My Personal Affirmations for Living with Chronic Pain, Fatigue, and Mental Illness

April 22, 2023 by Jacob Harada

My Personal Affirmations For Living with Chronic Pain, Fatigue, and Mental Illness

Image by Ronit Shaked, accessed on Unsplash

The following are things that I feel I need to affirm within myself in order to live without shame while living with chronic pain, fatigue and mental illness. They are written for me, but I expect that some affirmations or observations would be helpful for others living with persistent pain. Here they are:

I affirm that my loved ones want me alive and in health before they want me productive or successful. I am valued for existing rather than only for producing anything.

I affirm furthermore that having lost the ability to be productive for long periods of time due to chronic pain and fatigue and mental illness has no bearing on my fundamental worth before God and the people whose opinions matter.

(As far as I have lived out a miserable martyrdom for productivity and performance, I have perhaps lived a futility – even though being productive felt so viscerally necessary. The narrative of worthy-by-performance is damaging. There has to be another way.)

I affirm that my fundamental worth and worthiness are generated and secured and preserved by the love of God. I am loved, forgiven, embraced and committed to. God creates me and restores me. God is invested in me. God even delights in me and knows my name. Such is the warmth of God’s generosity. As far I as I have been able to apprehend this reality, my shame around being an unsuccessful, sometimes barely standing adult – my shame loses its power and I feel that it is enough to do the next faithful thing, even if that faithful thing is only to rest for as long as it takes for pain to diminish.

God could make me powerful if he wanted to. My weakness is not undermining his plans for me nor does it disqualify me from his affection.

I affirm that the worth of my life is no less for the fact that chronic pain and fatigue and mental illness have inhibited me from my goals and dreams. I am a valued human being independent of those markers of success which I once thought would secure my value and secure a meaningful life.

I affirm that my life is meaningful and worth living even when my family and my peers are all working and being productive, while I am just managing pain, sadness, fear, nausea and fatigue as best I can.

I affirm that my life is meaningful and worth living even though depression and anxiety have had massive affect on the landscape of my mind and and disabled me from reaching my goals. Their prominence in the counsel of my mind and body does not overrule the voice of the Spirit saying I am safe and loved and fought for, even when I am not feeling that assurance. I am not irredeemably marked by anxiety and depression, even as far as they continue to present in my body and mind.

I recognize that complex trauma is complex and is not overcome with force but disarmed over time with gentleness.

If I am a ruin, I am Yahweh’s ruin, and he is in the business of turning ruins into citadels of light and music.

Some of my friends are changing the world. I, on the other hand, am doing a lot of lying down and managing symptoms. Notably, however, none of those friends are judging me because I cannot be productive as they can. Even if they did or secretly do, their judgement would have no ultimate bearing on my fundamental worth. (Furthermore, in truth, a lot of them are dealing with same insecurities and comparison fears despite being able-bodied and having visible success in various ways. Success and influence do not guarantee personal security. I think that’s abundantly clear at this point. So often they just mask trauma and ongoing insecurities.)

I affirm that God understands. It is in his nature to be gracious, patient, and compassionate. As far as I have been met with those virtues in people, I have seen the face of God, and it’s been bewilderingly disarming. My paradigm of personal value shifts every time. God is kinder and more generous than I felt him to be in my youth.

I release and confess how deeply I had inveterately assumed a scarcity concept about who gets value and how.

I affirm that my life is meaningful and worth living despite not reaching the dreams that I had hoped to achieve by this point in my life, including finishing my undergrad, studying further in music and theology, releasing an album of original songs, and finding a life partner.

I recognize that the vocational networking that can happen naturally for those who are healthy simply cannot happen for me in my present state. My social capacity is very limited. My geographical range, even, is quite limited without being able to afford a car and with my diminished energy levels making distant commutes unfeasible.

I recognize that my social circles are necessarily small. I do not have the energy I had in my youth to be widely engaged and involved in multiple communities.

I recognize that chronic illness has a significant bearing on my availability for a romantic relationship. I don’t rule it out but I don’t have the energy to pursue it while engaged in the priorities of pursuing health, pursuing vocational stability, and managing symptoms when they flare up. This seems to be necessarily the case for as long as this chronic pain and fatigue are as disabling as they are now, and for as long my vocational situation is as uncertain as chronic illness makes it right now.

