Ep. 1: Meet Destiny - Introduction to The Chronic Illness Therapist
More people are living with chronic illnesses today than ever before. Despite most chronic diseases being incurable, there are still many things you can do to get the best possible quality of life for yourself. That’s why Destiny, a mental health therapist in Atlanta, created this podcast.
The Chronic Illness Therapist Podcast is meant to be a place where people with chronic illnesses can come to feel heard, seen, and safe while listening to mental health therapists and other medical professionals talk about the realities of treating difficult conditions.
This might be a new concept for you, one in which you never have to worry about someone inferring that it's all in your head. We dive deep into the human side of treating complex medical conditions and help you find professionals that leave you feeling hopeful for the future. I hope you love what you learned here, and please consider leaving a review or sharing this podcast with someone you love.
What Is Chronic Illness Therapy?
Chronic illness is any illness or health problem that's been happening for 3 or more months. However, most of the clients that I work with on a therapeutic level, have been dealing with health issues their whole life.
Usually, people recognize a health issue such as chronic migraines that they get consistently over a long period or stomach issues. When you've been having a stomach ache, since you were three years old, it's not normal and something should be done about that.
Chronic illness therapy is more about learning how to listen to your body. What does that actually mean? If I'm having an experience or a sensation in my body, I might pause and pay attention to that sensation rather than ignoring it and moving on about my day.
We've been denying our bodies this experience for most of our life. Therefore, when you give your body the space to go ahead and feel what's happening inside, it may be a little bit heavier or more severe.
That's what I work with as a therapist; how do we help you deal with the heaviness? How do we help you then move through it so that it doesn't remain heavy?
Modalities and techniques for working through how you're feeling
Training in acceptance and commitment therapy as a modality is a great starting point because sometimes mind-body work can be overwhelming.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) can be as psychoanalytic as you want it to be. It can be something that a therapist is using on a deep level, but it can also be used on a superficial level. This is a great mix when you're working with someone who has never gone through mind-body connection type of exercises.
What’s important to you in your life? What values do you hold? If you are a person who values family, then everything you do in your life might start to revolve around how to get there. Within ACT we focus a lot on values and on what's important to you.
Then, the bodywork comes in. If you're talking about values, how do you know what your values are? How does it feel in your body when you start to practice them? This is such a long process sometimes because it's not cut and dry.
We start off on a more cognitive level; talking about what thoughts and beliefs you have. The most important thing to remember is that we're not judging. Mindfulness helps you remove your judgment and criticism so that you can see things more clearly.
We live in a society that’s focused on how can we produce more, make more money, do more, and be more. However, what you might need is rest or to produce less. We need to be more creative and we need to give more time and energy to focus on the joys of life.
However, it's not just as simple as knowing it. You have to practice it. Through that, you become more compassionate towards yourself.
What a chronic illness therapy session might look like
The first step involves value identification. Then, you go into JOMO (the joy of missing out) and how you can still incorporate your values into doing what feels best for you and your body. The third step is finding your level of productivity without judging yourself; learning to be omniscient and looking at your actions and thoughts without placing judgment.
Assumptions People Make Before Stepping Into Therapy
Myth: Therapy is about trying to fix or resolve your chronic illness. It’s confusing, but it’s a therapist, not a doctor. We're not trying to fix or cure anything. We're trying to learn how to do things like managing, and practicing acceptance.
However, the more therapeutic in-depth work is around grief, loss, acceptance, childhood trauma, and, childhood wounds. It doesn't have to be necessarily a huge trauma. We figure out where a client is; are they looking for base-level help on getting their life organized or leaning more into some childhood wounds and things of that nature.
Myth: Acceptance means you’re supposed to fall over and accept. This is false. Acceptance is more about learning that whatever you are feeling about a particular experience is 100% legitimate, and does not have to dictate your next behavior.
Myth: If you have to see a therapist for a chronic illness, that means it's all in your head. This is not true. For this reason, I work so hard to get my clients to work with other practitioners, functional medicine doctors, or a regular MD as well.
Striking the balance; wellness in relation to the work environment & Community
What does balance look like for each individual in a way that works for them and their lives? Wellness looks like being happy with your life. This is a simplistic way of putting it but it needs a ton of elaboration.
Being happy with your life doesn't mean you are just happy, or thankful for what you've got. It means: do I have pride in the work that I've done? Do I feel good about what I'm doing? Am I working towards something meaningful to me? This is where the values come in.
Living a life of wellness is when you have clearly defined what happiness looks like for you. Then, you're putting one foot forward in front of the other to get there.
If you're constantly having obstacles to that happy life that you're looking for, it's time to either revisit that dream, or what you're doing or not doing to get there. It can look completely different depending on who's in and your situation.
Identifying your values can be as black and white as trying to remember: perseverance is my top value. So every day I wake up and do one thing in honor of that word and what it means to me. After a while, you no longer need that list of words. You just know what feels good in your body.
We work towards getting to a point where you don't have to think about your values anymore. Your body knows what they are and it will give you signs. You get there by reducing your inner critic, having compassion for yourself, and being more self-aware.
It is all about you, but remember that we are communal beings…
Often, we will evolve. You'll eventually find your people. Sometimes your people are your family. Other times we have to find our tribe outside of our family. As you continue developing who you are, what you like, and what you don't like, you're finding your people.
You start to realize that the people around you have similar values as well; what benefits you benefit the people around you and what benefits the people around you, benefit you. At the end of the day through this process, it feels like you’re connecting with people who get you and you get them. You have similar interests, goals, and values. It happens naturally, as you do this work.
Within the acceptance and commitment framework, there are six principles. All of these principles make up something called psychological flexibility; learning how to be more flexible in your body. We also have to learn how to be more flexible in our minds as well.
Being around other people who have different values than you, what does it mean to be polite or rude? This is bi-directional. Learning how to be psychologically flexible allows you to be around them without distress, but also being around them is what helps teach you how to be flexible. We learn by doing and failing or doing, reflecting and figuring out what we want to do differently.
If I value kindness or honesty and I have a difficult person I'm trying to deal with at work, I cannot control how they show up. I can only focus on my values; showing up with kindness and honesty, which means I'm also kind to myself. I'm not simply letting them talk rudely to me because I'm a kind person. In fact, part of being kind and being kind to myself is assertively addressing that situation. How can we get through this together?
Focus on parts of the job that you need this person's cooperation in and have a mutual understanding and respect. Try to figure out how to make that happen. You don’t let your triggers control you, but it's also about allowing yourself to be in uncomfortable situations.
Going back to the community, when people try to give advice but there's been no relationship built there, it puts up all our defensive walls. We need to be in a relationship with one another before we can truly hear what they have to say. Part of this work is about building healthy relationships that work for you; that is really connected.
Finally…
If you find yourself drawn to this, then you should get in there and find a therapist who can help you do this work. It's through experience that you start to realize how this truly benefits your life.
The chronic illness therapist podcast brings different therapists' and other medical professionals’ opinions, life experiences, and their experiences with research so that people can hear an array of different opinions.