http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/wpress/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/
I had read about it before but paid more attention once I read it again. It was written by a woman who lives with Lupus and uses spoons to represent energy to explain what it is like to live each day with a chronic illness and how you must choose wisely how to spend your time each day. Many people have unlimited energy (spoons), people with chronic illness or lifelong disabilities have limited amounts of energy (spoons).
Amazingly it is a fantastic way to explain many invisible and visible illnesses or disabilities, not just Lupus. Thinking more deeply about this theory I compared it to my life and realized that it would really be helpful for me to explain to people how I live every day. I have limited spoons. I use a spoon every time I do something, even very small things like getting out of bed. I haven't really counted how many spoons I use before I need rest yet but it doesn't take long for my spoons to expire each day. Some days I have more spoons than others and even have some left over at the end of some days. Some days I start with very few.
For each of these activities I use a spoon:
Getting up
making coffee
having a shower
cleaning up my kitchen
brushing my teeth
shovelling
banking
household bills
waking the kids and getting them to school
eating breakfast
getting the mail
putting wood in the fire
laundry
making dinner
feeding the pets
You get the point. Many people can get through their morning chores as routine and get to work, put in a full day, grab a few groceries, and get home before using up a spoon. They don't have to think about it, it's just what they do every day. They have spoons left for family activities, community events etc. I used to be like that as well. Now I have to think about everything I do, it takes much more energy than it ever did before. Each thing usually uses one full spoon, even getting out of bed. If I know I have an evening activity I have to choose wisely how I use my energy through the day.
This is just the way it is and I continue to adjust to it.
While I think The Spoon Theory is an amazing way of explaining the way I live, I choose to look at it differently. Instead of focusing on how many spoons I have in a day and how they disappear leaving me tired; I am dealing with my spoons as I get them and focusing on how I can accumulate at least one more for tomorrow, fill them up. I choose to pay attention to what I need to change or adjust in order to increase my spoon inventory. The writer of The Spoon Theory writes that she would love to have more spoons but she has never been able to get more. For me this is the kind of self talk that would keep me stuck. " I can never get more spoons" would keep me stuck and feeling helpless. "I can find a way to get more spoons", "I will have more spoons tomorrow", "I will do something today that will help me have more spoons tomorrow". I will probably keep going in the same cycle, some days lots of spoons, some days very few spoons and some days in between. If I stay stuck in that in my brain I will not try harder to live life to the fullest, I will just accept it as it is; happy with potential I am not realizing yet. I want to realize the potential that I envision for my life so I am going to focus on spoon accumulation. I will live each day as it comes, managing the spoons I have wisely and plan for more spoons the next day and the day after that.
Using this theory to explain my life to people will be useful if they ask. What I won't do is use it to excuse myself from life, gain sympathy or allow myself to get stuck in my illness. My illness(es) are a part of who I am and they affect how I live, they don't stop my life. I am going to live my life to the fullest and instead of emptying spoons I am going to fill them up in the places I need to every day.
It's a spoon half empty/half full thing.
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