Finding Positivity Living with Celiac Disease

I'm happy to share this post from guest blogger Shanie Matthews, a freelance writer who focuses on writing on ways in which we can assist each other in developing our own highest potential. She is the founder and creator of a happiness advocacy website, www.MyHappyPath.com, which acts as a stage of introduction into the various ways we can increase personal joy.  

Living with the pain, sickness and debilitation that comes with celiac disease are life changing. This shift in the way life is lived doesn’t have to be in the negative. Sure, having to remove gluten products from the diet can be frustrating. The thought of facing a condition that is “forever” is frightening. Working through fatigue, nausea and pain is taxing. But the tools that the challenges force us to bring into life, so that we may live a happier existence, help not only the disease at
hand, but our overall quality of life.

Here are three tools we can introduce into our lives that makes a challenge like living with celiac disease a blessing not a
burden…
 
Enjoy the Benefits of Yoga with Vocal Exhales: Yoga creates the opportunity to develop a pattern of creating a time that
focuses on love for self. Yoga offers an ability to bring in an overall sense of calmness into one’s life. But it is in the breath that Yoga offers one its most beneficial aspects. It is with the exhalation and inhalation that Yoga supplies
the conduit of pure joy that resides in all of us.

Do a Little Meditation with a Smile on Your Face: Unfortunately, there tends to be a lot of seriousness that is attached to
meditation that scares some away from doing the practice. But it truly is not something to be feared. Meditation, in reality, takes on many, many forms. This includes just sitting quietly with a happy smile on your face. Science, according to studies done at Harvard, is showing that visualizing changes our reality by actually increasing the capacity of the frontal lobe of the brain. The feelings associated with grinning from ear to ear do slowly infiltrate into and break up negative emotions. It might sound silly to some, but really, this easy way to create meditation assists in pulling ourselves out of a funk.

Make a Gratitude List: Gratitude is one of the best practices to incorporate into life when facing challenges. The mind is only able to think one thought at a time. In the state of pain, or illness, if we shift our mind to being grateful about something that is attached to the challenge at hand, it helps the perspective to shift. The change allows a deeper understanding to unfold. Even if all you can be grateful for in the moment is the ability to breathe, this moment of gratitude gives the brain a moment to cognitively see how many fabulous, wonderful, great things are going on in life. Way too many, really, to be upset at all. Even in the face of disease.