You don’t have to do hard things all the time.

When I first got diagnosed with Lyme Disease, I thought that I had to do all the hard protocols to get this disease out of my body.

I thought that if the IV was hurting, it’s okay, this was a part of my new norm.

I thought that if I reacted to the drugs I was given that it was normal, I didn’t need to say anything to my nurses.

Here is what I learned: I don’t have to do hard things all the time.

I remember my nurse and two doctors along with fellow veteran IV Lyme warriors telling me the same thing.

My doctor told me this, he said, “Ali, your super warrior persona doesn’t need to be turned on all the time. You need to learn how to be in a state of ease with yourself.” I stopped and listened to him.

I listened to him because I believe two things about why I am going through this:

1. My body has had enough of my old patterns

2. I need to slow the (insert curse word) down

Even though I had these two very profound beliefs, I still thought that I had to do all the hard things to heal myself.

It wasn’t until my nurse turned friend Melissa told me this: “ Ali, I can promise you that there are always going to be hard things in life. When you are given the option to do things easier, please, please take that option. Because you don’t know when life might all of a sudden become hard again.”

That was when I got it. My body was living in a state of dis-ease.

There was no ease in the way that I was going about things in my day to day life.

There was no ease to the pressure that I was putting on myself to heal quickly.

There was also no acceptance of my current reality.

There was no acceptance towards myself when the doctors that I trusted got my treatment plan wrong.

There was no acceptance towards people that didn’t understand why I was sick.

I knew it was going to be hard to change my reactions and mindset to cultivate more ease and acceptance into my life.

But I’ve slowly started to do it.

Not overnight.

Not perfectly.

But, I have slowly and incrementally befriended ease and acceptance.

To me doing the easier thing does not mean that I am giving up.

If anything it is the opposite.

I am accepting a gift of ease that has been put in front of me and am fully honoring it instead of turning it down.

Sometimes we need to slow down, get quiet, and listen to accept the path of ease.