For those of you who have been on The Rheuma Mill for a while, you would have noticed, The Rheuma Mill has undergone a make over!
Despite it being a while since my last article, the mill continued to turn during my absence and I truly appreciate you all for keeping it turning by visiting, sharing and interacting via our social channels.
In the past 6 months, I have been contemplating whether or not to keep The Rheuma Mill going. Inevitably, I decided to keep it going because letting it go would be like chopping off a limb. The Rheuma Mill was born out of desperate times, kept me going during Covid and has helped a lot of people out there. From the feedback I’ve received, The Rheuma Mill has mostly provided all it’s visitors with comfort. It has provided a means for a lot of you to feel less alone in your RA journey which, is exactly why I started The Rheuma Mill. I felt very alone in the start of my journey and felt the only way I could feel less lonely was to journal my thoughts and feelings. As a bonus, if I could help at least 1 person out there on their journey, my efforts would all be worth it. To date, The Rheuma Mill has had hundreds of thousands of visitors and that just blows my mind.
For this reason, I have decided to take The Rheuma Mill back to it’s roots and will concentrate mostly on sharing my journey.
Even though I’m taking The Rheuma Mill back to it’s roots, I am changing the subtitle from ‘Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis’ to ‘Growing with Rheumatoid Arthritis’. When I first started The Rheuma Mill, I was at the start of my journey with RA, was still in a lot of pain and very much still navigating my path through a new and unexpected way of life. At the time, I was journaling the ways in which I was living through this debilitating disease and sharing with all of you everything I was learning.
“Choose to grow rather than just live. Living is to stay at ground level, growing is to soar towards that which is endless..”
— Maly O’Grady, The Rheuma Mill
However, 3 years on, I no longer feel that I am just eking out a living with RA but learning how to grow as a person despite it. I have had amazing experiences over the past 3 years and have reached successes that I did not think possible. RA has given me an opportunity to change my mindset and as a result, given me the grit and determination to keep looking and moving forward.
Even though I don’t live with the same amount of pain as I did in the beginning thanks to all my medication, that doesn’t mean I still don’t face challenges due to RA. It’s still there lurking and will do so for the rest of my life. There are still limitations but I push against those limits as much as I can. I guess my new mindset causes me to be less agitated and less resentful by the limitations and a bit more grateful that I am able to do as much as I can even though sometimes, it’s not very much.
In a way, choosing to grow with rheumatoid arthritis, is my conscious choice to be happy and to focus on the positives things and things I should be grateful for. Even though that sounds a little cliche and corny, making the choice to be positive is very powerful and should not be underestimated.
Once I made the choice to adopt a positive mindset, I turned this into regular practice which, has now become a habit. Does that mean I just float on a cloud all day? Of course not. What it does mean, is that I dwell on things less or not at all. It means I might get mad, but I don’t stay mad for long. Being mad, dwelling on things and churning stuff over in my mind is tiring. Rheumatoid arthritis is tiring enough so I’d rather spend my precious energy on thoughts and actions that are going to enrich my life and help me to grow.
Thank you for continuing to visit and contribute to The Rheuma Mill. My hope is that we will all grow as we navigate life with rheumatoid arthritis together.
Leave your feedback on our new look and pathway below in the comments section!