The 4 Chronic Illness Identity States (and Their Impact on Your Business)

Welcome back to the She's Craftster Thrive podcast. I am excited to, whew, excited to say, let's talk about this topic that is kind of heavy. It's identity as a chronic illness warrior, as well as an entrepreneur, as well as all of the hats that we wear, all of the roles that we possess. It's something that I've been noticing when I reflect on my journey, as well as I look at working like with some of my clients and just seeing how this is such an important thing to talk about and how it affects our business and how it affects not just our business, but our lives. Right. And I think it's so important that we have this conversation because the extent in which we shift our thoughts about who we are and what we are and how we're capable is the extent in which we can grow in all areas of our life, including and especially in our business, right? So in this episode, we're going to talk about some misconceptions about chronic illness-related issues and some thoughts that can sabotage ourselves when it comes to Healing and growth. We're going to talk about some coping mechanisms, some shifts, some mindset shifts. We're going to talk about the 5% rule a little bit more. I just really love talking about this concept. It's one of my ever-growing and evolving, if you will, concept, because I see how it looks and shows up in my clients' lives, and I'm seeing how powerful it is. I've seen it in my own life, and I continue to see it in my own life. But the concept of how I have to tweak it for every client, it totally makes sense cuz we are all crafted individually. Like we are different and we are gifted and we are, we have and possess different qualities. And so we're gonna talk about how that 5% rule really affects how we view ourselves and how it can be a challenge, how it can really be a challenge, but some ways to help you reframe that. So that you can be more successful, not in just your healing journey, but in your business, so that, you know, you can get to where you want to go.

Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive, a globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness and creatives in business. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, chronic illness warrior and photographer turned digital marketer turned award-winning coach. I love helping chronic illness warriors and creatives to live with their chronic illness and creativity as superpower in life and business. On the show, you will hear the very stories that helped our guests, my clients, and myself to define our dream way of making money with proven strategies and marketing and mindset, all to grow a business that thrives without sacrificing our health. So stay tuned because you'll find the inspiration and tools and the resources you need to craft a life and business that thrives.

Living with chronic illness, we all know, it's just, it's not easy. And when you're also an entrepreneur, trying to build your business can make living with chronic illness even more challenging. And I have been having so many conversations with my clients and even with myself. And I don't mean I'm like answering myself, even though sometimes I do to affirm some good things and let go of other things. One thing that I found, especially is that we tend to put all of our pain and worries and concerns into the same bucket and treating them as if they were all caused by our chronic illness. So what do I mean by that? What I mean is it's really important as far as identity is concerned to know that our chronic illness is a part of us. Does it affect so many, if not all of the areas of our life, but so does air, right? Like if we didn't have air, we wouldn't be here. So I want to offer you this while you listen to this episode, being really tender and really real by offering that this is not a conversation that chronic illness is not hard. This is not a conversation about there are going to be times where we are angry and we're sad and we're mad, that those things are not open and we can have them. Yes, absolutely, we can have bad days. Yes, absolutely, there are days we don't want to do anything. There are absolutely days where our mental health and our self-reflection of who we are is down in the dumps. Absolutely, all of those things are true and are reality, and so is what I'm going to talk about today. So I really think it's important to note that as chronic illness warriors, and as I mentioned, we experience legitimate pain, fatigue, flareups, hypersensitivity to whatever things. I like put on something the other day and my joints, because of fibromyalgia, one of the things that happens for me is like I get, if it's like some kind of allergy or something that my skin or my body didn't like, there are certain areas of my body that will swell up, become red, and like, be in so much pain and itch, but there's nothing I can do. No Benadryl can help. Like, it's just like time. Ibuprofen sometimes help, like ice patch sometimes helps, whatever, right? It's just what it is. But I'm saying all of those experiences, all of those lived experiences are real and raw. However, I also think it's so crucial to recognize that these symptoms are not the only things that affect our lives and are not always caused by our chronic illness. They are heightened sometimes by our chronic illness, but it is a part of us. So for example, I like to put this in the context of, imagine you are just a regular Jill, okay? Like you're just a regular Jill and you don't have a chronic illness. For us who have been living with it for, all of our lives or for the majority of our lives, that concept kind of seems foreign. But let's just imagine for a second that we don't have a chronic illness, right? And imagine this scenario, okay? You are working a full-time job and you're also side hustling because you have this business