Slogans/mottos to help

[Sunny Clouds]

To try and get a grip of the clutter in my house, I started chanting to myself a slogan someone else recommended

Put it away, not down!

Then, feeling last year that things were getting on top of me house-wise, I decided to cope by doing a little bit each time I go in a room, so I chant to myself

Every room, every time!

Meanwhile, I'm struggling to cope with my current fatigue, which I now believe to be either 'long covid' or 'long post-covid-vaccination' as evidenced by the ongoing chilblains (= 'covid finger') in just one hand.  Having previously had post-viral fatigue, I'd recognised it but never really took on board how to handle it.  I've found a slogan recently I'm going to use because it makes sense to me

Pace, Plan, Prioritise!

One neighbour uses one from her school days that I quite like but didn't work for me because it sounds too much like targets I'd fail.

I can, I must, I shall, I will.

My favourite when I'm struggling is from my army days.  I served in both the WRAC and the QARANC.  The official motto of the WRAC was 'suaviter in modo, fortiter in re'  = gentle in manner, resolute in deed.  I never managed the gentle bit.  But the badge was the only army badge with a lioness on it, and I still love the unofficial motto

Once a lioness, always a lioness!

So what mottos/slogans do or don't work for you?  Are there any you'd recommend?

[KizzyKazaer]

This is a personal favourite - it reminds me also that I can acknowledge, without shame, that carrying out some day-to-day tasks are for me a greater effort than for an 'able-minded' person and that's just the way it is (but that's OK because I get plenty of chances to silently congratulate myself for doing stuff  )

“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.”

― Mary Anne Radmacher

[Sunny Clouds]

Oh, I like that one!

That being said, I'm going to play round with abbreviating it. 

My father's motto was Survival is All.  It was taken from the poet Rilke. Wer spricht von Siegen?  Ueberstehen ist alles.  Who speaks of triumph?  Survival is all.

I carry a little card with me with a piece of poetry I copied out onto it when I was eleven, I think.

Immer wenn du meinst
Es geht nicht mehr
Kommt von Irgendwo
Ein Lichtlein her

Whenever you think you can't go on, a little light comes from somewhere.

It's very significant for me, though I don't use it as what I'm thinking of as chanting slogans.  You've prompted me to think about the longer words of wisdom as well.  I wonder whether I could use one of my whiteboards to write some wise words on each week and put somewhere I go past each day, like a door or windowsill?  I could start with your Radmacher quote.

[Sunshine Meadows]

I can I will and I must, was a old one in the 70s and has since been changed to No more I can I will and I must.


My mind went blank when I read this thread and I cant even blame menopause brain now I am taking HRT. I think it was because the ones you guys posted are so good.


Schedules are for able bodied people me I need to be flexible in my goals.

[Sunny Clouds]

I wish I could find a shorter word synonymous with prioritise. 

I could change the rhythm by changing the syntax.  Plans, priorities, pacing.

For me, the pacing thing maps onto flexibility.  Yes, make my plans, work out my priorities, but rest when I need to, don't overdo it.

My priority for today is to get a neighbour to take more pictures of my coviddy hand.  Hello, help, hand!

[Sunshine Meadows]

Sunny,


Crikey I Googled covid hand and it looks pretty old so it must be disconcerting for you. I hope that and the fatigue you have had lately eases soon.


I thought of a slogan, it is a Nike ad with the silhouette of a basketball playing making a slam dunk and the words are Just do it or don't. I am not sure it works hahaha

[Sunny Clouds]

I think I may have put my finger (yes, a coviddy finger!) on a possible key factor that I can address.  Taking into account my atopy (allergic-yness), my moods, my history of epstein barr with recurrent episodes over the decades of fatigue after nasty lurgies, how I am now, and certain other factors, I rather think I may have a significant histamine intolerance problem. 

Given that, so far as I can tell, going on a low histamine diet isn't harmful, and that it's a great incentive to eat that mysterious green stuff the supermarkets sell labelled 'vegetables' that are embarassingly absent from my diet, I'm going to give it a try.  Even if it doesn't significantly help longer term, in the short term,  just the hope that it may help will help my mood.

As I type that, I think I need to devise some veggie slogans. 

[ditchdwellers]

Sunny, have you heard of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS)?


I was wondering, with your list of symptoms, if this might be worth looking into. I have horrible issues with itching and allergic reactions and take a prescription antihistamine which more or less keeps a lid on things bar psoriasis flare ups. But that's par for the course with autoimmune conditions. The low histamine diet didn't didn't work wonders for me although to be honest I probably wasn't diligent enough following it.


