Chronic Wellness

Chronic Wellness

By Annette LeonardHealth & Fitness
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Chronic Wellness episodes

  • Episode 205: Coronavirus/COVID - 19 Making Space
    You know what it's like when your arms are completely full?
    You can't accept anything more, you can't release anything you're holding when someone offers.
    How is this similar to what we're experiencing right now?
    For new systems to arise, for creative problem solving, we must make space.
    What can you release?
    What can you let go of?
    What is required of you, of us?
    How can we each make a difference?
    For me, I'm writing down the things that are making me afraid, so I can see them in black and white, so I can confront them.
    I'm surrendering some of these fears, I'm letting go of some of them.
    6 min
  • Episode 204: Coronavirus/COVID - 19 Old Dog, New Trick
    We have a dinner song for our dogs.
    One of our dogs during the dinner song hops over a foam roller.
    We decided to improve her trick by getting her to jump through a hoop.
    What did she do when we first put out the hoop? She wanted nothing to do with the hoop. She wouldn't even go though it, she went around.
    This seemed like a perfect metaphor for COVID-19.
    Admittedly, some of this pandemic is new: it's our first world stopping pandemic, we've never been asked to home-isolate before, there is financial insecurity for so many of us, etc. And yet, much of what people are so anxious about, we are familiar with: we know how a virus spreads, we know a lot about this virus in particular, we know how to stay safe. And still, we are responding like Mable. We're going around the hoop. Behaving a bit irrationally in a lot of ways.
    Let's learn how to do this better and figure out how to go through the hoop.
    4 min
  • Episode 203: The Coronavirus/COVID - 19 - Try Analog
    I started this whole broadcast because I live with chronic illnesses and I want to talk about how we keep ourselves well on the inside, how we have spiritual wellness.
    That seems particularly important right now during the specter of COVID-19.
    One of the ways to increase your spiritual wellness is to go analog.
    It is so easy to always be on our devices, phones, laptops, tablets, TVs.
    While parents are actively trying to limit children's screen-time. What about our screen-time?
    Set a timer, put your phone in a cupboard or turn it off. Take a phone sabbath.
    See how time away from your devices makes you feel.
    Time to connect with yourself, or with others, or doing activities that make you feel alive, might fill you up with a greater degree of satisfaction than the digital sources you're ingesting.
    I'd be glad to hear from you about how this worked or why it didn't.
    I've got an upcoming interview with the author of the book, "The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness." for information about how to win a copy, check my social media: Facebook: Annette Leonard Twitter: @annette_leonard Instagram: @theannetteleonard
    6 min
  • Episode 202: The Coronavirus/COVID - 19 - The One You Feed
    My friends and the people I coach are experiencing a lot of anxiety, much of it unfounded.
    I think the news is preying on our worries, and isolation is certainly contributing to this as well.
    I'm reminded about the parable about the wolves.
    When the grandson tells his grandfather about the two wolves battling for dominance inside him and asks which one will win. His grandfather responds, "the one you feed."
    This seems relevant to what we're experiencing now.
    Am I feeding my fear or my joy? Am I nourishing my hopes and confidence or my anxiety and anger?
    I'm not saying we have to set aside our worries, but we should not be feeding and growing them by behaviors that exacerbate them.
    Tune in, I've got an upcoming interview with the author of the book, "The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness." for information about how to win a copy, check my social media:
    Facebook: Annette Leonard
    Twitter: @annette_leonard
    Instagram: @theannetteleonard
    4 min
  • Episode 201: The Coronavirus?COVID - 19: Fears
    Anxiety seems to be at a fever pitch.
    There is not any way in which anxiety serves us or makes this time any richer or fuller.
    Do you have candles around your house?
    Have a ritual of lighting a candle and asking for the light to carry the fears and worries on your behalf.
    When we are flooded or overwhelmed, we can light the candle, or if it is already lit be grateful it is carrying the load for us.
    When we pray or ask to be unburdened, we are then supposed to work to surrender those burdens.
    5 min
  • Episode 200: The Coronavirus/COVID - 19: How We Get Through This
    This pandemic is an amplifier, "I'm trapped with the best person!" "I'm trapped with the worst person!"
    Anxieties are off the charts.
    I'm thinking about the question, "Who do I want to be in this disaster?"
    I see the privilege in getting to ask this question.
    My answer, I want to be peace. I don't want to feed into the spin, the lies, the panic. While this disease would likely kill me. However, nothing about losing sleep, losing perspective, or getting short with my loved ones will help protect me.
    Who do you want to be?
    You don't have to be that person when you wake up tomorrow. However, you do have to have that person in your sights so that you can make small decisions, changing your actions, a bit at a time so that you can become that person.
    5 min
  • Episode 199: The Coronavirus/COVID - 19 Routines
    How can you best care for yourself as you shelter in place?
    My next tip: stick to your routines.
    It is easy to let routines slip in the midst of these unprecedented times.
    However, keeping regular meal and bedtimes is best in the long run and best for right now.
    4 min
  • Episode 198: The Coronavirus/COVID - 19: Sources Of Input
    Those of us who have sheltered in place for years because the world is a dirty place know a thing or two about how to socially isolate and stay sane. Over the coming days, I'll be sharing some of my best tips.
    The first is to be vigilant about your sources of input.
    When we are already feeling the collective weight of this strange circumstance, it is all the more important that our sources of input only lift us up.
    If it doesn't feed you and lighten your load, now is not the time for it.
    Now is the time for the Kindness Diaries.
    Do the things that feel gentle, good, eager, more open, and joyful.
    While we are being fed a steady diet of fear and uncertainty, your free time and entertainment do not need to add fuel to that fire.
    6 min
  • Episode 197: The Coronavirus/COVID - 19: What We Can Control
    What does it mean to not be in control?
    Many of us with chronic illness have explored what it means that we are not in control of very much in life.
    This virus is giving the rest of us an opportunity to explore what is under our control.
    What can I control?
    It is easy to say that my attitude is under my control, but it often doesn't feel that way.
    One of the ways I benefit from a contemplative practice is by being able to distinguish and acknowledge my emotions and reactions.
    How are we bigger than this fear?
    What might be freeing about realizing that I'm not in the kind of control I once thought?
    7 min
  • Episode 196: The Coronavirus/COVID - 19: Spreading Fears
    Here we are sheltering in place and socially isolating because of the pandemic.
    How are you managing the anxiety?
    Here are a few stories about friends and how the fear around the coronavirus is impacting them.
    Keep going outside, be in nature, move your body.
    What I'm realizing is that our collective anxiety is at a fever pitch.
    What has been your experience?
    Not wanting to diminish or belittle people's fear, but I want to address what is happening and be a place of peace, be a beacon of calm.
    How can we tap into our collective wisdom and act out of our better selves not our compounding anxiety?
    6 min

About Chronic Wellness

From the publisher's feed

Are you one of the millions living with a chronic illness or pain? Our diseases may be very different, but we have many of the same experiences, obstacles and frustrations. We are all working for a better quality of life knowing that pain and limitations will be our traveling companions. My name is Annette and I'm the host of Chronic Wellness, a brief, weekly, podcast where we talk about it all: sex, self-care, mental heath, loss of identity, anger, how to navigate health care and have less days that suck so hard.