Bouncing Back: Finding Energy Resilience
by Lucia Amsden
For many of us who are living with chronic illness, loss of energy is a primary concern. We look back with yearning to an earlier time in our lives, when our energy seemed boundless. We think about how we have gone from seeing how much we could pack into our day, to wondering how we will even get through it.
Each time we wake up in the grip of fatigue, or have to cancel an anticipated lunch with a friend, or find ourselves dreading a vacation that should fill us with eager anticipation, we face again the energy gap that separates us from the lives we would like to live.
We particularly feel the energy gap as we see others around us continuing with the hustle and bustle that seem to define a useful and productive life. We look across the chasm and feel slow, inadequate, and out of the flow of the world.
There are tools, however, that can help us overcome our energy limitations. One especially useful concept for dealing with energy limitations is that of energy resilience. When we are more energy resilient, we are less likely to be drained by events and circumstances. Our energy levels rebound more quickly and completely.
As is often the case, awareness is where we must begin. We all know we have an energy gap to deal with, but we need to be aware that our energy level is dependent on more than just our physical condition. Our thoughts and emotions also play a large part in how much energy we feel.
There is a powerful connection between our bodies and our minds. The challenges of our illnesses can make us feel negative about ourselves, about those around us, and even about our lives in general, and that is a major cause of low energy. We’ve all been through the down times, when we are unhappy, frustrated, or sad, and we are more familiar than we would like to be with the feeling of being drained that results.
On the other hand we have all experienced happy times, periods when we lived less in our illness and more in the rest of our lives. Those are times of good energy—we flow along with our friends and the events around us. The mind-body connection has a huge impact on how we feel in any given moment.
Neuroscience tells us that due to the fight or flight response, humans have a tendency to believe negative thoughts more readily than positive ones. We also know that when we generate a negative thought, stress chemicals activate in our brain. When we express a negative thought out loud, stress chemicals increase even more. To counteract this, Barbara Fredrickson, a noted psychologist, has demonstrated that it takes three to five positive thoughts to counteract the effects of a single negative one.
We also know that consistently thinking positively enhances our well-being. In their book, Words Can Change Your Brain, Andrew Newberg, M.D., and Mark Robert Waldman describe a landmark study that involved a large group of adults. Participants were asked at the end of each day to write down three things that went well for them, and a brief explanation of why. Newberg and Waldman discovered that over the next three months there was a marked increase in happiness for the participants, and feelings of depression continued to decrease even after the writing project ceased.
There is a voice in our mind that can help us move toward more positive thinking: that of our inner observer. Calling our inner observer into service is kind of like hiring a private investigator. Our inner observer can investigate and monitor with detachment what’s going on within us. With the help of our observer, we can become aware of the nature of our thoughts, especially the ones that seem to be operating beyond our control.
We instruct our observer to particularly let us know when we get into critical or anxious thoughts such as, “I am exhausted,” or “I am inadequate,” or “I will never get better.” Then we can do something about it.
We aren’t doing this to be critical of ourselves or of our negative thoughts (that’s just another negative thought), or to reach the unrealistic place where a negative thought never enters our minds. Our intent is to monitor our thoughts, and offset the negative ones with things that turn us to the positive side.
When we find our minds running with negativity, for instance, we can break in by asking ourselves, “What can I do in this moment to feel better?” Taking simple actions that pull us out of the negative loop, such as paying attention to our breath, drinking a refreshing glass of cool water, or focusing on a person we are grateful for, can put us in positive territory. Sometimes just a simple mantra or positive word said to ourselves, such as “peace,” “love,” or “home” can help.
There are many other things we can do—build activities in our day that help us connect with our spiritual nature, surround ourselves with more positive open-hearted people, fill our lives with more laughter. Not only will we begin to release ourselves from negative thoughts cycles, but we will strengthen our inner core where resiliency resides. A few more suggestions are offered below.
Sometimes a small positive ceremony can be used to bring light to each day. Jill, a good friend of mine, recently described to me how she and her husband, who was in the last stages of cancer, would write down and discuss what they were grateful for each day. She said that for those few minutes they were able to transcend the pain and sadness and share moments of gratefulness.
There is an old Cherokee legend about a boy who received the gift of a beautiful drum. When his best friend saw the drum and wanted to play with it, the boy felt torn. He told his friend no because he didn’t want to share, and his friend ran away.
He sat on a rock and thought about his dilemma. He hated the fact that he had hurt his friend, but he thought the drum was too special to share. He went to his wise grandfather for advice.
His grandfather said to the little boy, “I often feel as if I have two wolves inside of me. One wolf is greedy and mean and the other is kind and peaceful. You, my boy, have the same two wolves.”
“Which one will win?” asked the boy. The elder smiled and said, “The one you feed”.
We each have our own two wolves. We enhance our energy resilience when we focus on feeding the positive one.
Five Ways to Feed Your Resilience
- Foster your spirit—Meditate, pray, walk in the park
- Think New Thoughts—Take a mini-course, attend a lecture, read a book
- Feed Your Creativity—Write a poem (anyone can), paint, garden, sew, sing, doodle
- Touch more—Give hugs, cuddle more, pet the dog
- Be of service—Phone a troubled friend, make a donation, volunteer
NOTE: This article was published in the Spring 2014 issue of the National Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain Life Magazine.