that you love, this passion, this craft that you love. It's all happening. And you're also getting ready to move to another state. Right? It's understandable that you would feel tired and have body aches from a long period of this transition, right? You know, it makes sense, right? Like we, we wouldn't like be mad at our job because, hey, you are creating more pain for me. No, it's the circumstances, right? Like we're not gonna be mad at our full-time side hustle our side hustle business thing that we do because we recognize this is a part of the season. This is 100% normal. Like this change in transition that's going to have its ebbs and flows. It makes sense, right? We're going to give ourselves grace. We're going to give the situation grace, right? And it's understandable that we would feel tired and have body aches and kind of feel like, when are we going to be done moving? And when is all of the drama at work going to be over? Because of course, while I'm moving, there's drama at work. Of course, while I'm moving full-time, work is going crazy and my business is either slow or going really well. And it's like, oh, all of these things are happening, right? If your friend came to you and said, I'm so— I don't know why my job is such a pain in the butt right now, right? Like it's causing me all of these issues. I'm so tired. I'm so achy and everything. And all these boxes are in the way. Your friend would be like, it so makes sense, hun, that you experience— you're experiencing all this. I don't think it's your job. It's I think it might just be the fact that there's a lot going on and that's real. Like 100%, there's a lot going on and it's nothing, you know, it's not necessarily your job's fault. It's not necessarily the moving fault. It's, you know, part of the decisions that, you know, you've kind of made and it makes sense that this would be challenging, right? Think about that experience. Now think about that experience and add chronic illness. What is our go-to? If that were us in our chronic illness, what happens? And what I have found with so many of my clients, and when I'm looking back at some of my journal entries, when I'm thinking about this, and when I was thinking about recording this episode, I was like, oh my goodness, my chronic stuff has such a bad rap. Like it has such a bad rap on top of the bad rap that it already has, right? Like, yes, my chronic illness is going to cause pain. Yes, all of these things, trauma from, Oh my goodness, doctor's appointments, not being seen, heard, all of those things and how they affect how I view the world. All of those things are real. They're part of my lived experience and my story, right? What else is true is that whether I didn't have a chronic illness or not, having this job, trying to move and working a side hustle, I would still be tired. I would still feel achy. But in my mind, my chronic illness did this to me. In my mind, my chronic illness makes it so everything that I ever want to do so impossible. It makes it so much worse. Like it's everything that in life that happens is my chronic illness's fault, which in a lot of different ways in my brain at the time when I'm thinking about this, that's my fault. It's my fault, right? When we hate our chronic illness in multiple different ways, like when our identity is tied up in our chronic illness, chronic illness, we hate ourselves. We hate ourselves, right? Versus giving us the compassion that it totally makes sense you would be tired. And it even makes more sense that you would be tired because you have a chronic illness. But this is like totally makes sense, right? Right? Like, like, Indo, I'm so sorry. Like almost to the sense like endometriosis, I'm so sorry that I like put all of this on you. It was also just life happening. You get what I'm saying? So it's so important to acknowledge that some of these feelings are not exclusive to your chronic illness. So when we are seeing things in our business, things are happening and we have brain fog or we're tired or we decided to take a break from social media, whether intentionally or non-intentionally, we look back at it and we like put this stamp of my chronic illness did this to me. Versus life and all of the different parts of life had an impact on me. You get what I'm saying? One of the common issues that we face as chronic illness warriors is assuming that all our feelings and situations are caused by our chronic illness. Like we beat ourselves up for feeling tired. We beat ourselves up for taking a nap or being tired not as productive as we want to. Like there's a lot of self-blame and it's from a result of assuming that our life is this way only because of our chronic illness. In reality, chronic illness is a part of us. There is imperfection, there is the world and unforeseen occurrences that happen to us. There is so many different things that also affect our decisions and our choices and then have a ripple effect effect onto all of our things. But because our chronic illness is so prevalent in our mind, we give it— we blame it so much. We blame ourselves and we blame it. Okay? And it's crucial, like to me, for this mindset that I'm talking about for us to kind of shift out of this, is to acknowledge that there are 4 different illness identity states that we can find ourselves in. And I learned this when I was working with a therapist, and I'm not a therapist. So if you need to talk to a therapist, talk to a therapist about this. But it made sense when I was thinking about recording this episode that it just like, oh my gosh, this makes so much sense. Like there are so many different levels of grieving and like all of those different kinds of things, which probably should be another episode of like the different stages of grief living with chronic illness, 'cause that's a whole nother thing. But as far as identity is concerned, we have a couple, like we have 4 specific identities. Living with chronic illness, and it can get a little bit mucky, if you will. So we have the identity of rejection. Okay. So the rejection is like when many of us like first started with a chronic, like first diagnosed with a chronic illness, we're like, we don't have this. I'm fine. Like I can do anything and everything that I normally would do. