Following on from my last post View from my Chair, I want to explain a little more about why I am going to walk the shore line of Loch Creran.

A couple of years ago my therapist suggested I list all the things I wanted to do when I was well.  The idea is to motivate us and to give us something to look forward to and aim for.  It is a great idea, and something I would say to a client, but

I couldn’t think of anything, I was blank.

Whatever I tried to conjure up was immediately swamped by weariness and not being able to imagine feeling well again.  When you have a debilitating condition for long enough it can be all encompassing and it sort of becomes who you are to some extent, everything is viewed through that lens.  I don’t think this is a good thing but it is what can happen.

Things I might have taken in my stride before felt like enormous undertakings.

I knew this state of mind was not helpful so I worked on it using EFT and discovered that part of me actually believed the guff about it being a life long condition that I would never recover from.  So I tapped on that belief, and others I discovered, till they were cleared.  Often we don’t even know what we are thinking until we challenge it.  I am so glad I did, that I asked myself:

Why can’t I ever imagine being well again?

Despite feeling like what I was doing often made no difference, I carried on with all the things that were supposed to help me get better; diet, nutritional supplements, gentle yoga, good sleep, lots of relaxing and resting, working on my limiting patterns and beliefs, trying to stay in a calm healing state and so on.

Much more slowly than I had ever imagined I started to get better.  It was almost imperceptible, but reading back through my journals I could see the subtle changes and that gave me hope that more was possible.

I started walking again, just down to the loch and back at first, then along the shore till eventually somedays I could walk the circuit from my house along the lane and back by shore.  One day while walking I suddenly had the thought, “ I could walk the whole way round this loch.”

The vision had arrived, something I could do when I felt better.

It arrived some time ago and I have just let it sit alongside me. I felt clear that I would do it at some point but I did not know when.

Well I am ready, and I begin my walk in November.

Someone recently asked me when I was going to do it, over a weekend?  I was actually a little taken aback, I am not thinking that at all.  I am planning to walk a short section each week, once a week.  The old pre-ME/CFS me would have been doing something like that though, setting a pressured goal and then pushing herself to achieve it.  A true sign of my continuing recovery is that I am planning something far smaller, easier, calmer, manageable and quite possibly a lot more enjoyable.  There is no timetable:

It’s about the journey not the destination.

If you would like to follow my foot steps then you can join my mailing list here,or check out The Walking Loch Creran blog posts here.

• So wherever you are in life, whatever it has thrown at you, take a moment or two and think.

• What would I like to do when things or I, am better?

• And if you can not imagine things being any better try asking yourself.

• What is the reason I don’t believe it will ever get any better?

• Use EFT to tap on everything that comes up. Do not censor yourself, tell the truth.

• What is it you believe, truly believe about where you find yourself right now?

EFT helps us clear the emotional attachments we have to certain beliefs so freeing us to be our true, authentic self .  We need no longer feel at the mercy of our  thoughts and feelings, we are empowered and we learn that change is always possible.