Positive Affirmations for Those Hard Chronic Illness Days

A chronic illness can cause numerous negative thoughts to creep into your mind, especially on those extra hard days where the pain feels unbearable.

You start to wonder if the rest of your life will always be like this and how you will make it.

When I have those moments of little to no hope, I write down and read aloud positive affirmations. While this is far from a cure and won't make my endometriosis disappear, it has become the comfort blanket that helps me get through those times. Yes, even on those really hard and painful days.

The science of rewiring your mindset

Since my official diagnosis in 2017, I have found that managing my chronic illness requires one crucial thing: changing the way I think and what I spend my time thinking about.

For me, spending my time thinking about my pain and feeling hopeless led me down a road of destruction and depression. This most certainly did not help my pain or my feeling of hopelessness.

It took a lot of trial and error and work on my part to rewire my brain. Instead of feeding it constant negative thoughts, I replaced those internal dialogues with positive affirmations.

I repeated them daily—all day if I needed to.

Your brain becomes stronger and more resilient with the information you feed it, so make sure you are feeding it good thoughts.

When you stay stuck in those negative thoughts, it doesn't only cause you unhappiness but can also cause other types of damage. This means that continuing to have bad thoughts will train your brain to continue to support negative thoughts.

Why your thoughts matter

Another thing, continuous negative thoughts to the brain can trigger inflammation, causing your chronic illness to feel twice as bad.

I know you might think it isn't as simple as repeating affirmations and feeling better. And you are correct.

Learning to change your mindset and rewire your brain won't happen overnight. It isn't something you can just read and be done with. Rewiring your brain takes the active willingness to replace those negative thoughts.

Positive daily affirmations

Reminder: this doesn't mean pretending your illness doesn't exist either. Your reality shouldn't be ignored. But you can certainly change the way you think and talk to yourself about it. Here are a few affirmations that help me daily.

• Today, I choose to be at peace with my pain.
• I am patient with the healing process because I know healing isn't linear.
• I have the mindset and body of a warrior.
• My illness lives inside me but does not define me.
• My pain does not determine the type of life I will live.
• Today, I choose to love my body. Loving my self will help me heal.
• Today, I choose to listen to my body and give it the love and respect it deserves.
• Today, I will show my illness gratitude for all it has taught me about myself and my body.
• I know I can choose my happiness. My illness does not choose that for me.
• My pain only has as much power as I allow it to have. So today, I am giving it no power.
• I am at peace with my illness. I can live alongside it without feeling angry.
• With every exhale I take, I release the negative thoughts about my illness bottled up inside.
• I learn from my pain and illness every single day.
• I know that no matter how I feel, I am healing every single day.

Customizing affirmations for your journey

t's important to remember that affirmations should be focused on you and your specific journey.

Just because the affirmations above are my favorites doesn't mean they will be the ones you need. Your affirmations should be comforting, believable, realistic, and easy enough for you to remember to have on repeat.

As I said, I know these affirmations won't cure our illnesses or pain, but they will help you create a better headspace. With a better headspace comes better thoughts and acceptance of whatever it may be that you are dealing with.

What affirmations would you add to the list for you and your chronic illness?