Maintaining your self-worth is the second of 3 posts, intended to help you change your beliefs about cluster headache and the influence they have on your life. Changing that belief is crucial to bettering your handling of the cluster headache attacks. In these post I will further try and help you change that belief.
Disclaimer; I am in no way a healthcare professional. Everything I discuss here is based on my personal experience. What I describe are my personal experiences and opinions. What you do with the information on this site is entirely up to you. Thing that have worked for me might not work for you, as everyone is different. I would always advise you to keep in contact with your healthcare professionals and be honest with them if and when you decide to try some of the things that I have done.
Never lose your worth
Maintaining your self-worth is difficult with cluster headache. The video tells something we as ClusterVikings need to hear. We never lose our worth, no matter how bad our situation may seem at the moment. It’s totally logical and okay to feel sadness or anger about the fact that you have cluster headache. But we have to be careful not to let it consume and define us. You are not your clusters, you are a beautiful human being with love, hopes, and dreams. That is your essence.
Maintaining your self-worth by not being a victim
I think it is important that we as ClusterVikings do not get into, or when we are in, get out of the victim mind state. For years, I was lost inside my cluster headache. The attacks were all I knew, and they dictated my life. It was so bad that I was jealous of and even reproached people for not having cluster headache and not understanding what I was going through. I felt like a victim and needed people to treat me in that manner.
Looking back I can understand why I was there in that place. But it was a very bad place that did not bring me anything but sorrow. As I was unable to see a way out I maintained my victim mind state. I simply could not maintain my self-worth at that moment. This went on for several years. During which I met my now husband, Arthur. He is the reason that I came out of the victim role.
Vacation home
A few years into our relationship Arthur saw that I was at my lowest point. So he booked a trip for the 2 of us to a vacation park a couple of hours away from our home. There I broke. I couldn’t stop crying. I did not know what to do with myself anymore. He comforted me and took me back home. There I decided to try mushrooms to see if they would have an effect and maybe even break my cycle.
After the mushrooms took effect I separated into different room for a while. I felt like I was just a spick of my former self, surrounded by pain, sorrow and grief. When he came down to the room that I was in we started to talk. Arthur has always been more spiritual than me and very gradually, he steered the conversation in such manners that we were connecting more and more.
Then, when he felt the time was right he told me to lay down. I did and closed my eyes. Now I’m not sure exactly what he did, but it was my first and for me a very spiritual experience. I saw white light and I stared to feel lighter and lighter. Then all of a sudden it was over and I opened my eyes again. We looked at each other. I felt so much lighter. “What did you do?” I asked. “I took away your pain” he said. “You were holding on to it, but you don’t need it”.
Greatest gift
Ever since have I felt so much lighter and better, it was incredible. Truly one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me. My cluster headaches were not over, and they still hurt like hell. But I was finally able to let go of my sadness and feeling of loss from my former life. Something that I was unable to do myself.
Now I’m not saying you’ll need to do mushrooms to be able to do this. No, you need your own Arthur. Maybe it’s your wife, sibling, friend, mother, father or psychologist. It can be anyone. Or maybe, it is you yourself, spirituality or even a video or a book. As I do believe we are able to do this ourselves too, if we decide to do so.
Because that is exactly it. I (unknowingly) decided not to let go. Because I believed I could not help myself. I believed I was a victim of my circumstances. I did not understand that I had a choice. Henry Ford once said; “whether you say you can, or you can’t. In both cases you are correct”. As soon as we take responsibility for who we react and deal with things we become free. In the book the 7 habits of highly effective people the author writes about this. It’s called being proactive. It explains that you have dominion over your reaction to any situation. Maybe if I had read that book, I would have been able to do this myself. So please, believe in yourself. Believe, no, know that you are not a victim anymore, that you have control, a choice.