These points of recognition regarding my social, romantic and vocational availability are difficult to emotionally accept but as far as I have denied them in the last few years, and behaved as though I was stronger than I actually was, I have injured myself and perhaps regressed for a time in my health journey. I recognize and accept my physical, social, and emotional limitations while, by the grace of God, affirming that these limitations do not diminish my worth, do not make my life less worth living, and do not at all sabotage God’s plans for me. Again, God’s fulfillment of his plans for me might even come because of or through my weaknesses, including points of trauma, mental illness, and chronic pain.

I affirm that the long list of things that I have started but not had the strength to finish because of my chronic pain, fatigue, and mental illness, cannot ultimately condemn me as a failure. Some of the things I tried, I discern retroactively, were unwise to attempt and resulted in discouragement. Other plans were reasonable considering a short term trajectory of my health but became unfeasible when my health regressed. Chronic illness makes life very unpredictable. It was ultimately not wrong for me to have tried various things even if a bunch of them were not ultimately sustainable. I affirm that it took courage to try things! Healthy people might not recognize how difficult it is for someone with chronic illness to attempt a new job path and attempt significant projects.

Some of that which I’ve had to let go of, I might still be able to finish in the future. Some are no longer feasible. Even so, again, these points of theoretical success are not the means by which I will secure value. My value is already secured for me by the kindness of God.

I remind myself that being unable to report having a productive career when people ask what I am doing with my life does not mean that I am failing. I remind myself that their confusion as to why this healthy-looking young man is not working very much is understandable; they can’t see inside me and they do not share my experience. If they had personal experience of chronic pain they might understand. It’s not my job, however, to justify and explain myself to everyone who inquires into my life trajectory.

If I look lazy or incompetent to this person or that person, that does not mean that I am lazy or incompetent. Furthermore if being unsuccessful in someone’s perception diminishes my value to them, that’s not really my problem. It’s a them-problem, and they’re actually missing out on the beauty and richness of being able to delight in and affirm people independent of their success. It is a richer life which has apprehended the inherent dignity of all people. They are a freer person who has apprehended their own worth as independent of their performance and can offer the same to others.

I affirm that my chronic pain, fatigue, and mental illness, do no have power to diminish my value in the eyes of Gods. These afflictions and weaknesses reduce my power and agency and productivity but they do not reduce me because I am secure in the generous, loyal love of the Father, of the Son, of the Spirit.

I affirm that my chronic pain, fatigue, and mental illness, though they impair me, do not set me outside of God’s ability to fulfill his purposes for me.

It is not as though God had great plans for me, but my pain, fatigue and mental illness sabotaged those plans. It is not as though my weaknesses and afflictions disqualify me from God’s plans for me. It is not as though my weaknesses and afflictions make me a second-rate child of God, less valuable in God’s machinations. God is not exasperated when he looks at me as if he doesn’t know what to do with me. He is not perturbed. He is empathetic without being anxiously exasperated. I am contained – embraced. My afflictions do not overrule or undermine the power of God to fulfill me and complete me.

All my flailing and failing. All my thrashing and gasping. All my floundering and stopping-and-starting. All the pain beneath desperate trying. All is understood. I remain a “victory won” by resurrection of Christ.

I have learning to do. I have healing to do. In the end all is beautiful which is breathed upon and restored by God. The story is still being written – of myself, and of this aching world.

God’s love is abundant enough to love the least of these as much as the strong, to dignify the weak equal to the powerful, and validate the vulnerable alongside the privileged. It is in fact biblical to affirm that God is against the proud, while he is for the suffering, the poor in spirit, the meek, and the disempowered.

Blessed are the meek. I’ve felt relatively meek for most of my life and when I’m in pain, my meekness increases. I feel socially vulnerable, sometimes a little dazed, and often embarrassed about elongated response times, or about my uncertainty about how to answer the question: How are you? My meekness doesn’t ultimately diminish me. I’m allowed to show up weak. That’s OK.

I suspect that the security that is possible for the child of God despite being weak and in pain is a greater witness to the world of the generosity of God’s love, than a great deal of things that are done for God by strong people.

Miraculous healing and empowerment can be a witness of the power of God, but so also can quiet, radiantly patient security. That deep peace is a counter-narrative to the assumption of worth being achieved by performance and success – even where that narrative exists within the Church. Deep, quiet security is a counter narrative to that which assumes that a sensational life is the only life worth living – again, even where that narrative exists within the Church.

