Partnering With Yourself While Navigating The Unknown

This Is Not What I Ordered: conversations on chronic illness, loss + change

My guest this week is Michelle Irving, who combines training with personal experience to offer mentorship and coaching around career and chronic illness. A gifted teacher, and a globally in-demand speaker and writer, Michelle is driven by a mission to de-shame and transform conversations around illness. Drawing upon her extensive training in somatic therapy, cancer survivorship, and women's leadership, her life's work and living legacy are dedicated to helping individuals foster positive self-relationships amidst illness, aiming for lives filled with love, meaningful work, and empowerment.

Together, we explore the complexities of chronic illness and the importance of reframing our relationships with ourselves. We also discuss maintaining hope and connection during life's uncertainties, and Michelle shares her four stages of coping with the unknown. Throughout this thought-provoking episode, we’ll explore acceptance, emotional stages of navigating illness, self-compassion, and resilience. Michelle's wisdom, storytelling, and vulnerability make this episode a must-listen.

Episode Highlights:

• Embracing uncertainty on the way to empowerment

• Fostering self-connection during challenges

• Navigating grief and resilience in life transitions

• Developing self-trust step by step

• Prioritizing curiosity over problem-solving

• Cultivating self-trust with a “future-self” perspective

• Sustaining hope and connection in life's unpredictability

• Seeing chronic illness as a journey

• Practicing self-compassion

• Understanding emotional stages

• Balancing career with self-care

Quotes:

"And the one or the couple of things we lose connection to is hope because it feels dangerous. And we lose connection to our longings because it's like, “Okay, what you want has to go in a box, and you can't even open that box until you're well.”"

"I'm nervous about traveling… there's little parts of me that are like, “But we really liked our couch.” And there's other parts of me. It's like, “Yeah, but we get to go to Rome.”"

"Can I have compassion for myself that I can't have compassion for myself? Yes, I can do that because both things get to be true at once."

"No matter where you are, it's never the end of the story."

"Acceptance is the opposite of rejection. And if part of what we're doing is rejecting some element of reality, then the most loving response is essentially what you're saying is to create some acceptance of that rejection."

"I think my purpose is to not abandon myself and be as connected to myself as possible, so that every moment, even if I don't know who I am in terms of identity, I know that I can trust my heart, and what my heart feels is the next right thing for me."

"I need to know that I can have Thursdays to lie in bed regardless, and I need to know where to get help."

"We only work with people we love. That's it. If we don't love you, and I don't mean that in a codependent way, but if this isn't a fit, it's not a fit. We don't struggle then to try and work out how to do it because it has to have some ease in the process and some delight."

Links:

This Is Not What I Ordered

Lauren Selfridge

Michelle Irving