now?

When you live with MS, everyday is a fresh start. Hear Lisa's story. Lisa is part of our weTHRIVE membership community.

Also, I share my challenge of pushing through what I was avoiding. As part of my story, I share the easiest way to make a fresh start in your life.

Fresh Start for MS [Strategies] 

Today, we're going to have a conversation about fresh starts, but before we go into that, I'm Jen DeTracey, I'm the founder of Women Thriving with MS. I've been living with MS for over 11 years. What I do is I help women to connect with women living with MS discover how to thrive.

It doesn't start with thriving. It starts with surviving. I have been there, surviving with MS to striving, to thriving. It's a process and it takes time. How I support women in doing that is through the Women Thriving with MS Facebook group and Facebook page through the YouTube channel, through coaching and through online courses.

So if you want to join that journey, then discover what's going to be best for you.

So let's talk about fresh starts. The conversation I had with Lisa, who is a member of the weTHRIVE membership program that I run, we were talking about a surgery for her shoulder that she is recovering from.

Lisa is really looking forward to getting that whole harness system off her body. It's massive, holding her arm in place and wrapped around her waist. She wants to have her freedom back and is imaging what's possible once she's able to get back into physiotherapy. Then continue on with her life. For her, it's fresh start, turning the page. Thank you, Lisa, for sharing that with me.

I realize that with MS, we are in a state of constant, I was going to say chronic constant, fresh starts. They're happening all the time. Many of you might know I've been living in Greece for almost 70 days. It has been quite a journey for me to navigate with MS.

I've enjoy myself and been prepared for anything that might happen. Like having a relapse, which did happen. Check our my YouTube video, "5 Strategies to Deal with MS Relapses." I share my journey with the certainty of the uncertainty as I like to put it is that there's always a fresh start.

I'm just winding down from the vertigo and feeling like I don't need any medication right now to get through it. I'm at the final end of it which means a fresh start.

So we all have fresh starts. This is very poignant because everybody in life has fresh starts and has this opportunity. You can think about every morning you wake up is a new day. When you consider being intentional when you wake up, it's a fresh start.

That's whether your intention is starting am MS diet, that's going to help you have a better quality of life. Maybe it's getting into an exercise routine or doing a stretching routine. Learning to meditate or regularly doing a practice that is calming to reduce stress.

Then there's connecting with other women that live with MS. Even if you're in a tiny little remote town away from city life were it's not easy to access resources. There can be the intentionality of the fresh start. Maybe that fresh start for some of you, as you watched this video is to join the Women Thriving with MS and fatigue Facebook group, so that you can be a part of positive minded community for women. This is a place to feel more connected. Feel less isolated.

You might decide to reduce or removing sugar from your diet. Which is important for some of the women the weTHRIVE Membership community. Whether it's completely overhauling your diet or trying to do exercises that are going to help you retain your abilities, your mobility.

Whatever that is for you. That can be your fresh start. So think about what area of your life you feel called to do something to support yourself in living a better life with MS. To move from that place of surviving with MS to striving with MS.

Get started on it. What might that mean for you?

It's usually that thing that you're avoiding the most. I know from experience. In fact, while I have been on my adventure. One of the things that I've been doing is getting out and walking as much as I can. And if you've ever been in any place in Europe or maybe you live in Europe, you might know, there are a lot of hills in Greece.

One morning I was climbing up a bit of a steep incline, and I could feel the burning in my calves. This is the area of my body that I need to stretch the most. It is the most important. Yet what do I do? I put it off.

Why do I put it off? Why would I allow myself to suffer when all I need to do is take five minutes to do these stretches.

It's because I don't like this stretch.

So going back to fresh starts, I was thinking about this as I climbed up this hill knowing that I hadn't done this particular stretch. I did every other stretch.

Can you relate?

At this point I realized, I need to do that stretch today. I must do it. I want to. I asked myself how can I build it into my life? Create that fresh start. Just that one little thing to do.
I can create a fresh start around. It's small.

I'm thinking, okay, now that I out walking first thing in the morning while I'm in Greece (before it gets hot), it's not the right time of day to do the calve stretch.

I'm making a conscious choice. I'm being intentional about having my adventure first. And then of course, I come back and I want to drink my homeopathic medicine, and I want to eat. Then, where does stretching fit in? How do I create a fresh start around that to support myself?

Recently, I've been listening to a few different audio books, one about High Performance Habits (Brendon Buchard), and another one about what are called Atomic Habits (James Clear). I call these habits "micro actions" towards building a habit system.

My first start right is I'm going to prioritize those calf stretching exercises, which are uncomfortable they're they don't feel good at the time. Yet, they're essential. They're essential to me being able to walk without excruciating pain. Now I'm always going to feel discomfort and burning, going up those hills with my calves. This is something that has become a part of my life with MS.

So for me, the fresh start is that I'm going to find one time during the day that will work best to do my calve stretches while I'm traveling. The plan is to attach it to a daily routine. I'm going to try doing it the stretches before I eat my lunch. This is a specific time of day and it's a micro action.

When I talked to Lisa, the weTHRIVE member, her intention is to walk around the her cul-de-sac twice a day when it's not raining outside. Lisa messaged me to say, "I did it twice yesterday."

How can you take something that you had been putting off that is important to you and really commit to taking that first action?

Building that habit system. Tying it into something that you do every day. It could be connected to brushing your teeth. It could be after you get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and have a pee. It could be after you drink a glass of water, whatever that is for you.

When are you going to put that one micro action into your daily routine?

So choose what specifically you want to get started with as your fresh start. This little micro habit system that you create will support you in a way which is going to move you from surviving with MS to striving with MS.

Get Coached by Jen 

Want to support in focusing on the fresh starts that support you the most in your life? 
60-minute Coaching Session - Book Now
4 Session Coaching Package - Book Now