You’ve probably all heard about pacing as a concept and it’s something that I help many people crack. When they first contact me I often find they’re still trying to figure out how to get ALL of the things they used to do before into their days, without causing a flare-up of symptoms. These are people who were quite often leading very busy fast-paced lives before they found themselves tackling extreme fatigue. So that’s a lot of ‘normal life’ that these people are often trying to continue to manage, while giving their body the balance and space it needs to heal.
This might not be what you want to hear - but I don’t think there IS a way to cram everything you used to do into your day, and avoid triggering symptoms. The whole point of pacing is to find a way to get the critical things done in a day, in a way that keeps your energy expenditure within your acceptable limits. You want it to be nice and even throughout the day, rather than the boom and bust approach of overdoing it and then having to do nothing else for the rest of the day. Ideally you also want to get some lovely self-care things in there too - after all, you want the days to feel as enjoyable as possible.
Rather than tackling this by prioritising your activities, which can feel negative because it’s all about pushing things to the bottom of your list, I suggest you switch to a view of ‘making trade-offs’. Trade-offs are a constructive decision to do one thing rather than something else. Which feels much more in control.
For example:
- if you want to be able to go to that reflexology appointment that you know will be beneficial, the trade-off is you won’t do your usual gentle yoga routine that day
- If returning to work is of vital importance to you, the trade-off for making that a success is probably your social life - at least at first. You’ll need to realise you need to focus solely on work and keep things very low key for the rest of your days - at least at first
- Talking about social life, if talking with groups of friends seems to tire you quickly, the trade-off there is to decide you’ll keep such engagements to just you and one other person.
There are so many different trade-offs that I help people figure out - everyone's life is different, and so their particular trade-offs will be unique to them. I work well with real examples, so please feel free to get in touch if you're struggling to make the right trade-off decisions, and I'd love to share my help.
Remember, the more disciplined you are at following a consistent pacing method, the sooner you’ll start to balance your energy levels and start to notice small improvements. This takes focus, motivation and hope - all things that I can help you find and keep in bucketfuls if you're finding it tough to achieve alone.
Take care,
Pamela
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