Tips for Managing a Flare-up or Regression
Even though we know that healing isn’t linear and we’re bound to have regressions, nobody likes it when it happens! It’s pretty easy to freak out and catastrophize. Negative thinking and fear can easily run rampant.
I can assure you, from personal experience, that what happens in your mind has a huge impact on how quickly you bounce back. It’s essential to use your mindfulness practice to witness any negative reactions and guide yourself back to trust. You may need to repeat affirmations or read a pep talk that you wrote when you were feeling well. If you don’t have one, I’d highly recommend writing one for yourself.
Next is self-care. When you’re body/mind is strained you need more healthy food, rest and likely some kind of therapy. Most people with chronic woes need a health team. Those are the practitioners that support you and guide you back on track. Depending on what’s ailing you, you may need a range of care to get over the hump.
With rest and care in place, reflect on where your system got overloaded. Nothing happens in the body randomly, although it may be hard to trace it to something specific in chronic conditions. When our health falls below a certain threshold, you don’t get predictability and triggers and reactions can happen too frequently to map out. The key in this step is to reflect and wonder without gripping. As soon as you are obsessing trying to figure it all out, you’ve gone too far and it’s no longer a productive exercise.
Sit with yourself in stillness so you can listen for messages from your body. Whenever I sit with myself through a trigger, there’s always something to hear. It may be something from the past that I never quite dealt with that’s been triggered in the present. It could be a choice I’ve made that isn’t aligned with what I ought to be doing. It could be a way of being that I’ve fallen back into without realizing it that’s hurting me. The possibilities are endless.
The key to moving back into balance is having tools at your disposal that are well-practiced and easy to apply. What does your inner tool kit look like? If you want to broaden your skill set, consider my upcoming Life Transformation course