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Everyone has bad days and bad moments, but when every single day challenges you to keep fighting and you can't see an end in sight, it takes tremendous strength to continue showing up for yourself.

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I could physically feel the frustration and anxiety building in my body.

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Sometimes I just needed to cry. And there were times when I needed to vent to my parents and say, this sucks. I am so frustrated. I'm scared. I don't understand why this is happening.

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When everything else made me feel lost, I could find hope there.

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I felt a wave of peace over me.

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I went from having three seizures a day to starting my own podcast and business. Welcome to the Chronic Fighter podcast, where we help teens and young adults with chronic illness take their lives back. I'm your host, Liv Winkler, a health and nutrition coach, founder of The Chronic Fighter health coaching business, and lifelong chronic illness girl with a degree in psychology and concentration in Health Coaching.

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This podcast meets you exactly where you're at in your health journey, and offers science backed tools that changed my life and can change yours too. I would love to be the person for you that I wished I had growing up.

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Welcome back to The Chronic Fighter podcast. I'm your host, Liv Winkler.

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There have been seasons of my life when my world got really, really small, when my life consisted of waking up in the morning, lying in my dark bedroom all day, falling asleep, and waking up just to do it all over again. One of those times was actually only a couple of years ago. I had no idea what my life was going to look like or how I was going to move forward.

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I get emotional thinking about this because, to be completely frank with you, my quality of life was so low. Being bedridden felt like a prison and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I share all this because maybe you're in a similar place right now, listening from bed, watching everyone else go to school, work, see friends, and make plans.

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While it feels like your own life has completely stopped.

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Everyone has bad days and bad moments, but when every single day challenges you to keep fighting and you can't see an end in sight, it takes tremendous strength to continue showing up for yourself.

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And during those seasons, joy doesn't always just find you. Sometimes you have to be intentional about creating moments of it when your circumstances aren't giving you much to work with.

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That's what I want to share with you today. The things that help me take life one day at a time, work with the energy I had, stay connected, and hold onto hope when my world felt really small.

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One thing I thought about constantly was what my future would look like.

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Will I ever be able to work and live on my own? Find a boyfriend? Go back to school? Make it to dinner with friends? And those questions are understandable. When your life looks different than you thought it would, of course you want to know when it's going to change. But I realized I was asking myself questions I couldn't possibly answer.

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And every time I tried to figure out my entire future from my bed, I made the day I was already struggling to get through, feel even heavier. I had to learn to bring myself back to today. There's a mentality used in Navy Seal training that I think applies so well here. Think small. Navy Seals go through some of the most intense training in the world.

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During one part known as Hell Week, candidates spent about five and a half days running for miles, swimming in freezing water, carrying heavy logs and boats, and completing grueling physical exercises, all while cold, wet, exhausted, and running on very little sleep. In those moments, thinking about how much longer they have left can make the challenge feel impossible. So instead of focusing on the days ahead, they make the goal smaller.

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Get through the next exercise. Make it to the next meal. Reach the next checkpoint. One small win at a time. Pastor Daniel Young said something similar that has really stuck with me. You don't have to win the whole war. Just win the day, the moment. That's how I started approaching my own life. I still kept a calendar - I knew when my appointments were and what I needed to prepare for.

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But I didn't need to carry the weight of every upcoming appointment and every challenge that might be ahead. What comes first? Focus on that. Then we'll get to the next thing.

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And I actually still use this now, even though my life looks completely different, when my schedule is packed.

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Thinking about everything I need to accomplish over the next two weeks can overwhelm me. So I bring myself back to the exact same thing. What do I need to do today? Once I stopped expecting myself to solve my entire future, I could start paying attention to what was actually in front of me.

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And I had to become really good at finding joy in things that maybe would have seemed insignificant to me before I got sick.

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My migraines and light sensitivity got so bad at one point that I couldn't even watch TV. So I put my headphones in and listened to podcasts. Podcast after podcast. I started learning something new every day. I found topics I was interested in, and listening to podcasts became one of my hobbies. And somewhere along the way, I started thinking about how cool it would be to have a podcast of my own someday.

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Now it feels surreal that I'm here recording one. There were other tiny things I did too. Doing my skincare. Cuddling with my dog Archie, who is genuinely the funniest dog I've ever met. He'll side eye me or sit there with his paws crossed all proper. I'd play a simple game with my dad, look back at good memories, send TikToks to my friends, listen to music.