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Nothing like my normal things. Yeah. Moving and all of that stuff. We don't even acknowledge that the reason why we feel more tired than usual is because also we have a chronic illness. Like we don't even acknowledge that. We tend to not follow treatment regimens. We tend not to follow up and keep abreast of things because we're in rejection. We do not have this. Okay. That's one identity. Then we have what is called the engulfment. So this is chronic illness identity in a state of like, it's like the opposite of rejection. It's like, it's overwhelming. It dominates our life. It consumes all of the things. It's like literally becomes our preoccupation. It's our full-time job all of the time. We deal with a lot more anxiety and depression. We're just completely like succumbed to this, if you will, right? And for a lot of us, this is usually when it's like, oh, maybe I should see a therapist, or I didn't realize how it was, or maybe we don't even realize it, right? I'm actually going to put in the show notes a link to Psychology Today article specifically about this identity, right? Then we have the third identity, which is acceptance. And to me, this is probably the hardest and also the ever-fluid flowing in and out part of our identity. It involves like accepting that our chronic illness is a part of our identity. A part, not all of our identity, okay? It informs a lot of the different parts of our identity, but it is still a part, just like our childhood is a part of our identity, just as our adulthood is a part of our identity. It is a collective. It's all— if we look at it, it's like we are a collective of different things. So acceptance is neither You know, all-consuming. It's not, it's like in the middle of like engulfment, which is like, oh, this is, I, there's nothing in my life. And rejection, which is, I don't have this thing. It's not affecting my life. I don't need to do anything with it. Right. So acceptance is also part of grieving, which is, like I said, we need to do a whole nother episode on grieving specifically with chronic illness, but it kind of moves and ebbs and flows in its way. It's almost like our our growth into acceptance of, of understanding that this is a part of us. So things get a little bit lighter. We don't see things on this all or nothing. Then number 4, which is an identity state as well, which is enrichment. Like, we realize there are so many things that we're learning and that we have gone through, and it's, you know, resilience, but it's the choice of resilience. You get what I'm saying? Like, I know some of us, we all have kind of like weird feelings about resilience, but resilience is a choice. So enrichment identity is like learning, like there are different aspects of this chronic illness that have allowed me to explore different areas of myself in a way that I'm so grateful for. I'm not, you know, in love with my chronic illness. I'm not like wanting this, but since this has become a part of me, it's been on me. There are aspects of it that I have learned and I am so thankful for in the, in the sense of I have a renewed appreciation of my values and of life in a different way. Okay. So there are 4 identity states. So that's rejection, engulfment, acceptance, and enrichment. So we work through all of those states of identity like up and down. And sometimes one is more, we're in that state when we are having flareups and we're having more issues. And one is having, you know, one we might be in a more accepting place, right? The point is, is that we have all of these different parts of us. And it makes me think of one of my favorite books by Janay, which I'm going to put a link in the show notes about chronic illness being a part of us, not all of us, right? As chronic illness warriors, we learn how to cope, maybe not the best way, especially when we first are dealing with these things, but we also learn how to cope with other things in life that are not related to our chronic illness. They're heightened because of our chronic illness, but they're not necessarily directly a correlation to us having a chronic illness. What happens is when we look at a situation, like going back to that illustration about, you know, you have a full-time job, you have a side hustle, and you are moving, right? What happens in that scenario when you have a chronic illness is that we take all our power away by giving all of our negative power into the thought and belief that our life is so much harder because of our chronic illness versus finding the compassion to see that the reason why our life is harder is because because maybe we made a different choice and we're going towards somewhere we want to go, right? Or we decided that we were taking a break because we needed to and it only feels off and weird because any normal person at any level of life would feel exhausted or tired or have pain. And yes, we have more intensified pain, but it's not all just because of our chronic illness. Right? When we give chronic illness too much power, right? And when I say too much power, like it's in that state of everything is my chronic illness's fault. We miss the mark on how we can choose to take care of ourselves. We miss the opportunity to give ourselves permission to rest and take a break when we need it without beating ourselves up for it or without beating up our chronic illness for it. We need to choose to recognize that we're human and that life can be challenging with chronic illness and with