Maintaining your self-worth means you come first
One of the most important lessons I have learned, is who the most important person in my life actually is. It’s me. Everyone else comes second. Even my parents and husband, and yes, if I had them my children too. A big statement I know. Fact is that everyone besides you can leave and get out of your life if and when they choose to. But you are always stuck with you. At the end of the day there is only one person you can and must answer to, you. As long as you are honest and in line with yourself all is well. People might not agree with what you do or who you are, but as long as you are comfortable with you, that’s all that matters.
Lose/win to win/win or no deal (7 habits)
I know some other ClusterVikings and what I see when I look at them is that they are all very caring and loving people. Always trying to help the ones around them. Even to a point where they put themselves aside for the betterment of someone else. I’m not saying we all are like that but I at least was like that too. It’s almost a lose/win mentality, where I’d rather have you win and myself lose then have no interaction or transaction between us. Just because I/you might be scared that we’ll lose those people if we are unable to provide, or we feel obligated to provide.
And that’s just it. When you have cluster headache you cannot put anyone before yourself. That’s a lifestyle that you cannot maintain. Cluster headache takes too much energy from you. You’ll have to learn to put yourself first. Only when you take care of yourself first will you be able to truly take care of others. First you need to get to a win mentality for yourself, from there you can then go for a win/win or no deal mentality.
This is not an easy thing to do. People might think you’re egocentric, especially when they know you as a person who is always there from them. Please know that you are not responsible for them (children are an exception of course). So how can you do that, put yourself first?
How to put yourself first
First you’ll need to make the conscious decision to put yourself first. Meaning you will make and take time to work on/for yourself. It will always help when you inform your surroundings that you have made this decision and that things will change for them. I didn’t inform my surroundings which lead to some difficulties. Nothing that we couldn’t overcome, but it would have been better and easier for all involved if and when I had made that clear.
I believe it to be best when you inform your loved ones clearly on the reason. That you are doing it to better your handling of your clusters, but that this will mean that you will have less time for them. If they truly love you they will understand and accept that you will put your focus on yourself.
Maintaining your self-worth and putting yourself first don’t mean become totally self-centered, what I mean is learn to set boundary’s. Learn what your capability’s and limitations are and set boundary’s accordingly. Once you have done this you can gradually start to improve yourself, or whatever aspect of your life that needs it. This could also mean just taking some alone time to just simply rest. Because rest is something you will need when you are going the path I went. The attacks are not as frequent, but they are long and exhausting, until you have learned how to break them down.
Self-love
Putting yourself first is a clear sign of self-love. Showing self-love will also help you in maintaining your self-worth. Your body and mind will respond to this self-love. You might not notice this, but it does have an effect. Once you have made this decision, I think it wise to take your life and really look at it. Just try to look at it as objectively as you can, and try to identify things that you find negative, like difficulties, things that irritate you, that give you stress, or that you would like to see differently.
Negative and positive list
Start to make a list about small negative things in your life that are easily done/changeable. Write them down. Then do the same for small positive things in your life. Things that you love, enjoy and that give you pleasure or satisfaction. On the positive list you can also add things that are currently not in your life, but which you wish would be but keep them small and easily do-able.
For the negative list think of things you can do to make them disappear or turn them positive. Then think about the things on the positive list and how you can do more of them.
Taking action
Then, start by doing more of the small things that you experience as positive. Simultaneously start to change the small things that you find negative. This will give you a track record of small achievements. Those achievements in turn will give you the conviction and belief that you are indeed in control of your life. That you can influence it and change if you put your mind to it. This will help in maintaining your self-worth.
In the next post about manifesting a life without cluster headache dominion, I will go deeper in to this, and how you can set positive habits. This too will help you in maintaining your self-worth. On the self-love section of this site (which will come in time) I will provide you with all sorts of positive expressions of self-love that you can do. Like I said before; begin small, like with making your bed for example. You hit 2 birds with one stone with that one. As you become less messy/unorganized (negative), and become more organized and get to go to bed in a made bed (positive).