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Those things weren't changing my circumstances, but they were changing moments within my circumstances. And when so much of your day is hard, even one small good moment matters.

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Another huge part of getting through this period of my life was finding ways to still be connected to people, even when I couldn't participate the way I used to. If I couldn't go out with my friends, that didn't mean I couldn't FaceTime them or even just text them.

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And if I did have enough energy to spend time with someone, I started being more intentional about how I use that energy.

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Who was I spending time with? What were we doing?

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Being with someone I didn't know very well took more out of me than being with someone I could completely relax around. A big reason for that was brain fog.

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There were times when following a conversation, finding the right words, or trying to explain how I was feeling took so much mental energy. That's why I really valued relationships where I didn't feel like I had to be “on”. I could be quiet, lose my train of thought, or say my brain just isn't working today. And they understood.

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I also found that keeping my friends in the loop helped. Even if all I had energy for was a quick text instead of a whole in-person conversation, it made it easier for them to understand if I needed to cancel plans or couldn't do much that day. One of my good friends, Lizzy, is a perfect example of someone who fills my cup instead of draining it.

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And it wasn't just about who I was with. What we were doing mattered to. We didn't need to do anything extravagant or physically demanding. Sometimes watching a movie together or just sitting and talking was enough. I didn't want every ounce of energy I had to go toward another appointment, another treatment, or another thing I had to do. Sometimes I just wanted to use that energy for something that reminded me that I was still a person outside of being a patient.

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Connection with others can be incredibly healing.

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Doctor Mark Hyman, a world renowned functional medicine doctor, puts it this way:

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Being connected to others is a necessary ingredient for health - just like food, water, air, sleep or movement. Even if those relationships look a little different when you're sick, they can still bring so much support, comfort, and normalcy into a hard season.

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I also learned to go day by day and listen to my body.

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My natural instinct is to be as productive as possible, keep pushing, and eventually push myself past my limits. I did that cycle for years, until I finally learned to redefine what productivity looks like for me and my body. One thing about me, whether I'm at my best or at my worst, is I am not a morning person.

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So during this period of my life, instead of putting pressure on myself to get up first thing in the morning and have this super productive day, I often stayed in bed and rested during the morning. And for me, that was productive. Rest was helping my body recover and giving me a better chance of having energy later in the day.

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If I did have a little more energy in the afternoon, that's when I try something. This was normally my best time of day, relatively speaking. Some days I had more energy, so I took advantage of it without crossing the line. Other days my body was telling me that I needed to slow down and I adjusted. And the days that I got out of bed, I planned to recover the next day.

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Moving forward doesn't have to mean pushing yourself at full capacity every single day.

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If you're listening to this podcast, chances are you have felt overwhelmed trying to figure out chronic illness. I know I did. That's exactly why I created The Chronic Fighter, because no one should have to figure this out alone. At The Chronic Fighter, you'll find one-on-one coaching and a community designed to help teens, young adults, and parents navigate the challenges of chronic illness.

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My parents and I spent years trying to make sense of my health on our own - researching, connecting the dots, implementing lifestyle changes, advocating and searching for answers. Experts estimate that 80 to 90% of health care happens outside of the doctor's office, and that was certainly true in my experience growing up, I would have given anything to have someone who truly understood what I was going through.

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Someone to show me that I could work with my body and still build a meaningful life. Through one-on-one coaching, I help bridge the gap between the doctor and patient, because managing chronic illness involves so much more than what happens during appointments. Together we focus on symptom management, nervous system regulation, sustainable habits, and practical strategies that help you feel more in control of your health and your life.

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If coaching isn't the right fit right now or you'd like support alongside it, The Chronic Fighter membership offers flexible access to tools, education, and a community of people who get it without a rigid schedule or pressure to keep up. No matter where you are in your health journey, I'd be honored to be a part of it. Visit The Chronic Fighter.com to learn more.

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Even though I've been talking about finding little ways to smile and create joy, I want to make something really clear. I don't think the answer is pretending everything is okay. Chronic illness can come with a lot of grief.

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You're grieving the version of yourself that you used to be. And the things you can't do right now. Maybe you're grieving the life you thought you'd be living at this point. I think it's important to let yourself acknowledge that before and learn better ways to process those emotions. There were times when I kept everything bottled up.

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I could physically feel the frustration and anxiety building in my body.

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Sometimes I just needed to cry. And there were times when I needed to vent to my parents and say, this sucks. I am so frustrated. I'm scared. I don't understand why this is happening.

