8 unexpected ways chronic illness can benefit & empower you
There are benefits to living with chronic illness… say what?!
Yes, absolutely there are! But it’s a ‘can’ rather than an ‘always’. I.e., if you live with your chronic illness as your ally, not as your enemy, you get to experience all these benefits and more.
Want to know what I’m talking about? Check out Your Chronic Illness Ally here.
Being able to work with your chronic illness, living at peace with your chronic illness allows you to revel in these perks. It’s kind of like a huge amount of cash money being rained down on you, and you taking to the floor to make a money angel in it all.
So, what are those benefits, you ask?
1. Your chronic illness is your inner guidance system.
Living with chronic illness is like living with an extra level of intelligence. It’s like a system upgrade. Of course, the Capitalist, patriarchal, consumerist conditioning tells us that it’s a system malfunction, but I don’t see it that way. In fact, I see it as our bodies doing exactly what they’re designed to do; communicate with us.
2. It encourages to love yourself just as you are.
I’m not saying this one is easy, but it’s so worth it. Learning to love and accept yourself - and to show yourself compassion and understanding - when you live with chronic illness; something that society tells us = broken, malfunctioning, needs fixing, doesn’t fit in, is MEGA!
Learning to love yourself just as you are is a mountain to climb but the view at the top is breathtaking.
3. Chronic illness nudges you to free yourself from a way of life that doesn’t work for you.
Living with chronic illness is like the biggest nudge to find a way of living that works for you and your very unique being. Because when you’re going against what works, your body will let you know (listen to that!)
The expectations, status-quo and societal norms? You can say goodbye to those. And what’s better is that you can use your chronic illness to guide you and help you figure out what does work for you and what is aligned.
4. It helps you get really good at establishing boundaries
There are certain things that will be a hell no for you when living with chronic illness. Now, these things will change depending what season of your chronic illness you’re in, but it’s a great idea to start establishing some boundaries to protect your energy, your headspace and your inner safety.
It can be hard to establish boundaries at the best of times, but when your body is giving you some pretty firm signals by way of your chronic illness, establishing and maintaining boundaries becomes a no-brainer.
5. Your chronic illness acts as a great filter.
Please don’t mistake this one for ‘because you have ‘greater needs’ and some people won’t like that’. It’s not that. (All humans have needs!)
See above RE boundaries and living a way of life that works for you; it’s not because ‘you’re a lot’ (you’re not and you’re allowed to take up space). There will be some people you encounter, or who are already in your life, that don’t like boundaries, that don’t like you living free from expectations and the status quo (usually because they want to and feel they can’t). They will make themselves known and either it’ll be something that you can work through together and have a ‘team’ growth experience (yay to that), OR, they’ll phase out of your life. Both are OK!
6. You grow to be as resilient as heck!
There’s no doubt about it Folk living with chronic illness are resilient as heck!!! Yes, you might think different, again because the conditioning says chronic illness = weak, but that couldn’t be further from the truth! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; in any kind of emergency or disaster, I’d choose to be surrounded by the chronic illness community any day of the week.
A slight caveat to this one; resilience doesn’t = ‘always positive’ or ‘unshakeably strong’. It means whatever it means to be a resilient living, breathing, emotion-ing human.
7. It helps you develop great communication Skills
Those needs we talked about earlier? You’re great at communicating them, because you’ve learned to be.
8. Chronic illness helps you get to know your body really well
This is an extension of your inner guidance system, or perhaps a precursor. Because you’ve become used to looking out for when you’re ‘triggered’, you sense when things don’t feel right, you sense when your energy is being taken advantage of, you sense when something is a whole, full body YES! Trust your body, it’s bloody brilliant.
So there you have it, 8 unexpected benefits you can experience when living with chronic illness.
If you’ve read this and thought, eh?! I don’t get it! It might be a good time to get curious (without judgement) about whether you’re living with your chronic illness as your Ally, or whether you’re living within The Chronic Illness Struggle; aka the ‘fix, resist, fight, reject’ narrative.
I want to round off this post by saying that tuning into the benefits of living with chronic illness isn’t about toxic positivity or brushing your true feelings under the rug. Even when you’re living with your chronic illness as your Ally, you will still face challenges, you will still experience discomfort (just you’ll work through those things in a different way than what’s ‘expected'), but knowing how to hold multiple truths and spending time nurturing the gratitude you have for your body provides a new perspective to this whole chronic illness thing.
Can you think of any more? I’d love you to let me know - pop me an email.
I’m Alana, Chronic Illness Coach, Writer and Podcaster
After 10 years of trying to fix, fight and ‘cure’ my chronic illness, I decided to chuck away the rule book and instead embrace my chronic illness as my guide, ally and superpower… and I’ve never been happier or healthier!
