{"id":842,"date":"2013-09-30T20:01:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T20:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gooddaysbaddays\/?p=842"},"modified":"2013-09-22T19:51:32","modified_gmt":"2013-09-22T19:51:32","slug":"chronic-illness-less-balance-less-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/2013\/09\/chronic-illness-less-balance-less-stress.html","title":{"rendered":"Chronic Illness: Less Balance, Less Stress?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image<\/a>
Image courtesy of Pixomar\/FreeDigitalPhotos.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wish I could remember where I heard it (lupus brain fog kicking in here), and if I ever do, I’ll be sure to give credit where it’s due…(and if you know where you heard, it please let me know!), but someone very wise recently said there’s no such thing as “balance” when it comes to our multitasking, ever-so-busy lives. Talk about a very deep, deep breath! One of the most stressful things about living with chronic illness is that we patients often think we need to “merely” add our illness to our already-heavy list of responsibilities and “to-dos” and somehow balance them all throughout our days and nights. But, as we all learn at some point, this is\u00a0much<\/em> easier said than accomplished. For every time I’ve tried to “balance” my life with lupus, there have been times where the disease has intruded and taken over. For each carefully planned week, doctor’s appointment here, social event there, I’ve experienced the upheaval of flares or other surprises that have upended and re-prioritized everything. And for each of those times when life as I’d planned became life as I’d never imagined, stress naturally followed. What was I doing wrong, that I couldn’t balance it all? How could I avoid the problems in the future, thus perfectly balancing health issues with everything else? And then came that very wise person and that very wise – and rather obvious, when you think about it – thought: “Perfect balance,” even in the healthiest of times, isn’t achievable anyway, so why stress over it? Why not, instead, put thought and effort into better prioritizing, adding enough flexibility so that when health issues take center stage, the entire apple cart isn’t turned over and our stress is amplified? Looking at life this way, and not pressuring ourselves to achieve that ellusive ideal of balance, is immensely freeing! It allows us to modify our lives as we must, and take those inevitable curve balls more gracefully. It gets us away from self-criticizing that we’re somehow failing if we cannot balance everything in our lives, and it also helps us to work toward “quality” of relationships and experience, instead of mathematically calculating and striving for equal hours or days. Whew! Deep, deep breath, indeed! Blessings for the day, Maureen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wish I could remember where I heard it (lupus brain fog kicking in here), and if I ever do, I’ll be sure to give credit where it’s due…(and if you know where you heard, it please let me know!), but someone very wise recently said there’s no such thing as “balance” when it comes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":548,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,43,4,383],"tags":[720,724,29,44,722,721,19,723,30,175],"class_list":["post-842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronic-pain-and-illness","category-encouragement-in-life","category-words-of-encouragemnent-and-info-for-all","category-heart-health","tag-balance","tag-breathe","tag-chronic-illness","tag-chronic-pain","tag-destress","tag-destressing","tag-illness","tag-less-stress","tag-pain","tag-stress"],"yoast_head":"\nChronic Illness: Less Balance, Less Stress? - Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/2013\/09\/chronic-illness-less-balance-less-stress.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chronic Illness: Less Balance, Less Stress? 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She expected to be writing scripts. God had other plans. A few years after her graduation, Maureen was diagnosed with a life-threatening case of organ-involved lupus. Her life turned upside down as she grappled with the effects of the illness and other health conditions that ensued. She was no stranger to serious health challenges; even as a child, Maureen had survived numerous bouts of pneumonia, flu, and other infections. But lupus made her take a fresh look at her life goals - and took herlifelong, strong Catholic Christian faith and writing in a direction she'd never imagined. Today, Maureen writes and speaks about walking with the Lord while living with chronic pain and illness. Her most recent book is \"Don't Panic!: How to Keep Going When the Going Gets Tough (Franciscan Media). She is also the author of, \"Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain & Illness\" (Image Books\/Randomhouse), \"Beyond Pain: Job, Jesus, and Joy\" (Twenty-Third Publications), \"The First Year: Hypothyroidism, Second Edition\" (Perseus) and \"Taking Charge of Lupus: How to Manage the Disease and Make the Most of Your LIfe.\" She writes the syndicated column, \"Living Well,\" for Catholic News Service, and has also written for Saint Anthony Messenger Magazine, Journey for Women Magazine, The Upper Room Magazine, LupusNow, and Arthritis Today. Maureen's health continues to be a challenge, however she feels honored to be able to bring her perspective, from experience and knowledge, to others. \"Good Days...Bad Days with Maureen Pratt\" is a new way for Maureen to reach people who carry the burden of illness and pain in their lives, or who care for someone who does. Through the blog, she hopes to bring issues of health, wellness, and spirit into focus and, especially, inspire others that, no matter what health challenges, illness, or hardships they endure, each person can find a good way to realize the wonderful potential God has placed within each heart and soul.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.maureenpratt.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/author\/mpratt"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}