Living Well

Suggestions for Living WELL (with or without illness)

• Live in the present.
• Do your best not to define yourself by your circumstances or diagnosis.
• Listen with kindness and respect to your body.
• Appreciate the functioning of your body.
• Acknowledge and accept your emotions.
• Become aware of your habits of thinking, feeling, and interacting with the world.
• Practice responding (rather than reacting) to circumstances.
• Say NO to those things that you do only because you think you “should,” or to please others.
• Say YES to those things that bring you joy.
• Maintain healthy relationships with family and friends who are compassionate and supportive.
• Gently release unhealthy relationships.
• Be willing to ask for and receive help.
• Laugh.
• Eat well. (For those living with a wide variety of illnesses this often means eliminating food allergens.)
• Take appropriate nutritional supplements (for a wide variety of conditions there are specific supplements that can minimize or alleviate symptoms–amino acids for depression and anxiety, herbal remedies and bio-identical hormones for PMS and menopause, anti-inflammatory supplements for auto immune illnesses…)
• Exercise, in a way that nourishes you.
• Rest.
• Spend time in nature, meditate, take a hot bath, write in a journal, pray.
• Establish respectful collaborative relationships with your healthcare providers.
• Create a healthcare team that serves you with excellence in both conventional and integrative medicine.
• Choose practitioners who “know their stuff” and are willing to join you in the face of uncertainty.
• Participate in support groups in-person and/or online.
• Practice gratitude.
• Contribute when you are able, in ways that are meaningful to you.
• Dare to love — yourself, your body, others, LIFE .