Knowing When It's Time to Fight or Surrender with a Chronic Illness

How do we know when it’s time to fight or time to surrender? When we have a chronic illness we have to push through to have some quality of life but this also means that we are often pushing past our pain comfort in order to live.

So how do we find that perfect balance, in order to retain some quality if life whilst also being compassionate?

Do we wait to receive signs from the universe to give us clear directions?

Do we learn to listen to our bodies and intuit what's right.

Do we manage our spoons wisely and structure our time well?

When you live with a Chronic Illness there is a daily battle that asks us to question whether we should push through or surrender to the numerous health issues that arise. In my experience, knowing when to chose what's right, comes from a state of awareness; It comes from a higher level of consciousness and the ability to notice the difference between ego thoughts, based in fear, or those from the higher self, based in love.

The first step is to start to become the observer of our thoughts and simply notice the difference between the thoughts that occur.

Typically the ego voice is more preoccupied with action and doing. It asks us to compare, reach goals and sets unrealistic standards. Heart messages come from a higher guidance and tend to talk through the language of love and compassion. Knowing the difference between this internal dialogue can help you decide which thoughts to surrender to and which to push through.

Michael Singer in 'The Untethered Soul' suggests that we become the watcher of our thoughts by simply noticing what they are doing. Becoming a fly on the wall to our emotional reactions and allowing them to manifest with love is key. If we can take a moment to step back and create reflective questions that analyse the thoughts that arise we can ascertain the truth.

Most of us spend our entire lives allowing our thoughts to run on auto-pilot and the destructive ones can wreak havoc in our lives. Taking the time to reflect on these simple questions can help us find balance and harmony with our complex health concerns.

A tool I use to differentiate between the ego voice and that of my higher self is presence.

This state can be reached though sensory grounding exercises, by connecting to nature and breathing deeply into the love that is all around us.

Here's a quick sensory grounding exercise that you might use to connect with your higher self.

Start by reminding yourself of the main senses: Sound, sight, smell, taste, touch and take a walk in nature to practice this.

Sound: Listen to the interactions of people, the birds singing, wind blowing in the trees and anything that fills your environment with pure acceptance and love.

Sight: Notice the colours in the sky, trees, flowers and animals and evoke visuals.

Taste: Take a drink with you on your walk and let the sensations of taste ground and soothe you.

Touch: Use your hands and feet to ground yourself in your environment by walking bare foot in nature or holding fragments of the earth in your hands.

Smell: You might start by observing the smells on a nice walk in nature: freshly mowed grass, flowers, plants, trees all emit micro-bio properties that can heal and transform in many ways.

To sustain the healing energy that occurs through this process we can also use affirmations such as:

In the infinity of life where I stand all is perfectly whole and complete.

Sonia Ricotte states:

Surrender to what is. Let go of what was and have faith in what will be...

We know when it is the right time to surrender when we can learn to accept the voice of our higher self and this can be achieved through a simple grounding exercises such as this.

Michael Singer says it perfectly:

There is nothing more important to true growth than realising that you are not the voice of your mind - You are the one who hears it! The Untethered Soul.