This week I have been floored by high blood pressure which is now getting treated so I’m already feeling like a brand new person.
I spent some quality time feeling really sorry for myself for being sick and not able to keep up with my usual frenetic pace.
Though one day while moping on the couch, I suddenly had clarity that no matter what kind of illness you have – whether it is mental or physical, chronic or acute, life threatening or not, there are a few things that you really need to do (or not do) to help you through:

• If you don’t get it done, there is a high probability that the world will not end.  Even though you may be a perfectionist, some things can be left for another time (or done by another person).  Thanks to Uber for the wonderful trips to work – I even treated myself to a luxury ride on Monday morning just because I thought that I deserved it and it definitely made Monday a lot better.
• Your health always, always comes first.  Don’t put yourself at risk because you feel that you need to please other people or keep up with other people’s expectations.  You are allowed to say that you just don’t feel well enough to get something done.  If people don’t respect that, they are not worth the energy that you are prepared to give to them.
• Don’t be fight the illness.  Even a cold makes you feel that you are never going to be well again and you can become miserable and feel sorry for yourself.  I believe that illness is often a way of your body forcing you to slow down because you need it.  Don’t fight that!
• Eat when you are hungry, sleep when you need to, rest, rest, rest and then rest some more.
• Be gentle on yourself – you are not a failure if you get sick.  Bodies get sick, minds get sick.  Unless you deliberately did something to make yourself sick (and I sincerely hope that you didn’t), you can’t do much to avoid it.  Stop being angry at yourself.
• Sometimes you are not going to have control over life.  There is nothing like getting sick to teach you that things are not always going to go your way.  Let it go!