Empower Yourself with Chronic Illness in 2017


This year on RAHealthCentral, we are going to talk about empowerment and chronic illness: what it is, why it's important, and how to get there:

 "Do you feel powerless in the face of your chronic illness and everything that comes with it? This year, we will help you transform into being empowered in your health care and your life!

Every year here on RAHealthCentral, we choose an overarching theme for the year. Not all of our posts will be about that theme, but it guides much of what we do. For 2017, we chose the theme of Becoming Empowered with a Chronic Illness.

What is empowerment?

 The English Oxford Living Dictionaries define empowerment as “the process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s rights.”

A big part of empowerment is the locus of control, that is, who or what is in charge of your life. When you live with chronic illness, it can feel as if control has been wrested away from you in different ways. The illness is in control of how you feel physically and emotionally at any given moment and sometimes, health professionals may not be particularly good at involving you in decision-making. Becoming empowered means taking back that control."

Read the rest of my new post on empowerment in 2017.
 

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