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And something I've had to learn is that two motions can exist at the same time. You can be grieving what you're going through and still laugh at a funny TikTok.

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You can be in a really difficult season and still enjoy spending time with someone you love. Finding a moment of joy doesn't mean you're ignoring how hard your life is. But there were also times when I became so consumed by grief that I couldn't stop replaying the same thoughts, and at that point, continuing to sit in them wasn't helping me anymore.

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Sometimes I literally needed to give my brain something else to focus on. I do a simple word search, play a mindless game, listen to something, and talk things through with my parents or care team.

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There was usually a point where we'd regroup and ask, okay, what's our plan? What can we do next? What's something I can look forward to?

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Therapy has also been really valuable for me because sometimes you need an outside perspective. Someone who isn't you, your family, or your friends to help you work through what you're experiencing and learn tools to cope with it. There's a balance I've had to learn between allowing myself to feel something and allowing that feeling to consume me. And when I'm ready to move forward, I try to bring myself back to one question.

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Where do I go from here? Another thing I had to remind myself was that there was an entire world outside of my health struggles. When you're in the middle of it. It can be easy for your symptoms, pain, appointments, and uncertainty to take up all of your attention.

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When I had to miss school, I would think about all the makeup work waiting for me. If I had to cancel plans, I'd think about what I was missing. If I went to another appointment and didn't get the help I hoped for, that could stay on my mind too. It could start to feel like my health was the only thing happening in my life.

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That's when I needed to zoom out and ground myself into something outside of it. For me, that could mean taking a drive by the lake. Or it could be getting out of the room I'd been staring at all day, or praying. Anything that reminded me that my health was a big part of what I was going through, but not the only part of my life.

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My faith was a huge part of getting me through these seasons. There were days when I listened to worship song after worship song, sermon after sermon, and it's hard to explain because nothing about my circumstances had suddenly changed. I still felt sick. I still didn't know what was going to happen. I still didn't have the answers I desperately wanted,

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But when everything else made me feel lost, I could find hope there.

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I felt a wave of peace over me.

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It reminded me that what I could see in this moment wasn't all there was. I didn't know God's plan for my life,

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Unknown But I could trust that there's more ahead of me than what I could see from that bedroom. And looking back now, there was so much ahead of me that I couldn't see.

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I think when you're going through something for a long time, you need a reason not to give up. Mine changed throughout different seasons. Soccer was a huge one.

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There are things I wanted to do with my career. There was a life I wanted to build with my future family one day. But there were rare times when my own reasons didn't feel strong enough so I'd look at my parents. I’d think about how badly they wanted me to get better. How much they poured into helping me. How many appointments they'd taken me to.

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How much time, energy, money, and love had gone into getting me to that point

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They weren't going to let me give up.

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And sometimes I thought, if I can't keep going for myself right now, I'll keep going for them.

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The craziest thing is, none of these things I'm sharing with you felt life changing while I was doing them. Listening to one podcast, getting out of bed one afternoon, taking one walk, doing my skincare, going to therapy, and having one good conversation didn't change my life. But those things started to stack.

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There's a concept in the book Atomic Habits by James Clear that I really love. He talks about how small changes can feel almost meaningless in the moment because we expect progress to be obvious. But when those small actions are repeated over time, they begin to compound. And I think the same idea can apply to healing too.

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You might look at yesterday and today and think, I'm in the exact same place,

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But when I look back on the past six months, year, or two years, I can see a massive difference. Some of the things that started simply because I was trying to survive that season became things I genuinely love.

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I started listening to podcasts because my migraines wouldn't let me watch TV. Eventually, that helped spark the dream of starting my own. I started sharing my story, and that gave me a passion for connecting with other people, going through similar things. Eventually, that grew into the community I'm building today. I couldn't see any of this at the time.

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All I could see was the day in front of me. So if you're listening to this from bed right now, please don't let this episode become another list of things you feel like you should be doing. Pick one thing, one small thing that feels possible for you today.

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You may not be able to see where that step is taking you yet, but that doesn't mean it isn't taking you somewhere. That's all for today's episode. I'll see you next time.

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Thank you for listening to The Chronic Fighter podcast. I am so grateful you're here. Whether you're navigating chronic illness yourself or learning how to support someone who is, I hope today's conversation resonated with you. Don't forget to follow us on social media at thechronicfighterco and thechronicfighterpod, and check out our website, thechronicfighter.com.

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Remember to celebrate the little wins and have something that gets you excited to get out of bed every day. I'll see you next time.