everything else that's happening in life. By acknowledging that chronic illness is just one or a part of our life's problems, we can start to put it in its place. Like a tentacle that touches all parts of our lives, it does touch all parts of our lives, but it doesn't take over our lives. If we choose not to let it. It is just a part of it. It informs our life. It informs our decisions. This perspective allows us to carry less weight and feel less burdened because of the negative thoughts we have about our chronic illness. It's easier to accept, you know, our limitations and recognize that it's not just our chronic illness's fault that causes some of these things. It's our imperfections. It's life. It's the things that every human being deals with. Being a chronic illness warrior entrepreneur is challenging, but it's so essential to remember that we are also human. It's okay to feel tired. It's okay to rest. It's okay to take a break. We, we need to choose to be gentle with ourselves and recognize that life is also complicated and challenging. In so many different ways. But putting our chronic illness in its place and acknowledging that it's just a part of our lives, and I don't say just like loosely, but it is a part of our lives, we can start to cope with life's challenges more effectively. We will stop self-sabotaging ourselves while we're trying to seek rest, when we're trying to grow and try to do things, right? We sabotage ourselves because part of us believes, well, because I have this chronic illness, we limit ourselves and we hide ourselves and we don't do things because our chronic illness is coming to get us. It's almost like that feeling that I've said in other episodes, like it's so important to remember that all of us have beautiful assets about ourselves, right? All of us do. We have beautiful qualities. And in this quality bucket, and this is going to the 5% rule that I talked about earlier, the 5% rule that I like to say for my clients, or principle or guidance, is that it's a pool of our 100%, okay? So the pool of us as a whole has all the good parts. It has the parts that we're working on, the challenging parts, the negative parts, the positive parts. It has all parts of us, okay? And so when I work with my clients, I ask them to view all of them, not just chronic illness you, but also daughter you, also wife you, also friend you, also confidant, also mentor, also cheerleader, also like all these different facets of us, right? The artist, the introvert, the extrovert. You know, we live in a world, a lot of different things, like we have to be labeled one thing, especially in the chronic illness warrior world. Like we are labeled and that's who we are, but we're so much more. Than that. We're so much more than just our chronic illness. We're so much more than just our pain, right? And so when we can see ourselves as all of us, this 5% part of you, which is like taking all little, a little bit of each of those parts of you, because honestly, in order for us to show up in our business, to sabotage ourself less often, to, to grow and to thrive, we need all those little pieces because they all have little drivers. They all have meaning and purpose in some ways. They all have lessons and, and different parts that we need to serve us. And we get to choose which ones in that 5% we're going to put, but it is all-encompassing. And so when you look at it as the 5% in your day, like maybe you're having a flare-up and you are moving and you are working full-time and you are working a side hustle, 5% you will do a couple of things. It will give you rest, it will give you compassion, and it will also most likely— because you gave yourself rest and compassion— will recommend something that builds your creativity, something that speaks to you, that serves you, that fills your cup a little bit more. It might be doing something in your business. It might not. So the 5% allows you to bring the most abundantly beautiful part of you in the pain, in the fatigue, in the circumstances turning inside out, the world being upside down, into a choice. Into a choice. Of thriving and to a choice of being able to choose to love and have compassion for you, for the world around you. That's the 5%. We don't have to be 100% perfect. We don't have to put all of our eggs into the chronic illness basket and beat it up and say, "Well, that's some scrambled eggs. I can't do nothing with it." It's not true. And that thought does not serve us to create any growth really, or any, any healing, any, because how could it, right? Because we're not really seeing it for what it is. If we really saw that, going back to that same illustration, if we really took time to see that, oh, you know, it makes sense that I need to rest a little bit more. I need to add more rest because I am working full-time. I am getting ready to move. I might need I might need to ask for help because any person would probably need support with this. But if you were thinking, again, here it is, my chronic illness is just doing this thing. It's beating me up again. Like it's always taking away the things I want to do. It's always getting in the way and it's making me not do this thing. And it's this thing, like I used to say often, like it's my endo and it's like, I can't like, I can't go out and be with friends. I can't do this because the pain is just doing this to me. If I had a flare, I'd be like, there it goes, my endometriosis versus, You know what? I was stressing about something the other day and it was probably flared up my stuff and I don't think I was the nicest to myself when I was thinking about that situation. I don't think I was discerning enough to see, you know, things for just what they are versus the extreme of, you know, either side of that situation. Yeah. Yeah. Or I also ignored what my body tried to tell me because I'm tired of it. It's always getting in my way.

Right?

