Chronic Wellness

Chronic Wellness

By Annette LeonardHealth & Fitness
Download on the App Store

Chronic Wellness episodes

  • Episode 046: How Do You Manage The Guilt Of Chronic Illness? Get It Out
    In this episode I'm examining the ways I manage living with the guilt that is inherent in living with chronic illness.
    How can writing help expel our guilt?
    What does being uncensored do for helping me to examine or reveal my feelings?
    What rituals might further add to to the ability to surrender or release some of this guilt?
    These are some of the questions I'm exploring.
    5 min
  • Episode 045: How Do You Manage The Guilt Of Chronic Illness? Be With It
    How is guilt like a hollow point bullet?
    If I can acknowledge that it doesn't benefit me or those I'm feeling it for/about, what can I do about the guilt I feel?
    What happens if I sit with the discomfort of my guilt?
    What benefits can come when I get quiet and try to be with the guilt?
    These are some of the questions I'm exploring in this episode in this series on how to manage the guilt that accompanies chronic illness.
    5 min
  • Episode 044: How Do You Manage The Guilt Of Chronic Illness? Expose It
    Sick,ill,illness,chronic,chronic illness,chronic disease,quality of life,wellness,health,wholeness,autoimmune,self-care,autoimmune disease,immunosuppressed,fulfillment,contentment,happiness,satisfaction,chronic wellness,soul comfort,what to do when depleted,genuine comfort,I am enough,chronic illness and marriage,chronic illness and relationships,chronic illness and guilt,how to manage guilt,guilt and shame
    In this episode I talk again about Brene Brown's work and how shame and guilt are bedfellows.
    What happens when we talk about our guilt?
    When I tell the story of my guilt, does it lessen or dissipate?
    Do I regularly hold myself to standards I don't expect of others?
    I explore these questions and others as I talk about how to manage the guilt that accumulates in living with chronic illness.
    4 min
  • Episode 042: Do You Have A Lot Of Guilt With Chronic Illness? Surviving
    Outliving predicted expiration dates and others who have illnesses in common with me but have not as lucky, I have the typical survivor's guilt. But then I have another shade of guilt -- one that tells me if I would have died, I wouldn't be burdening my wife by living.
    What are the varieties of guilt that accompany survival?
    How does my continued existence impact my family and friends?
    This video explores these and other questions.
    6 min
  • Episode 041: Do You Have A Lot Of Guilt With Chronic Illness? Showing Up
    Because chronic illness shifts identity and how I move through the world, that has implications for me and my experience of guilt. In this video I examine these questions and more:
    When I feel unreliable, how does that impact me and my loved ones?
    What's it like to not be able to show up for our friends and family?
    How has my unreliability manifest as guilt?
    4 min
  • Episode 040: Do You Have A Lot Of Guilt With Chronic Illness? The Small Stuff
    In this episode I'm addressing the question "do you have a lot of guilt with chronic illness?" I'm looking at these questions:
    How do my limitations impact others?
    How do the little things, the minutiae add up?
    In what ways do others have to carry the burdens because of my illnesses?
    I have guilt about how much others -- specifically my wife, have to pick up the slack because of my inability to contribute in meaningful, physical, ways.
    4 min
  • Episode 038: What Are The Gifts Of Chronic Illness? Connecting To My Body
    In today's episode I'm talking about the gifts chronic illness has offered me. One of these gifts has been cultivating better connections to my physical self.
    How does illness push me to shift into my physical experience?
    What opportunities do I have to attend to myself differently?
    How am I often paying so much attention to others' needs that I don't notice my own?
    Learning how to attune and listen to my body's needs has been a profound gift of prolonged sickness.
    6 min
  • Episode 038: What Are The Gifts Of Chronic Illness? Getting My Needs Met
    In this episode I'm discussing the ways in which chronic illness has brought me different gifts, today's gift: learning how to get my needs met.
    I'm the expert on me. While I have LOTS of good help, I have to drive that help. If I'm at the doctor, or need care, I'm the one who knows what it feels like in my body or what care is most needed. I have to verbalize that to make things known.
    I study how others get their needs met and ask for help. No request has become too big or too small.
    8 min
  • Episode 037: What Are The Gifts Of Chronic Illness? Friendships And My Natural Resources
    In today's episode I'm talking about some of the gifts of chronic illness and exploring the gift of permission.
    How did I use sick as an out when I wasn't strong enough to say "no" when I needed to?
    How can I hold boundaries without using my illness as the reason?
    What is the difference between relying on "sick" as the reason and my needs being reason enough?
    The gift of permission is knowing that I am enough of a reason to choose myself.
    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.