Reframing Chronic Illness – Details, episodes & analysis

Learning the same lessons over and over again is all a part of this journey we call life, so why does it feel so new and surprising when it happens?!

An update on my Year of Adventure, and why it's SO OK that it's not going to plan.

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

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Do I have a problem with productivity, what is ‘productivity’ anyway and why have I applied it to a part of my life that doesn’t need it? In today's episode,I explore how a dormant belief about needing to be productive has thwarted my Year of Adventure, and what I'm going to do about it.

LINKS:

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

A link to my Substack https://onfiguringitout.substack.com - I'd love to say hello to you over there!

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I’m finally here with the season 4 finale. I wanted it to be really conclusive but honestly, that’s just fuelling my procrastination. So now I am going to close out the season with a stream of consciousness, what’s on my mind, what’s next, 4 semi-unrelated thoughts that I can’t shake so need to talk about, kind of episode!

I'll be back with season 5 sometime later this year, so for now, the best place to connect with me is via my newsletter.

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

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My friends, today is the final guest episode of S4! I will be brining you some kind of season finale next week, but I just want to take a moment today to celebrate and thank all the guests who I’ve chatted to this season…there’s been something of a shift that’s happened, that I’ll talk more about next week. But for sure, that shift has been hugely facilitated by this group of wonderful humans.

So, for this last episode, I’m talking to Caitlin Gwynn; a friend and fellow small business owner who is so full of colour in every possible way. Caitlin is a creativity coach and small business cheerleader and she believes creativity makes the world go round. Caitlin sincerely believes that creativity makes her a better business owner and prioritising her own creative needs and play time during a period of burnout whilst running her online business has lead to her helping others do the same! 

Caitlin creates experiences to help you bring the fun back to freelancing and, to help you unleash your own unique creative self expression… and rumour has it she is about to launch a podcast of her own.

LINKS:

Caitlin's webiste - https://caitlinthecreative.co.uk/

- https://www.instagram.com/caitlin_makes_stuff/?hl=en

MY LINKS:

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

Creativity, or creative self-expression, for me, has always been an outlet during my journey with my health, and in life in general.

What I didn’t expect, however, was to discover how so much of the creative process, how so much of learning to express yourself, can be used as a metaphor and as a training ground for healing and learning to live at peace with your chronic illness.

She’s a beam of light and her creative superhero ways are infectious.

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Today I’m chatting with a long time coach of mine, Ray Dodd.

Ray is a Money Coach who helps those who have traditionally been excluded from making money, to make life-changing amounts of money. All without compromising who they are. 

Ray is a money coach with a difference. You won’t hear ‘just think good thoughts and watch the money come rolling in’ from her. Ray believes that money, business and intersectional feminism are inextricably linked and that there’s a lot more to making money than just trying to manifesting it.

I wanted to bring the subject of money to the podcast because I think - I know - it’s something that can feel sticky for chronic illness folk. I’m not just talking about the very silent shame-filled reality that so many - including me at points in my life - have to step away from work - and therefore money making in the traditional sense - due to chronic illness.

I’m also referring to the link between self-worth and belief and money (which Ray is a wondermind on - and how when our sense of self or self concept is low, along with ourselves we can fall into the pattern of assign a lower monetary value to what we have to offer to the world in terms of our expertise, skills and loved experience.

There’s loads more we talk about, but I’ll leave that to the actual episode! I know you’re going to love it.

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

LINKS:

My affiliate link to Plenty - https://www.alanaholloway.com/affiliate-services

Your Chronic Illness Ally - https://www.alanaholloway.com/work-with-me/chronic-illness-ally

Ray's website - https://www.raydodd.co.uk/

Ray's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ray_dodd/?hl=en

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Today I’m speaking with Shana Pareira, and it’s conversation that has the most wonderful underlying message. Born in Australia and an immigrant to the US, Shana is what you call a thieving double organ recipient, having had a Heart and Kidney transplant during Christmas of 2020. She is described as a walking miracle, an answered prayer and has spread inspiration and hope, particularly with the way in which she handled her illness and physical struggles.

