Choosing to show up for yourself is a vital part of healing
Wellness educator Staci Mitchell offers advice about responding to chronic illness
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“I’m so glad you’re here and you chose yourself.”
That’s how wellness educator Staci Mitchell opened a series of virtual TARDIS Talks on lupus last month. Something about that statement caused us to pause and reflect during the session, as she acknowledged and celebrated our self-focused arrival.
The idea of choosing ourselves doesn’t always come first to mind for many of us. Our selves are usually subject to negotiation around everything else, then sacrificed for other responsibilities and commitments, such as work, parenting, caregiving, marriage, school, appointments, and more. We quietly try to make it through each day without fully collapsing.
Mitchell discussed nutrition, stress management, and yoga as a means for healing the body and resisting disease. For the four-week series, she spoke from her lived experience and as a professional working in mental health and wellness at Village Cofe in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Seven years ago, Mitchell was diagnosed as prediabetic and suffered from fibromyalgia, migraines, and depression following the passing of her father. Before that, she says she was healthy. So many of us can relate to that version of life — the one where everything feels stable until the body commandeers life without warning.
“You think you’re fine … until you’re not,” she recalled.
Ain’t that the truth?!
Remembering how to fully exhale
Life with lupus means learning and relearning what works for our bodies while realizing that our bodies speak their own language. Mitchell explained how stress and cortisol are part of that language.
“Sometimes we could be eating properly and exercising and doing all the things that we need to do, but if we are not managing that stress, it just doesn’t work,” she said. “When cortisol levels are high, it’s as if your system is waiting for a bear to jump out.”
Our bodies remain in fight-or-flight mode, causing sweaty hands, tight shoulders, digestive issues, hormonal shifts, insomnia, and fatigue. Then, because of that prolonged stress and chronic cortisol exposure, the immune response may become dysregulated. That can cause vitamin and mineral deficiencies that trigger more symptoms, prolong inflammation, and lead to high disease activity, such as flares or organ damage.
Even when we try to normalize the stress, the body remembers and often responds with more health conditions like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, systemic strain, heart attacks, kidney failure, and stroke.
Mitchell said that rest is not an indulgence; it is medicinal and must be nonnegotiable. Resting, she said, helped her to refuel when she was responding to her health issues.
Next, she guided us through a simple breathing exercise that is brief but steady enough to interrupt the body’s stress loop.
“Inhale for four counts. Exhale for six,” she directed us.
We followed along for five rounds, then breathed normally.
“If you found that you were holding your breath and not releasing, you are probably experiencing high cortisol,” she explained.
Here’s a quiet truth: Many people are surviving in bodies that have forgotten how to fully exhale. In that moment, I realized I’d been holding my breath for most of the presentation, and I wondered how many times and for how long I had been shallow breathing or not breathing at all.
She also offered a technique for grounding and centering our bodies using all of the senses:
- Sit quietly and breathe deeply, then exhale slowly.
- Look around and notice five things you can see.
- Identify four things you can feel.
- Recognize three things you can hear.
- Look for two things you can smell.
- Notice one thing you can taste.
This is a way of grounding and returning to your self and to the present. Her final advice was, “Sometimes turn that phone off so you can have quiet time.”
Simple behavioral shifts that allow you to be quiet can help regulate stress and lower cortisol, because quietness is often where the body starts relaxing again, she said.
Closing the talk, she added, “Thank you all for showing up for yourself.”
Honestly, “showing up” is often the hardest healing work of all. Some good advice is not to try to fix everything at once and get ahead of every symptom. Instead, it’s better to focus on consistently showing up, even with fatigue and pain, and even when we’re holding our breath.
Surviving is one thing, but showing up and learning how to care for ourselves gently and intentionally is its own kind of victory — and I celebrate you.
Note: Lupus News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Lupus News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to lupus.
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