Posts Tagged ‘ stories ’

What does your illness mean to you?

July 30, 2012
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What does your illness mean to you?

I’ve been diagnosed with a disease. Bad. I got a promotion at my job. Good. I’m in love. Good. I got dumped. Bad. We are meaning-making machines. None of the events in our lives mean anything, in and of themselves. We assign meaning to them. We are constantly generating stories about the events in our lives. And based on these stories, we feel happy or sad. Empowered or disempowered. Angry or grateful. If you’re living with a chronic illness, one of the most valuable and essential things you can do is take an honest...

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Illness Is?

January 28, 2012
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Illness Is?

Dealing with the physical symptoms of a disease is stressful. But dealing with all the various meanings and judgments attached to that disease is another task entirely, sometimes even more stressful than the physical challenges. Every culture and subculture has a story about what it means to be sick. Most of the time, we take on those meanings without questioning them or recognizing that it’s just one story, one reality, and that what illness means differs greatly from subculture to subculture. In Ken Wilber’s touching and tragic book Grace and Grit, about he and...

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A Good Bet

December 2, 2010
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A Good Bet

I went to a new chiropractor yesterday. As with all doctors, when you visit for the first time, they go over your chart. He saw that I had MS, and he said, “I was engaged to a woman who had MS many years ago. My dad didn’t want me to marry her though because he said it’s not a good bet. I said ‘C’mon dad, I’m a good Christian, I’m not like that.’” Now this doctor seemed to a be a very kind man and he seemed genuinely caring. I think he was just...

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What’s Wrong With This Picture?

March 10, 2010
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expire

Someone posted this photo on the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Facebook page yesterday. I don’t know who created it or who published it. Aesthetically, it’s a beautiful image. As a professional photographer for the last ten years, I admire the skillful lighting and the woman’s naked fetal-position pose to express her vulnerability. But note the writing at the bottom, that reads “When you have Multiple Sclerosis you never know what will expire next.” All over the woman’s body are stamps that say “use by”. Really? Because I almost cannot believe anyone would spend their...

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    • Karen Gordon is an author, blogger, and health coach at The Self-Healing Coach.
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