The underlying message came from Shana’s story, is something that’s present in us all, even if you don’t yet realise it. We don’t often connect living with chronic illness with having big dreams, and yet it’s something most of us do daily. All the time we’re on that path, working towards a life that feels better, more easeful, more joyful - we’re building a skill that we can then go on to use throughout the rest of life. 

Shana mentions a few times that she is ‘nothing special’. That she wasn’t born stronger or more determined or more resilient, and that what she has been able to do, anyone can. And it’s true, none of us is more special than the next person, and yet we are all completely special. We all have that inner strength, resilience, determination and desire and we are already using it every day.

What I’d love you to think about sometime is, how else could you use all of that?

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I did. All of Shana’s links are below.

Shana's website - https://shanapereira.com/

Shana's Instagram - @shana_pereira

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

Episode notes:

3:00 - Shana’s story. Curating a medical team & getting curious, tuning into yourself, your senses, your body, to help you do that.

9:00 - On finding the strength to advocate for yourself, to ask for what you need and want, when you’re in crisis mode, at a really low ebb.

10:45 - On breaking things into small, actionable steps. Taking action no matter how you feel, by finding out how you CAN, and what you need to do, to tweak, to design, to make that possible.

13:45 - On not attaching yourself to labels and descriptions - removing descriptors whilst also validating and embracing your experience.

16:00 - The mastery of being present, making the things you *have* to do, easier to do with fun and joy, and rituals that make you feel good.

28:00 - Working in partnership with your medical team, dismantling the hierarchy that exists and bringing only the people who align with you into your healing team.

35:00 - Being tuned in; is it something you innately have or is it something you develop?

38:45 - Faith, what that looks like, how it looks different for all of us, and why it’s important when living with chronic illness. Shana’s near death experience.

58:00 - How do we deal with situations outside of our control?

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In this episode, I’m talking with Ruth Poundwhite, an aligned business coach and mentor who has been claiming and redefining the word ambitious for herself, over the years she’s been running her business, making it work for her in a way that feels good.

She helps fellow humans build businesses that are ambitious and intuitive, and that allows them to honour their whole selves, unapologetically.

She’s author of the book Quietly Ambitious and host of a podcast of the same name. You can find her @ruthpoundwhite on Instagram.

There’s so much to be talked about around being a person who lives with chronic illness, and also being a person who is ambitious, who has big dreams and desires, and who wants to live an incredible life. I myself, in the past, have asked whether I had what it took to hold all these things at once, and saw myself looking down the barrel of a life consumed by chronic illness. I now know and believe that we can use our dreams and ambitions to help us out of the chronic illness struggle, and we can use our chronic illness to guide us in our dreams and ambitions.

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

We also talked about;

- (Over) identifying with labels and struggles vs. allowing yourself to see them as gifts.

- Not allowing the fear of judgement - around the way you choose to live your life (with chronic illness) - to stop you.

- The visibility and vulnerability that comes with claiming your dreams and ambitions, and supporting yourself to 'go there'.

2:45 - Ambition and chronic illness - can they work together? How do the two relate?

5:30 - Labels and how they affect the way we view ambition. When ambition feels like something that isn’t for you. Being excluded from being ambitious, having big dreams and wanting to make big things happen.

8:45 - How Ruth started claiming and reshaping ambition into something that worked for her.

13:00 - Does everyone have ambition within them, or is it something only some people have?

16:30 - Ruth’s journey with chronic fatigue and holding her ambition

17:45 - The conversation around being worthy of, or having ‘permission’ to, following your dreams when you live with chronic illness

22:45- Fear of judgement around chronic illness and how you choose to live with your chronic illness.

28:30 - How does ambition feed us?

28:45 - When we over identify with the struggles of our ‘labels’, and when struggles can become gifts.

31:45 - When all your ambition is used up on the ‘goal’ of becoming ‘healed’

34:00 - Being seen, visibility, vulnerability and ambition and allowing yourself to ‘go there’ in a way that feels safe. The desire for invisibility when you live with chronic illness.

