When you are dealing with significant health challenges, your whole world gets rearranged. You may feel lousy, so you want to do less. You must spend more time and effort visiting doctors’ offices. You may feel strong emotions – fear, anger, sadness – moving through when you least expect them.
Eventually, things settle down. You realize you are reaching for a “new normal.” You have enough energy to wonder what you want your life to be like, even amidst illness.
The kind promise I am exploring this month is “I will reinvent whimsically.”
What is whimsy?
From dictionary.com: Whimsy
- capricious humor or disposition; extravagant, fanciful, or excessively playful expression:
a play with lots of whimsy.
- an odd or fanciful notion.
Synonyms: humor, whim, caprice
- anything odd or fanciful; a product of playful or capricious fancy:
a whimsy from an otherwise thoughtful writer.
Why work with it when you’re sick?
Whimsy seems far away from medical tests, bandages, IV drips, and sickbed murmurs. If you want to snarl “go away with your whimsy.” I understand. Maybe this is not the time. On the other hand, it’s nice to have a lift from all that seriousness. Play and humor may be just what you need right now.
Soon after I received my MS diagnosis, someone sent me a copy of Norman Cousin’s book, Anatomy of an Illness. In it, he describes creating a treatment plan for his own mysterious illness that includes watching funny movies. Laughing, after all, releases the “feel-good” hormones, endorphins. They relieve pain and increase pleasure and social connection.
I know from my own experience that the idea of whimsical reinvention releases a a burst of goodhearted energy. It invites my inner child out to play. I begin to wish and plan, even when those activities require that my dreamer-self negotiate with my more practical self.
How can you get started?
Go ahead. Get out your colored Post-it notes, markers, and guidebooks. Fire up a search engine. Make yourself a dream board. (Here’s an online free vision board maker.) Play with the journaling prompts below.
May your reinvention bring you energy and joy.
In your journal:
- List 10 activities that bring you joy.
- What outing would you like to make?
- Research funny movies or videos and make a list.
- Dream up and describe a perfect afternoon.
- What foods do you think of when you hear the word “delicious”?