I affirm that God has elected to suffer with as well as for. Christ crucified is God with the afflicted. Christ resurrected is one who has passed through the fire and the dark.

I affirm that even should I remain significantly disabled for the remainder of this life, it will still be worth living, and I should not think of myself as being forgotten by God. God is with me in this depth and deeper still can he traverse to accompany me. I am witnessed, I am known.

I affirm that even should I remain significantly disabled for the remainder of this life, it will still be worth living and I should not think of it as a lesser life. I am not a slave of this world’s value schemas; I am loved as I am. I belong to meaningful community. I have purpose. I am simply called to love as I am able. If my ability is small relatively to the able-bodied, it is not thus less significant. Jesus loved the elderly woman for offering her small coin at the temple. If all I can offer is a small coin and a frail voice in love, that is enough. Furthermore, God can multiply small offerings if he wants to. More hopefully still, he tells us that his power is made perfect in our weakness and that is a wonderous paradox. I have seen it happen, and it is beautiful.

I affirm that I live this life, in whatever state, in the company of God and in fellowship with beautiful people.

I affirm that some of the most beautiful moments of connection in my life have been with those I’ve suffered with, or with those who have also suffered. I believe that having suffered has enabled me to see people and cherish people in a way that I could not have had I not suffered. In conversations with deep-hearted people – those who’ve suffered and engaged in healing – I feel we apprehended the beauty of life, and the confounding goodness of God in a way that is hard to describe without having felt it.

I affirm that all my suffering exists in the context of healing and victory. I believe in the resurrection, both a reality enacted within me now by the Spirit of God, as well as future hope. I hope in a bodily resurrection in which everything that defeats me now will be defeated. I believe absolute restoration in the name of Jesus Christ. The ache of ages anticipates that beautiful day. I don’t really know exactly what absolute restoration will look like but I believe that it is in the works and that it will satisfy, because God is competent and generous and creative.

I affirm that bodies matter, and mine will be restored in this age or the next. God is not enacting an escape plan but a total rescue. God’s is not an anxious salvage mission but a confident, abundant reconciliation invitation. I belong the resurrection and the restoration of all things. In the end I inherent heaven and earth per the will of God and mine is just another voice in the wedding song of the Lamb.

Health Challenges and Pivots; explaining another year’s delay on releasing my original songs

April 22, 2023 by Jacob Harada

Health Challenges and Pivots; explaining another year’s delay on releasing my original songs

Image by Andrii Bondarenko on Unslpash

In 2022 and 2023, God has been faithful. I have learned a lot and had the blessing of some trips to see weddings and family. I’ve grown a lot. It’s also been pretty difficult.

Early 2022 I had recurring incidents of throwing out my back at work at my the café I worked at. I was also having strong flare-ups of Fibromyalgia fatigue and pain. The health concerns prompted me to pray into and decide on a next step. Indeed, I made the choice to leave the barista job out of health necessity, but also to some degree of faith that God would provide for me financially by some other means and show me my next steps.

I firstly gave myself whole-heartedly to a delivery of music in two online concerts. I did a little marketing with my brothers’ help and made it an event. The concerts were well received. It felt amazing, though very costly on an emotional level. It was very vulnerable for me. My music and poetry is so entangled with my heart; I had written it in the crucible of my 20’s. My writing has redemptive intention – even in the lament and expressed disillusionment – but the grief points were still too real to me. I had a few panic attacks leading up to the concerts. Delivering my story through the songs and poetry felt like pulling a javelin out of it’s wound in my chest chest, holding it up in the air, saying “Blessed be the name of the Lord”, and collapsing.

In the aftermath, I intuited that I was still too fragile to do this – “this” as in that exact set – on a regular basis. Secondly, I intuited that I wasn’t set up at that moment, to make music my living. This is not to say that I gave up, or am giving up on music an important part of my life or vocation. It’s just to make an observation of where I was at at the time.

Fibromyalgia flare-ups, the back issue, and some degree of mental illness continued to impair me. Without music as a viable income option at the time, and still having the problem of unemployment, I committed my limited capacity to finding an alternative employment option.

While I continued to do pre-production sessions to develop my music album for a while, I finally put it aside completely when securing an alternative income and manging health issues seemed to be priority.

On the health side, promted by my Father, I made pretty dramatic diet changes. In summary I now do intermittent fasting, minimize sugar, and mind lectin consumption. It has helped and I have steadier energy.