Do you see how the view of your chronic illness could be the thing that's sabotaging your ability to heal and to grow? Right? What if you took a break from social media or from, you know, doing something in your business because you just needed to take a break? Chronic illness, pain flare-ups in life, regardless. And it makes sense. So I have a couple things I want you to think about. Where does it make sense, right? I want you to ask yourself, where does it make sense that I would need more time or more rest? Where does it make sense, right? Where does it not have to mean my chronic illness took something again from me? Where does it have to not mean that, right? These are thoughts that we most likely have the identity and thinking that were developed during the most horrible times of our journey with chronic illness, probably during the, rejection phase and the engulfment phase, right? And those usually take majority of our journeys the longest, right? Like, though we flow in out of those sometimes, but those parts, probably the rejection part of that identity and the engulfment, like, I don't have it, I do have it, have lots of pathways in our brains that have already created so many, like, go-to thoughts and so many go-to feelings and emotions. And in the acceptance and enrichment phase, we have to challenge those thoughts, right? And even in the engulfment and even in the rejection phase, we still need to work on challenging those thoughts. And also, it's also okay to just rest and not beat yourself up regardless of its origin of why you're tired. Okay? The same thing is for pain. Same thing. And so what this might look like is that In your business, you might beat yourself up a lot for not doing more. You might blame yourself a lot for not doing more, not doing it the way you think you should have been doing it. You might be more fatigued and overwhelmed with the situations of things going on in your life or in your business. You might not wanna try anything new because you are trying to keep yourself safe. But also you're worried about where you may or may not be that you want to be. This is how it can sabotage, right? And so I want you to be aware. I just wanted to share this because when I work with my clients and I've worked with myself and like working with other coaches, I see where my mindset sometimes goes in that place of being like, ah, here it goes again. This thing is getting in my way. And it's like, well, is it getting in my way? Is it getting in my way or am I, is it the way I'm thinking about it getting in my way? That's, that's the, that's the question. Is the way that I'm thinking about it making this thing or the situation or this feeling or the sensation getting in the way of what I really wanna see or really wanna do? I think about my grandmother, um, when I think about this point and she used to say, um, she's like, what is the saying, Nikita? Oh, you must love it. If you don't want to change it. But I love that saying, but I think it's more— and now that I know more about the brain and the thoughts in our minds, I think it's more of like the more we hate it, the more it consumes us. So therefore we don't do anything about it because we can't see how to, right? So I want you to think about it, how— I want you to be aware of how many times does your chronic illness self, you know, hijack all of your thoughts, feelings, situations, and emotions? When, when does it do it? Just be aware. And I think it's important because it helps you to become more in self-agency to choose what you do want to feel, what you do want to do in a situation. How do you want to create safety? How do you want to move forward even though the— these parts of you exist, right? It's much more empowering. It's a much more growth place when you can be in that thought and that action and that motion and that change and shift to create what you want in your life and in your business. So this is an episode just to let you know some ways you might be sabotaging yourself, why your identity sometimes can be getting in the way. If you're fluctuating and you don't know who you are, you feel like you don't know who you are. Could it be that it's wrapped up in this identity of like, my chronic illness is always the culprit for all of my problems in all parts of my life and why I'm not good enough and why I don't deserve things? Could it be that? Challenge it. Challenge it. Become aware of it. And I promise you will see so much light on how these thoughts are not serving you and how you can choose other thoughts that do serve you to get to where you want to go and feel how you want to feel, even in the crappiest flare-up of your life. Because trust me, I know. All right, if you are like, Nikita, this was like a bomb that just went off and I'm like mind blown, I'm kind of lost, I don't know, I feel overwhelmed. You know, I would love to work with you. One of my things as a business holistic coach, mindset coach, is helping my clients to see where they might be stuck and might be like literally sabotaging themselves or where they can be softer with themselves so that they can create the results that they really want. And that they really wanna see, right? So if that's you, there is a link in my, um, show notes where you can book a call. You can apply, you just fill out a form, and then on the form, once you fill it out, you will get a link to book a call with me. That means you get a whole hour with me to talk about your business and your life and where you wanna go, and we can see what plan we create to make that a reality. So as always, remember and know this, that you are uniquely crafted to thrive. All right, y'all, that's a wrap. Thank you for listening.

And I hope this conversation inspired you.

Be sure to visit the website at craftedtothrive.com to check out the show notes and grab all the goodies that I or the guests mentioned in the show. Join us for our next one.

In the meantime, remember, you are crafted to thrive.