Podcast Ep 10: What it Takes to Keep Going

“How do you keep going with these health issues?” – I’ve been asked this quite a few times recently, so I thought to answer this through six points in this podcast. Do have a listen…

…but if you can’t have a listen, then you can read what I’ve said too:

What it Takes to Keep Going

“Helllloooo it’s the 10th episode!! I cannot believe I’ve made it this far! 😀 so I’m really pleased about that.

So for those of you hearing me for the first time… I am Shruti Chopra and this is my podcast space where I speak about about life lessons, chronic conditions, mental and physical health tips and experiences.

In recent weeks I have had many people ask me one question in various ways – how do I keep going? What is it that I do to get through managing a chronic illness and trying to create some sort of normalcy in my life?

Before I dive into answering this, I wanna clarify that I do not have a magic formula – so what you’re going to hear may not be exciting, but it’s real and it works for me.

So here goes…

For everyone their life becomes their normal, they adapt to their life challenges and the changes they must make in order to live a better life.

Here’s a little flashback…

When I started dealing with endometriosis and polycystic ovarian disease, I was 11.

I was going to school, so my life routine and the path laid ahead was based on the school timetable and the homework set out.

It was very important for me to put in my best no matter what – that’s just the sort of person I am – I had focus and a drive to do well and I didn’t want my health to hinder me, which it would do regardless of what I thought.

If I look back now, that was a very early lesson that routines, setting a timetable helps me to know where I am, what I need to do and what I’m looking to achieve out of it.

So today, present life… I set myself daily to-dos, daily mini-targets and I also have monthly targets as well. I take into account the fact that I will have painful hours in the day, even multiple days in a row – so I always give myself breathing space to adjust to those.

Earlier, my to-do list was great for someone who’d be healthy, and I had to keep reminding myself that my reality is different from those around me and that I cannot compare myself and pull myself down for that. I have my own pace and it’s best I stick to that because in the long-run it’s better to achieve small daily victories and still manage time off for my health rather than over-doing it, hurting my health more, feeling depressed and stagnant, which then makes it a huge mental task to come out of.

Another very important thing in my routine is time given for self-care – whether it’s tending to the plants, a face pack, a head massage, listening to music, meditating, doing my physio routine at home, reading, watching something of interest or even meal prepping based on my diet… I do a few of these things everyday.

Nothing is more important to me than taking this time out for self-care. It helps me to keep a very important realisation alive, that I have various dimensions to my life and ALL these dimensions help my physical and mental health.

The next is rest.

I could have included this in self-care, but I wanted to speak about this separately because of what it invoked in me.

Let me explain… Initially ‘rest’ brought with it the feeling of guilt that I’m not doing enough.

I hated this feeling of guilt because I knew how poorly I was feeling – I knew I was being unnecessarily harsh on myself which I wanted to change – but how?!

Whenever I started feeling guilty about resting, I asked myself if I’m really being lazy or do I genuinely need the rest – answering this to myself told me that I needed the rest to help me keep going.

This is where I changed the conversation with myself from “Shruti, you’re not doing enough!!” to “Hey Shruti, is this rest helping you?” or on really bad health day I’d say “why don’t you just take the rest of the day off and come whenever you feel you can, because you’ll be most productive then”.

I believe that anyone who is battling a health issue and manages one productive work hour a day, they’ve done very well and that’s what I look for. This one hour goal of being focussed has given me immense confidence and has almost eliminated the guilt I would feel, which then makes my rest time wayyyy more peaceful.

Peace of mind is essential for all of us, and more so for those battling chronic conditions.

Health is as much a mental thing as it is a physical thing – if not more actually.

I’ve always been a private person, not great with phone calls, a better listener than a sharer, but as my health deteriorated with endometriosis and with my legs giving way because of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome in 2015, I became more private than before.

2015 was the start of a larger realisation that I needed remove the toxic people in my life – the ones who were selfish, manipulative and inconsiderate. Plus I was in such pain that I naturally didn’t have time for them.

Cleaning out this area of my life helped improve my state of mind and allowed me to focus on things that mattered…

Which leads me to my last point but the most important point… what helps to keep me going is this important need to share my journey in the hope it’ll help someone out there but in return it actually gives me a gift – it helps me to introspect, see my journey from a different perspective, I’ve even gained more respect for myself and very importantly, it’s healing for me.

Okay so I did say that was the last point, but I believe the answer to this question would be incomplete if I didn’t see strength in my family – my ability to be resilient does somewhat come from the person I am, but this trait has only grown and flourished because my family and some amazing friends have had my back.

Also, they’re real – we have real conversations, and if you’ve heard my last podcast, you’ll know we debate, share opinions and be normal with each other – O’ and we all laugh a lot – we all have a weird sense of humour and this keeps us all going as well!

Now, to quickly recap… here’s what it takes for me to keep going…

1. Giving myself a routine that has breathing space – a realistic work routine
2. Incorporating self-care
3. Rest
4. Keeping to myself – removing toxic people
5. Sharing my journey
6. Being backed up by family and friends

We are all obviously living different lives and we need to work out our personal formula that helps us to keep going – I hope sharing mine helps – like I said, it’s no magic formula but by tweaking it every now and then, I’ve managed to reach a better state of mind – a state of mind that helps to keep me going.

Before I go… would you like to share what keeps you going? If so, or if you wish to comment on today’s podcast in general then please email me on [email protected] or get in touch with me on Instagram, which is Footprints, No Boundaries as well.

so …that’s it…ookaay then everyone… take care of yourself, b-bye!!”

Some Relevant Reading:

• How To Work From Home if You Have a Chronic Illness
• Podcast Ep 2: Habits – Do You Compare Yourself to Others?
• My Night-Time Routine While Having a Chronic Illness
• How To Make the Most of Social Media for Chronic Illness Patients

I always look forward to your comments and your perspective so please don’t hold back and so share your thoughts in the comments section below… thank you 😀

Previous: Podcast Episode 9 – The Benefits of Admitting You’re Wrong

Up Next: Podcast Episode 11 – Manipulation. Manipulator. Manipulated.

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Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I am a patient and have created this platform to share my experiences. This is all purely informative and in no way am I providing medical advice. Please consult a medical professional.