Let There Be Love

This blog is a place for those living with chronic illnesses and disabilities to feel understood. I have Lyme Disease and am HLA-B27 positive. Find me on Facebook or Instagram with my name, Wilderness Dawn, I'm on there more regularly https://linktr.ee/wildernessdawn 🧚✨

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Special shout-out to all y'all doing this through the wicked hard stuff. I see you. I feel you 💚 . . Repost from my friend @omrider24 . . #igquotes #selfworth #selflove #healing #somaticexperiencing #selfawareness #growthmindset #higherself #chronicillness #lymedisease #wildernessmakesitbetter #collectiveconsciousness #motherearth #boundaries #love #gratitude #spoonie #transformation #compassion (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB6aG-bh78k/?igshid=1v7yxt7zvzpp4

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Tryna be like water 🌊 . . @jaiyajohn . . #igquotes #selfworth #selflove #healing #somaticexperiencing #selfawareness #growthmindset #higherself #chronicillness #lymedisease #wildernessmakesitbetter #collectiveconsciousness #motherearth #boundaries #love #gratitude #spoonie #transformation #compassion (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB6XubABlkB/?igshid=kkvc10un16a3

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❤️🧠 (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB5uo2dBZHD/?igshid=lv54qw72cgss

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What do you do to enforce your boundaries? Exploring and finding my boundaries has been very active work for me for, especially recently. I notice, as a sensitive person that not only is it challenging to hold boundaries it is exponentially important. I also notice as someone with chronic illness I seem to be exposed to many more opportunities for boundaries to be tested and pushed. One way I experience this is that I notice other people sometimes express that they know what's best for my body or what my body can tolerate, better than I do. Nothing could be further from the truth. I haven't been sick this long to not have learned my abilities and tolerances. I also know that I have a sensitive nervous system that could make me more susceptible to illness. I believe part of this sensivity is a result of not holding firm boundaries around my health and safety, and in turn resulting in compounding trauma. This is where the work is a paradox. I feel I am more vulnerable and exposed to these experiences while experiencing illness, and it is also in part what has caused me to become ill and stay ill, and it is my work to protect myself now in ways I couldn't then....while also staying open hearted ❤️ Hard and beautiful work! (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB30VaIhRrh/?igshid=1638796011bh3

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Am I well or sick...or both? Where do I belong?

Am I well or sick…or both? Where do I belong?

I often feel at such an extreme deficit for words to describe what living with chronic illness is like. Both because it feels like there aren’t enough words in the English language to honor the layers of it. And also because it falls on deaf ears some of the time. Meaning, I assume most healthy people don’t want to hear about it, and many times it is visibly clear that it makes them…

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All of these 💛💛💛 Thank you @lizclimo for your fantastic talent! . . . #artistsoninstagram #lizclimo #funny #cuteanimals https://www.instagram.com/p/CBzdSPfBCj0/?igshid=w9cluqpfkvcp

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This is a picture of me elated because I was at one of my favorite places in the world, the Columbia River Gorge, in Oregon. Nature has always been my happy place for many reasons, but one of those reasons now is because of the fresh air. I want to talk about is Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS). MCS has affected every single part of my life. It has left me homeless, taken friends, and left me severely ill many times ovee. Our world has normalized putting chemicals on and in our bodies. There is NOTHING normal about this. If you want to be healthier and avoid illness, educate yourself on this topic. If you love someone who has a chronic illness and they are experiencing sensitivities, educate yourself on this topic. People with MCS are constantly battling the toxic ingredients that surround them either on people, in their homes, or in public spaces. Yet we are often are treated like a burden when we ask for needs around this. The most amazing thing you can do for someone with MCS is be that person that they feel safe around. Hear them, validate them, believe them. These products are neurotoxins and for some of us they make us incredibly sick and for good reason... because they are toxic! There shouldn't be any lotion or perfume, etc. more important than a human being; and there's an unscented chemical free alternative to everything. Sometimes we are referred to as "canaries" because our bodies are more sensitive to the toxicity and can sense chemicals sooner than the average. This is a common experience among the lyme community. Some places to start is a website called thinkbeforeyoustink.com. I have offered this resource to friends and employers several times and have always had positive feedback about how helpful it was. I also have been told there is a documentary on #Netflix called, Stink, but haven't watched it yet myself. If you have other resources, please comment below with them. If you have questions, DM me. (at Latourell Falls) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBzFwQHB5es/?igshid=ofarcpifptcu

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That's right 🙌 @theferocity #socialactivism https://www.instagram.com/p/CBt10RIB7H_/?igshid=1czlamkkblsf5

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Happy Summer Solstice! Sincerely, Oregon (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBrjgyhhyQl/?igshid=mqe6pxqcn9ql

