I have kicked around the idea of writing a regular blog to feature helpful products and resources that make my Spoonie life more livable, for quite some time. I decided today, just moments before I began writing this post, to start doing so today and to do it monthly. Welcome to the June edition of Just Five Things!

Some of the products I will feature each month are products that I have affiliate links for, and I’m not even trying to hide that from you. A Spoonie has got to eat! The affiliate links may also generate revenue for my podcast, as I may share products and services from our corporate sponsors and affiliates — or companies that become our podcast sponsors and affiliates.

Don’t hate, appreciate. You’ll get a discount too, for using my/our link. I nor my podcast will ever endorse products or services that we don’t use ourselves or haven’t tried, we’re actually super picky about that shit. So, without further adieu, here are five things that make my #SpoonieLife easier and/or better every day!

If gaslighting is manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity, medical gaslighting is manipulating a patient into thinking that they are exaggerating their own condition, causing a patient more and prolonged pain, putting their well-being or even their lives at risk. Both anecdotal and legal studies suggest that the mistreatment and neglect of female patients reporting pain to medical professionals is not the exception, but the rule. It has got to stop. (Quote from an article I’ve previously published.)

Last year my business coach and mentor, Heather Quisel, had everyone in our 14-Day Level Up Challenge group write a letter to themselves. We then tucked those letters into envelopes and mailed them off to Heather, with a self-addressed and stamped return envelope for her to utilize to mail the letters back to us one year later.

Today, I received the letter I wrote to myself on May 29, 2018.

I decided it was time to dust off my blog, get fucking serious about it this time, and keep up with posting weekly. I decided that I would start that today, by sharing this old post. ⁣I guess I feel like I need this reminder and divine kick in the ass, and you may all need a reminder too, about why I started this blog in the first place.

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go” ~ Jamie Anderson.

I have a personal trainer because he knows better than I do what is safe for me to do and try knowing my body’s unique limitations. I have a trauma therapist because she knows better than I do how to develop healthy coping mechanisms for processing complex trauma. I have a business coach and mentor who’s a millionaire because she knows better than I do what it takes to get there!