I committed to narrating audiobooks as I had the gear and tech already, and it seemed to align with my skill-set. I steered into fiction and learned how to create different voices. I taught myself a bunch different accents (or a working version of them). I’ve narrated three fantasy adventures so far. I think they’re awesome. I’ll provide some links. 🙂

As I was finishing the first book, I developed a very debilitating nerve pain issue. My right arm and shoulder became very inflamed and lost strength. I pushed through significant pain and a feeling of panic to finish editing the audiobook. (Don’t do this! Listen your pain. Respect your body.)

It was a very distressing experience. I was already so impaired by other health issues, and now my right arm – my means of subsistence and achievement – was failing me. Typing, playing piano, and old-fashioned writing on paper aggravated the pain rapidly.

A physiotherapist I saw convinced me that while the pain was in my shoulder, arm, and wrist, the issue was in my neck. As I’ve rehabilitated it over the last 10 months, the pain seems to have “centralized” to it’s source, which is a good thing; I feel the pain partly in my neck now. Yay!

Since November I’ve been figuring out how to live with this neck-arm issue. I have a stand-up desk – that was a game-changer. By instruction of a Occupational Therapist specializing in pain management, I don’t work until the pain is blaring anymore. Recovery demands that I not push through pain. I take a lot of breaks. I take NSAIDs as needed.

I also was prescribed Lyrica. It seems to be diminishing inflammation in my arm and, critically, also diminishing Fibromyalgia pain.

I finished the second and third audiobooks at the pace I could afford. My neck-arm issue has gradually improved, but I have to be very careful.

I’m staring school at Vancouver Community college for their music diploma. The presence of my neck-arm issue concerns me as to whether I will be able to do the classes, which will of course demand some writing or typing, or playing piano.

I however have some assurance that God is encouraging me to stay the course and simply be wise with my body. While my neck-arm issue remains alarming at times, my Fibromyalgia issue has receded remarkably, probably due to Lyrica. I’ve been doing a lot of physical exercise to rehabilitate my neck and shoulder. The amount of exercise I’ve been able to do this month without the Fibromyalgia pain flaring up is remarkable. It would have been unthinkable two months ago. I celebrate this, really, though I’m still actively concerned about the neck-arm issue.

I’m going to school for music to increase my confidence as a musician and fill in holes where I’m missing skills. This was actually always the plan. While I was still at CBC doing the Biblical Studies undergrad, I planned to finish it and then do a music program. It’s taken a long time to get my health to a place where I feel I can go back to school, but I am believing that this is the time. I will take it slow, and feel out how much pressure my body can handle at this point.

I’d love prayer for the preservation of my strength in this endeavor. I’d love your prayer for the healing of my neck-arm issue. I praise God for how dramatically the Fibromyalgia pain and fatigue flare-ups have seemed to diminished in the last two months.

I should report also that my mental health has continued to calcify into something like stability. I’m actually so much less… threatened, on an identity level, it’s amazing. At least in comparison to my state before, I’m confoundingly free. God has given an un-threatened authenticity that I did not know was possible.

God is securing my foundations. I believe I am taking the next step.

Ironically, despite the frustrating delays, I hold my album looser now. I believe God has given me gifts. I think he’s also wanted to confirm within me that his affection does not depend on my application of those gifts. My album will not justify me before God. It will also not vindicate me before men. Indeed for a length of time, when less secure, I “needed” to release my album, in order to prove that my life isn’t a waste. It was ashamed of how utterly I had collapsed and lost capacity for embarrassing number of years. I needed to compensate for lost time and lost face.

I know now, however, that the album – and my gifts in total – are just gifts, and not the means of winning back dignity and worth. My album is just a gift, and it’ll come out God so enables me to release it.

I think it’ll be awesome, but it will not justify my existence, or secure my value. I’m already justified and valued. That’s partly what the album is about: releasing the need to justify one’s existence by performance and falling into the dignity that comes by grace alone. This falling, in my case, felt terrifying but it’s been worth it.

That being said. I am sorry for the delay. Some of you have invested in me financially, and I have not so far been able to deliver to you the result. Thank you for the grace. I am hoping for next summer as a delivery time. My capacity remains very limited by the shoulder issue, but it is resolving. The Fibromyalgia issue has resolved remarkably, and that’s been the primary issue for 5 years.

The trajectory is good. Yes. Moving forward.

Monthly Archives: April 2023