Veggies I do like though! Particularly salads. Had a delicious chicken caesar salad last night with extra salad veg such as spring onions, chicory, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and it was delicious 😋. We subscribe to a vegbox scheme called Oddbox. They only supply fruit and veg that has either been rejected by the supermarkets for being odd shaped/too small/big or is overstock from the farmers and wholesalers and would be thrown out. You choose what size box you want and it's delivered to your door once a fortnight. You're informed beforehand what will be in your box and you can request that they swap up to three items if you wish. We've been doing it for a while now and although it's not the cheapest way of buying veg it's convenient and I like the sustainability element to it.


If you're interested:https://www.oddbox.co.uk/box-page?gclid=Cj0KCQiAq5meBhCyARIsAJrtdr6jYbMCcNSUpLsZHvJEaGgKXi72MEBJs3xZRauWU6hZZego6pcH220aAnuzEALw_wcB

I'm lacking in inspiration for Veggie slogans. Perhaps when I've woken up more!

[Sunshine Meadows]

I had vegetables yesterday adding knob of butter helped.


 

[Sunny Clouds]

I've heard of MCAS but am only just trying to make sense of stuff.

To learn about histamine, I downloaded an academic paper/article summarising it and problems such as histamine intolerance, and whittled it down as my way of making sense of it.  E.g. I get rid of stuff like "In their 2019 research paper so-and-so showed that in rabbits..." and leave the few words of what they concluded. I'm now on my way to better understanding immunity.  (It doesn't matter messing with someone else's academic paper this way, because it's my learning process, not something I'm going to share with someone else.)

Next step, prompted by your question, will be to find a paper on MCAS that I find is the right level of readability for me and to do the same with it.

[Sunny Clouds]

Sunshine - I've copied that image.  Next step - see if I can print it approx postcard size or very slightly smaller.  I've a spare postcard-size photo frame.

[Sunny Clouds]

I've now gone down the rabbit hole of immune conditions and bipolar.

I have mostly seen my bipolar as alternating between desperate struggles to be 'good enough' and despair that I'm not 'good enough''.  (Except when local mental health services tried to persuade me otherwise, that it was just that I was defective.)

So if you add in a stressful childhood with loads of allergies, I personally, from a non-expert, non-scientific perspective, would see it as entirely plausible that there'd be overlapping physiological/biochemical processes that I'll characterise as 'body & mind responding to threat'. 

After all, they overlap on what I'll call surface levels.  If you see something 'threatening' (dangerous dog, nasty teacher, violent attacker) you'd probably have both emotional and physical responses.

And it's pretty old hat to say if you've had an emotionally traumatic experience, you'd be more likely to go down with a lurgy.  Body and mind entwined in responses.

So a threat to either is an order to the body's defence troops to "Stand to!"  = get ready to defend, or in my case, with bipolar + PTSD + allergies + asthma etc. a full-on Corporal Jones running around "Don't panic, Captain Mainwaring, don't panic!"

But although I had vague notions in the past about overlaps, it was only during the pandemic I made the link between physical immune system and bipolar, and I'm also fascinated to read research suggesting a link between other mental conditions such as schizophrenia and the immune system.

I wonder what other overlaps between different conditions are being discovered out there but not known by people with them.  This must surely affect people with primarily 'physical' conditions. 

I love the way the internet allows people with health conditions and other issues to connect, then the researchers can do their bit or not, and the government can make what cuts it will to the NHS, we've still got some empowerment.

[ditchdwellers]

There's currently research and thought that narcolepsy is an autoimmune condition and I'm fascinated by the ways in which our bodies work on a multisystem level. The fact that my immune system can impact me neurologically so profoundly prompts me to wonder if my other neurological conditions (migraines, cluster headaches, idiopathic intracranial hypertension, diabetes insipidus) are also a result of immune system dysfunction.


And then when I widen the scope to include the effects of gut health on immune response and therfore all of the above, then my mind becomes a little frazzled with the complexities of our bodies and health and wellbeing. There is still so much to learn.
We live in some very exciting times medically, and I would love to be able to jump forwards 50 years from now and see how much progress has been made.


Sorry Sunny, I feel I've taken your thread a little off course!

[Sunny Clouds]

Off course?

Hmmm...

Endeavour, Explore, Engage!

Create, Chat, Cope!

Discuss, Divert, Delight!

 

[lankou]