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Wellness Wednesday for December 6, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Yes, the in-between part that you describe definitely sucks. Try to accept the position of "don't know". You don't know how this will develop. That's ok. It will take some time to find out. It's okay not to know. And try to give up your entitlement to perfect health. Clinging to a hope of continuing a life where you don't have to care about how you live and how your body reacts leads to stress and suffering when things go against that. You're on the way to the grave, same as the rest of us, and your body will only "betray" you further and further as you age. Best to try to accept that. That's one part of it not consuming your life. The other part is to pay attention to what habits and actions lead to what results, and to educate yourself about your condition. That should lead to more predictability and less nervousness. In the meantime, try to accept the not-knowing, and ground yourself and breathe into your belly when the anxiety comes. Fear of pain is worse than pain itself. And fear of fear compounds any suffering drastically. Let it come, let it be, let it go.

You hit it right on the head. I am such a control freak and I am sooo bad about things I can't control or understand. Let me analyze it, dissect it, categorize it so I know how to feel about it. Let me find perfect clarity and identify a guaranteed solution. Unfortunately life does not always oblige in that way. But thank you sincerely, I needed that.

You're welcome. :)