Getting off track with our recovery is guaranteed.

Crashes and Post Exertion Malaise can flatten us, life events sidetrack us, our mood can affect our motivation and we can get out of the habits that help support recovery.

This is normal and it’s going to happen multiple times, just as it happened before we got ill (e.g. ’I haven’t been to the gym/yoga/band practice in a while’).

The skill we need to practice is picking ourselves up and getting back on track, when (not if) we fall down. It’s not the starting, it’s the restarting.

In the moment though, it’s brutal, especially if it’s a crash. Sometimes it just doesn’t feel like anything is working and maybe years have gone by and we’re stuck at the same level or going backwards. Sometimes we’re just sick of it all and want to give up, and that’s normal too. It’s easy to despair and feel we will never recover.

It’s essential to let yourself feel how you feel, and if you need a few days off that’s fine.

There’s a balance between feeling the natural feeling of ‘why me, I hate this and it’s not fair’, and taking care not to identify as a victim or as someone who is chronically and permanently ill, even though those feelings are valid.

It can feel like each time we crash we’re starting again from the beginning, like we’ve fallen off the same cliff again and it’s the same weary climb back to the summit.

But we haven’t lost our resources, our knowledge, our understanding and the trust we’ve built with our body.

In some ways, getting off track, whether that’s through a crash or through lapsing in our healing habits, is the best time to practice just accepting where we are at this moment, without judging ourselves, and then going on from there.

Getting back on track is about action. It’s restarting the habits that support us, and by doing so, building the relationship with our body that helps us get into a healing state.

We’re always just iterating our way forward. The path is foggy and our map isn’t very good, so we just take a step forward and see where we are, then decide if it’s better to keep going this direction or to change course. If the things we’re doing are, overall, helping us, then keep going. If not, it’s time to try something new.

When we’re learning to ride a bike, we might fall many times. But if we pick ourselves up again each time with kindness and learn how to find that balance, over time we’ll get there.