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“Sometimes the building up is in the breaking down.”  ✨ I wrote these words in a poem a few years ago. Over the last several years I have spent a lot of time peeling back layers of myself teasing through the things that I am not, and searching for the core truth of who I am. Minus what society says I should be. Minus what my trauma has left me to believe is true. And, minus what my capabilities or disabilities said about me. I desperately wanted healing and I knew that my way to healing was by accessing the secrets hiding deep in my true essence, beyond this physical body. A place of much greater knowing. I see this happening on a global level now. For individuals, for mother earth, and for the human race. Breaking it down, to build it back up anew. It’s interesting to watch the tiny spark of what you have known in your internal universe expand into a massive universal experience across the collective consciousness. I see people questioning at their deepest levels many questions I have faced and am facing again, now through a different lens...who am I? what do I stand for? what is important? who is important? what really matters? why does it matter? what does it mean to me? how am I hurting? how is my suffering aiding in the collective consciousness? how can I help? how can I ask for help? what is my truth? what are my beliefs? what beliefs have I absorbed that are not mine? what do I bring as an individual to this world that is unique that no one else can? where am I needed? what is my true calling? how do my gifts serve the greater good? Keep asking questions. Keep showing up. Keep peeling back the layers. And, keep digging for your truth. We need every single one of you. 🙏👁️✨ Virus-free. www.avast.com (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBqq1ZBBTwV/?igshid=129k95lqnn29u

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Take back your power, from wherever you left it. Collect all of your scattered parts and pieces. Know your value, to know your worth. Love fiercely and freely, and charge admittance to your deepest truths. Know boundaries, know bridges, know space. Come back to self. Come back into your heart. Feel your wholeness just as you are. (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBoARzsh2wG/?igshid=7d424oc79s1

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This is the final line of an essay I wrote last year. It is about some trying times I have been through, and it applies now more than ever to the collective. As someone who has endured chronic illness, I'm familiar in my own ways to difficulty, chaos, rebirth, and the grittiness of transformation amongst the beauty of transformation. I’m holding you all with such loving compassion as we carry eachother through this metamorphosis of earth and the human race at this time. It's powerful, and humbling, and hopeful, and scary, all at the same time. - To read the full essay find it on my blog called, "The Gift of a Completely Unknown Future". LINKTREE IN BIO (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBiqa8Sh0-C/?igshid=1xuz2x3mums3t

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This is an excerpt from a longer poem that I wrote a few years ago. When I wrote it, I was doing a lot of healing work to rewire my brain and to process trauma. I was experiencing many lyme herxes (but I didn’t yet know that I had lyme or what a herx was). Many of my days, as someone with chronic illness, come down to simply not dying, not giving up. The physical pain is extreme, the emotional pain intense, and the existentialism a plenty. This week was one of those for me where I put my head down, buried into it, and surrendered. Today was the first day this week that I put on different clothes, have been able to sit upright in a chair, and successfully ate something. As the fog begins to lift and I reflect back on the hours, days, week that just passed, it’s a complete blur. Everything stands still, yet timelines seem to cross and mismash, and there’s a necessary deep surrender into a nothingness in order to survive. Before going through it myself, I could have never fathomed what it’s like to carry my body through so much despair and agony. I don’t feel that it’s something I can do justice with words. So I'm not going to try. And I do hope you never have to feel it. This poem is based on recollections of my experience of what happens after that. After the pain and grueling fighting, when your body and mind are preparing for the transition from the physical to the spiritual realm. What some may refer to as a near death experience; something I have experienced at times during my healing. Linktree in bio for full poem, or dm me 🤗 #lymedisease #neardeathexperience #surrender #bloggersofinstagram #wildernessmakesyoubetter (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBbgbW1hfX-/?igshid=3xpo3boygnlo

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🙏🙌🏻🙏 Repost from @createthelove #mayaangelou #trauma https://www.instagram.com/p/CBMhgg8poql/?igshid=1315xhzkyf1wu

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This is a list of diagnosis and symtoms that I carry with me everyday. I have normalized some of these and learned to live with others, and it is still hard everyday. I'm also sure there are some that I have forgotten because sometimes I forget things aren't normal. This list also doesn't embody the intensity of it or the emotional weight and daily burden. Please be kind to everyone, you can never tell by looking at someone the complexity of what they are holding. Peace and love 💚 #invisibleillness #chronicillnessadvocate (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBLuK53J8-c/?igshid=16q2r3ibmwo8c

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Everyday. All the time. Repost @daniellelaporte #angeladavis #instaquotes #BlackLivesMatter #powerfulwomen (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBI9ca_p2Nx/?igshid=1rk1afpr56b6s

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Deeply appreciating this image 🙏 @nbcnews #blacklivesmatter https://www.instagram.com/p/CBEFxdAB-u6/?igshid=173g2y8x1ficf