Meeting Yourself Where You Are

This is Charlie. He also lives with chronic illness. In a life of conditions, moments like this are unconditional.

My Chronic Life: Entry Three

I used to define myself by what I could do. I didn't realize it at the time, only now, as I reflect on a life that feels completely different.

I was independent, always pushing my limits through activities like ice climbing, rock climbing, snowboarding, yoga, and horseback riding. Adventure and curiosity shaped who I was. Expanding my physical limits felt like an expansion of self.

My body was my foundation, until chronic illness took many of my abilities away and, with them, the identity I had built as someone constantly moving, exploring, and seeking. That loss carries its own weight. Now, I find myself focused on what comes next. Allowing grief to move through me to create space for new perspectives; somewhere between loss and acceptance.

Chronic illness brings a constant undercurrent of frustration. It is more than physical pain; it is the awareness of the gap between who I was and who I am now. I remember moving freely, climbing, riding, holding strength in my body through yoga. It was something I never had to think about. My body simply showed up.

Now, everything requires awareness. I monitor how I feel, physically, mentally, and emotionally, I plan around limitations and move through my days with caution. Memories that once felt expansive now serve as reminders of how much has changed.

What weighs on me most is not only what I have lost, but what my constraints take from my family as well. Recently, I tried planning a family trip my husband had been looking forward to, I let myself get pulled into the excitement. I researched destinations, imagined the experience, and allowed myself to believe that maybe my body would hold up.

For a while, it felt possible, but as the plans became more real, so did the reminders of my limits, my intolerance to heat, my inability to manage even a short flight without consequences. Slowly, the excitement faded into something more familiar, and it became clear the trip was not going to happen. That sense of holding my family back cuts deeper than any personal loss and reflects how deeply illness can shape not only your own life, but those closest to you.

Last week, I drove my youngest to preschool, went to the dentist, and picked up Easter treats for my children. Three simple errands required constant pacing and breaks. By the evening, I was so exhausted I could not stay awake to put my toddler to bed. He looked at me, told me to lie down, and tucked me into his bed. It was a moment that felt both deeply tender and completely heartbreaking.

I knew I would feel the effects of those errands for days. That gap between the life I once lived and the life my body allows is something I’m still learning to sit with. The frustration can still rise at times, but I am learning to meet myself in those moments as well.

There is also a sense of isolation in how illness is often understood. People try to make sense of it through comparison. I have often heard, "At least you don't have MS." These words are meant with care, but they do not land well. Instead of comfort, they create a sense of being unseen, misunderstood, and they undermine the daily struggle.

With lesser-known conditions, there is often no shared language for understanding. People reach for comparisons to make sense of something unfamiliar, but comparison rarely brings comfort to someone living with daily internal and physiological struggles. What helps is much simpler. Being acknowledged. Hearing, "I'm sorry you're going through this," is enough. There is no need to search for a silver lining on my behalf. I will find that myself, in my own time.

One day, I shared my frustrations with my occupational therapist, and she responded with something simple: "You need to meet your body where it's at, not compare it to your past."

I paused when she said it. I had offered those same words to my students many times, yet I had not fully applied them to myself. Sometimes knowledge needs to be reflected before it becomes embodied.

That moment marked a shift for me. Not a complete transformation, but a change in direction. I began to turn toward what is, instead of what was. I started to reframe how I measured progress, taking pride in smaller achievements and recognizing the strength that still exists in my body today. Meeting your body where it's at sounds simple, and it is, but simple doesn't always mean easy.

I have learned that tying self-worth to independence and physical ability is fragile. It only takes one diagnosis to strip that away. I didn't understand that until living this experience.

Now I sit with a different question: Who am I, if not the curious adventurer or the creative seeker? I am learning to let that question exist without rushing to answer it. There is meaning in this slower space, in the simplicity of daily life, rather than in constantly proving something to myself.

For years, I used my body as a tool, living through it rather than within it. Even after decades of yoga, understanding and embodying are not the same thing. Turning knowledge into lived wisdom takes time, and this experience is what’s finally bringing me there.

Chronic illness forced me to slow down and strip life back to its essentials: wife, mother, and caretaker to our animals. Within that simplicity, I have found a deeper appreciation for the ordinary moments that make up my days. I have also started practicing yoga again, this time with the physical capacity of a beginner but the awareness of an advanced student. It has become an opportunity to reconnect with my body in a more profound and intentional way, bridging what I know with what I embody.

My illness has taken a great deal, but it has also removed the noise that kept me from feeling at home in myself. The noise wasn't just distraction, it was the constant hustle of keeping up, showing up, and trying to get ahead. There was a level of performance I didn't recognize before. When that fell away, what remained was quieter, and truer to me.

For so long, my mind and body felt like opponents. The mind pushing forward while the body followed behind, or the body carrying a weight the mind refused to acknowledge. Ironically, illness collapsed that dichotomy for me. My mind and body had become so separate that I had no choice but to stop fighting and focus on treating the two as one unit. For the first time, I feel the symbiosis, the mind and body coexisting as one.

Symbiosis feels like the wrong word, and yet it's the one that fits. It implies a relationship that benefits both, which is an interesting thing to say about a body that doesn't regulate appropriately, and in turn affects my cognition. The connection between the two isn't perfect, but there's recognition. There's no more guesswork between my mind's interpretation of my body's needs.

My mind can now decipher every subtlety of my body, each internal movement, every sense of stagnation, and every misfire. The forced awareness has created a finely tuned channel between the two, each feeding and receiving from the other. It's not idealistic, because the system is faulty, but the synergy of the connection is deeper than ever before. My interior life and my physical reality finally speak the same language.

This doesn't mean the illness was worth it. It means I'm refusing to let it only be loss.

Acceptance is not something I have fully arrived at. Some days it feels present, and other days it feels distant. Acceptance is its own journey, and I am learning it doesn't have to be complete to be valid.

What I did not expect was how much this forced slowdown would give back to me. Moving carefully and deliberately has created space I did not know I needed. I have always been someone who reflects, but this feels different. It was not chosen; it arrived in the middle of a full and enjoyable life, while I was busy keeping pace with everything I had built.

In that pause, something shifted. I began to meet my children more fully, with presence instead of distraction. I started to see my husband not only as my partner in motion, but as a steady and grounding support, someone who could hold more than I had allowed myself to see before.

Even the mountains have changed for me. From my fields, I no longer see something to conquer, but something to understand. There is a deeper respect that comes with knowing what it truly takes to ascend them. Just like the body, you do not conquer a mountain; you meet it. You listen, you move with it, and you learn its rhythm until each step feels steady and aligned. Somehow seeing the mountains in the distance, with a new lens, has created a deeper understanding and a feeling of more profound connection.

That is the same relationship I am learning with my body. It requires listening, patience, and a deeper level of awareness than I have ever practiced before. I still hold hope that I will climb again one day, perhaps more slowly and with greater connection and intention. If I continue to listen and respond to what my body needs, I believe there is a path forward.

Even if the path looks different, I have found something I did not have before. The ordinary days I once rushed through have become the ones I value most. What once felt unremarkable now feels meaningful in a way I didn't understand before.

Meeting your body where it's at is not a single decision. It is a continuous choice to return to the present moment, to begin from where you are instead of where you have been or where you hope to go. This moment is where life is lived, and the only one we are guaranteed.

If you find yourself in this space too, navigating through what has changed while trying to honour what is, I hope you see the strength it takes to keep showing up. Every life shift is part of becoming who you are.