43:00 - How do we expand our identity and self concept when we feel attached to invisibility or labels, or conditioned to feel a certain way about ourselves.

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Agnes is an artist, science communicator and creator of We Are Stardust - a place where art and science collide to enrich your experience of and relationship with our messy, beautiful universe.

She creates artwork that inspires connection with the more-than-human world and online adventures that encourage you to rewild your soul.

Based in Bedfordshire, UK, she works from a little office-studio in her home filled with sketches and books and sticks and pine cones and plants.

We talk about the synergies between the night sky and our bodies - We Are Stardust after all, but also knowledge vs. experience, information vs. understanding of this whole world - both human and planetary - we live in.

I see many similarities between climate change and chronic illness, especially in how we, as a society, believe we should ‘deal with them’. Agnes has a beautiful perspective on how to live in harmony with this planet, this universe, we are a part of, how to see beauty in the darkness and how, ultimately, this can all help with the way we approach things like winter and climate change, and in my mind, the relationship we have with our bodies and our chronic illnesses.

Other things we covered;

• Resisting winter when it’s exactly what we need to feel and be in, in order to know what we need to know.
• Healing productivity and eternal summer - always being ‘on’. 
• Fertile void and allowing yourself to stop.
• Stargazing.

LINKS:

We Are Stardust - Agnes' website - https://wearestardust.myshopify.com/

We Are Stardust Instagram

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

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How does sex show up in your life with chronic illness, whether you’re in a relationship or not?

Is it something that’s changed over the time you’ve lived with chronic illness and if so, have you ever made that connection?

Is it something you’d like to improve your relationship with, your feelings about… would you like to know how to talk about it more openly and honestly, but don’t know where to start?

If we want it to, sex gets to feel fun, loving, pleasurable and enjoyable. We get to have it in our lives as something we do to connect with our bodies and desire, and with that of others, if we choose to. It gets to be really positive thing, not only in our lives, but for our health, too. 

But to do that, we need to start thinking differently about it; about how we approach it, how we talk about it and how we understand it.

Today, I’m discussing all of that and more with Kate Moyle, a Psychosexual and Relationship Therapist, Psycho-sexologist and host of The Sexual Wellness Sessions Podcast. 

She works in talking therapy to help people to address the challenges they are facing in their sex lives and relationships, and to help people to get to a place of sexual health, wellbeing and happiness whatever that looks like for them.

Kate has also just worked on The Women’s Collection with the meditation app Headspace, so defo go and check that out.

You can find Kate on her own podcast, The Sexual Wellness Sessions, and on Instagram @katemoyletherapy

She also brilliantly recommended a whole host of sexual wellness brands who have created products, tools and resources to add to our sex lives, from apps to stackable buffer rings. I’ve linked them all in the show notes, go and have a gander.

LINKS:

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

Bang on - sex cushions and sex wedges

Lelo - sex toys & massage products (available most places)

Vulval pain society

Ferly - audio guide to mindful sex

Ohnut - stackable buffer rings

Dr Lori Brotto - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/defining-mindful-sex-with-dr-lori-brotto/id1527311547?i=1000493430593

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What do dreams and ambitions mean and look like in the context of living with chronic illness and how can we hold them in a way that fosters all of that nourishment and nurturing and softeners that feels so good?

I deeply believe that holding dreams and ambitions are a key part of our chronic illness journey and life and healing journey as a whole. The can exist in symbiosis with the wisdom and intelligence of our bodies and chronic illness, and actually it’s beneficial that they do.

Dreams and ambitions are relative and unique to each one of us and however small or big, they have the potential to affect this world in a really positive way. It’s the ACT of big dreaming. It’s the ACT of having ambition - however gentle or slow or big or inspiring. It’s the EXPERIENCE of awe.

Your Chronic Illness Superpower: click here to tap into the wisdom of your chronic illness and start living in the way you truly want to be living, from the day-to-day to the big dream stuff.

Email me at hello[at]alanaholloway.com if you have any questions or just want to say hi!

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