2. Psychology Self Help For
Living With CFS

Previous page: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Spirituality .

Please also see advice for CFS Self Help on the page on Recovery from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

NB. The advice on this page is also useful for living with chronic illnesses apart from CFS.

Contents List for this page:

Psychology Self Help To Live With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Developing self-worth

A decision to stay alive to the best of my ability

Finding a pastime that was not related to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or to seeking health

I commit to feeling my feelings and expressing them safely

Reading books that nurtured me

Self-therapy

Meditation

Psychology Vs Spirituality

The Continuing Journey To Explore My Psychology And Spirituality

Self-Therapy. The World As A Projection Of Our Thoughts

SHARE your own story with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Other Pages on Psychology Self Help
Here you will find advice that helped me move forwards in living with CFS.

Roles We May Have To Give Up When We Live With Illness

Psychology Self Help Books That Helped Me

7 Stages of Grief in Facing Up To Illness

CFS and Depression

Psychology Self Help To Help Live With CFS
(overlap with spirituality)

When I got ill, long before I was diagnosed with M.E.( aka CFS ), I decided to explore my psychology.

I figured the more comfortable I could feel in myself, the more energy my body would have available to heal.

Here are some of the approaches I used:

Developing self-worth. The use of affirmations. Being willing to experience God's love.

No matter how ill you are now, you are OK.

Whether you recover or not, you are OK.

Your worth is not defined by your health.
Your worth is not defined by what you can do or by how nice you can be.
You are inherently worthy.

To have a spiritual belief is a huge advantage here.

Many of us base our worth on what we can do.

But, if you believe in a benevolent, all-powerful God, and you believe this creative force has something to do with you being here, then you are part of something greater than yourself and you have value - even if you can't see it right now.

As someone said: "God doesn't do waste." If you are here you are meant to be here.

Here are some words on the subject of your inherent value from John Henry Newman:

Decide to stay alive

It would have been very easy not to engage in the extreme discipline necessary to stay alive with severe CFS.

I did not have a day off being a carer (for myself) in 14 years.
I did not have a day off being ill - in physical pain and distress - for 17 years.

Death was tempting.

I made a decision to stay alive to the best of my ability.

I made a decision to keep physically fighting (whilst I worked on spiritually surrendering.)

When I realised I wasn't fully doing so, I worked with an affirmation from the Bible: I choose life.
This was important both to my survival and my recovery.

Finding a pastime that was not related to the CFS or to seeking health, and which could be done within the limits of the illness

I started receiving guidance in the form of poems and thought-bites.

Dictating, editing and reading these poems sustained me.

It was something that did not have to be done and did not have to be done well, so it was easier to pace myself than with many other activities.

I did not know if my spiritual poems would be seen by anyone else, but now my first book is published. It's OK to Believe - A Poetic Journey To Unite Mind And Spirit

Click to see Katherine T Owen's poems on the site.

One of the gifts of living with Severe CFS was that the spiritual journey became my priority. It continues to be my priority now I have recovered.

Click here for to read about Pastimes CFS / ME.

I commit to feeling my feelings and expressing them safely

Whilst I had CFS, my speech was limited and I didn't have anyone I could speak to honestly about how bad things were. I used a dictaphone to get my thoughts out. I used my disability allowance to pay a typist.

For more about feeling your feelings as part of the process of learning to live with illness, see “Am I Allowed To Feel Angry? What Are The Benefits Of Feeling My Anger?”

The page on feeling your anger is part of a series of pages on the the 7 Stages of grief we go through in learning to cope with a loss of health.

To read about techniques to feel your feelings, go to The Journey Process or to EFT technique.

Reading books that nurtured me

I could read for a few minutes at a time out of an hour. This was enough to work my way, over the years, through many wonderful books on psychology and spirituality.

Forgiveness Exercises - The Release

As my own therapy practice developed, I referred more and more to my own work of dialogues and releasing judgement.

Self-Therapy -

As human beings we suppress a lot of feelings, memories and hidden beliefs about ourselves. This takes energy and when, with CFS (or any other illness), our energy drops, we may find some of this junk, this shadow self, coming to the surface.

Of course, it also takes energy to look at it. And it is not ideal that we do so when living with M.E./ CFS. But, as you know , life is not ideal.

If stuff comes up, it comes up.
Long term, it took less energy for me to look at this stuff than to live with it.

Now I am well, I still have a commitment to looking at the shadow when it makes itself known. Each time I "embrace" the shadow, it brings healing in another area of my life and I walk on with yet more joy.

Meditation

Meditation was recommended to me early on in the illness when I was diagnosed with ME by Dr William Weir. Since then much medical research has shown the benefits of meditation, known in the medical world as mindfulness. Go here to learn more about my journey with meditation and to learn some easy meditation techiques.

Psychology Vs Spirituality

Later, my emphasis switched from psychology to spirituality. To be clear, I draw on both psychology and spirituality in my approach to life, but I would recommend an emphasis on spirituality.

Psychology is limited, to some extent, to trying to make yourself feel OK about how you are and how your life is now. I don't know about you, but I don't think it was possible, in any sustained way, to feel OK about the life I had.

Yes, I had wonderful moments of sinking into the reality of Oneness - of being part of something so much bigger that could not even be ill. But this is not the "feeling OK" that psychology is aiming for.

The Continuing Journey To Explore My Psychology And Spirituality

I continue to incorporate psychology self help techniques in my tool-kit for living my life.

I am a student of A Course In Miracles - a spiritual book which incorporates both psychological and spiritual guidance.

I go to church each Sunday.

I set aside 'God time' each day - a time I dedicate to God to read and pray.

I aim to bring an awareness of Love into my day as often as I remember and live life with an attitude of blessing.

I have every intention to keep going deeper into the knowledge of God's love which was the gift I found whilst living with CFS.

Self-Therapy. The World As A Projection Of Our Thoughts

Most of my therapy has been self-therapy. This is very possible once you accept the belief (included in A Course In Miracles) that the world is a projection of our thoughts.
If you don't like what you see, you may choose for that to be the next "thought" you explore and work to change.

The idea that the world is a projection of our thoughts is discussed a little in the section on Do Our Beliefs Create Our Reality?

And if the idea that our beliefs create our reality is already familiar to you, some of the quotes on Are We All Atheists? may be of interest.

Go here for the definition of non duality.
Non duality is the belief that God's Love is the reality and the world is an illusion.

Now, it's your chance to contribute...

Please share about your journey with Spirituality and Health Challenges

Please share your experiences and your wisdom.
Let us know about any experiences you have had that let you know that you are so much more than the illness.
Let us know if illness has motivated you to pursue the spiritual journey and the rewards that have come from that.
Let us know if you have experienced healing - mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, through your spiritual practice.

What other people LIVING with illness
have contributed to the site

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Click here to read CFS /M.E. Is A Physical Illness.

Return to the list of articles on M.E./ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome