illness | My Wardrobe, Myself

Don’t Worry!

Debbie Roes

October 22, 2010

This message is a cautionary tale from a longtime “worrywart” (or as my father-in-law used to say, “worryhorse”). I have wasted many hours and sacrificed endless enjoyment by worrying about all sorts of things, most of which never came to pass. It is my hope that my insights today will help other worriers to reform their ways and in turn increase their happiness in life.

I recently listened to an episode of the Happiness Hour from radio talk show host, Dennis Prager. The focus of this hour was on worrying, so I knew I needed to listen carefully. Unlike many people who have “blind spots” in terms of their weaknesses, I knew full well how much of a detriment my habitual worrying was to my life and my happiness.

Dennis Prager stated that there are two powerful reasons to break the habit of worrying:

1. Most of what we worry about never comes to pass.
2. When one is worrying about what might happen, it is impossible for him to be happy in that moment.

Hollow Victory

Debbie Roes

5 comments

October 13, 2010

I’ve lost a bit of weight lately… I’m not sure how much since I don’t weigh myself very often, but my clothes are looser and my stomach is surprisingly flat. While I am happy to be feeling leaner, my weight loss is somewhat of a “hollow victory” and I find myself having mixed feelings about it. I’ve lost the weight as a result of a health condition that has been causing me a great deal of distress in recent weeks (and the reason why I didn’t post a blog entry last week).

This is different from “one stomach flu away from goal weight” a la Emily in “The Devil Wears Prada.” While it’s decidedly no fun to have the flu, one knows that it will eventually end and she will be back to feeling like her normal self in a matter of days. Unfortunately, I’m not sure when I’ll be back to my “normal self.” Instead, it’s entirely possible that I will end up with a new definition for normal. My condition has a tendency to be chronic and difficult to treat, and it’s made it challenging for me to eat all that much food for a number of days now. In fact, I may end up losing more weight than I ideally want to lose as a result of my being on a continuous diet of sorts.

Illness as Avoidance

Debbie Roes

4 comments

May 25, 2010

Sometimes a headache isn’t just a headache… This is something I’ve pondered in recent months as I’ve considered how often I suffer from migraines. Could it be possible that my headaches serve a purpose beyond causing me extreme pain and discomfort? My thoughts and realizations on this subject will be the focus of today’s post.
Inconvenient Migraines & Other Such Ailments

Last summer and fall, I attended classes three nights per week. Every two or three weeks, we would have a project to complete and hand in for course credit. We would usually be given one class period to use as a “work night” for our projects. After a few months of class, I noticed that I would almost invariably have a migraine on all project nights. Was this just a mere coincidence, or was something else behind it?

As I considered my project night migraines, I noticed that I would also get migraines on days or nights on which I had certain other commitments, such as a Toastmasters speech or a social function to attend. It is highly unlikely that my migraines on all of these days happened by chance, so perhaps there were other forces at play…