For the first few months, when debilitating body pain was causing me to black out every other day, everyday living started becoming challenging.

For many days, just walking a few hundred steps triggered a pain flare-up. 1:1 yoga therapy sessions were causing me to curl up in pain at the end of each class. I found another style of yoga, thinking maybe the teacher didn’t know how to work with my condition.

With the right teacher, the right class, and the right attitude, I would finally be able to work out! If I did yoga regularly, it would heal my body, and maybe the pain episodes would go away. (This is what I later realised was called magical thinking!)

Every morning, when my alarm woke me up at 6 am to go to class, I would have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I would drag myself to the yoga class and keep a countdown of the time I had to endure before I could leave politely.

I did my best in the class, but I was getting frustrated watching others do so well in class, especially older people who were so flexible and fit.

I was discouraged. Here I was at the prime of my life, with most of my life energy leaking away. I gave myself permission to do only as much as I could without pushing my body. I told myself everyone is different, so don’t measure your progress by another’s yardstick. Nothing melted the resistance to go to class in the morning.

At one point, a three-day break turned into a seven-day break and then a month’s break. I did not want to go to class anymore.

Around this time, I had my first master health checkup to see if anything else was going on with my body that would explain the chronic pain and fatigue. It turned out that I had Type 2 Fatty liver, and I needed to lose weight urgently. When I asked the doctor for some tips, she looked at me and said, “It is tough to lose weight. It takes time. You eat a balanced diet, exercise and work with your stress.”

Ah, exercise! What was I to do with exercise? My body wasn’t supportive of any kind of exertion at that point, so I was lost as to what I could do.

In the book “How to be Sick”, Toni Bernhard explores the wise attitudes we could take when we are not feeling well.

Here are my three takeaways from the “Turnarounds and Transformation” section, which has six chapters on working with our attitudes, thoughts and perspectives. In the earlier edition, we explored turnarounds that Toni presents in the context of Byron Katie’s teachings.

1. Working with All or Nothing Thinking

2. Cultivating Flexibility of Strategies

3. Staying in the Present Moment

The All or Nothing Mindset

This particular cognitive distortion, “All or Nothing Thinking”, is a source of great fear and limitation in our lives, especially if we are chronically ill.

Toni talks about this with a poignance that touched my heart.

If yoga and physical exercise were making my fatigue and pain worse, does this mean I give up on all exercise? If walking for 30 minutes sent me scurrying back to my bed with a flare-up, do I give up walking?

These thoughts cause us to make decisions without consciously thinking about them. “Oh, walking causes pain, so I will not walk today. End of story.”

Shining the light of awareness on these thought patterns, examining them and holding them with kindness becomes essential practice and a way to cultivate wise attitudes towards whatever is meeting us at this moment.

Cultivating Flexibility of Strategies

Continuing with my physical activity example, I had a moment of realisation that somewhere in the world, there would be an exercise form that I would not dread to do. Something that my body would enjoy doing and I would look forward to it.

This was like searching for a needle in a haystack. I wasn’t even sure if that particular needle existed. It took me some work to realise this was another All or Nothing thought pattern. Facepalm.

While pondering this, I decided to walk for 10 minutes every day. My nutritionist insisted that I walk for 60 minutes; anything less than that, even 30 minutes, wouldn’t affect any change in my body.

I had to ignore her and started walking for 10 minutes a few times a week. This was low enough to overcome my resistance to get out of the house and walk. Slowly, over some time (and with the help of Apple Rings), I increased the duration to 20 minutes, gradually increasing to 45 minutes.

It took me 15 months to go from 10 minutes a day to 45 minutes. I also noticed that when I increased my walking duration to 60 minutes, my body would respond with a pain flare-up. So, I have to be mindful and not exert my body beyond this point right now. But now and then, I would stretch my duration slightly to see if my body has built tolerance.

Staying in the Present Moment

Toni says in the book, “Many people, regardless of their religious affiliation, found that starting a meditation practice was the single most helpful treatment they’d tried.”

In our previous editions of this newsletter, we have explored how to establish a meditation practice and cultivate a lifelong meditation practice.

In summary, working with our second arrow, reframing our thoughts and staying in the present moment is not just training for living with chronic illness, but for life.

Exploration of the book

We will continue exploring this book in the next edition, too.

Write to Me!

I’d love to know if you will pick this book up to read. If you have a chronic illness, please do let me know what would be helpful topics to cover as I write this newsletter.

As a parting thought, I will finish this edition with a story.

The Gates of Paradise

A soldier named Nobushige came to Hakuin and asked: “Is there really a paradise and a hell?”

“Who are you?” inquired Hakuin.

“I am a samurai,” the warrior replied.

“You, a soldier!” exclaimed Hakuin. “What kind of ruler would have you as his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar.”

Nobushige became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin continued: “So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably much too dull to cut off my head.”

As Nobushige drew his sword, Hakuin remarked: “Here, open the gates of hell!”

At these words, the samurai, perceiving the master’s discipline, sheathed his sword and bowed.

“Here, open the gates of paradise,” said Hakuin.