How I reverse engineered my care plan (with journal prompts)
I’ve been talking a lot lately about care plans. What they are, how to make them, why they matter and things to consider when making yours. I’m working on a resource coming very very soon that walks you through my fundamentals on creating a care plan that fits your life, but as a sneak peek I thought I’d walk you through a snapshot of what this could look like using my own life as an example.
At the end of last year, I got an infection that caused all sorts of complications for me, and resulted in a week long hospital stay. And during this stay, with confusion between care teams and everything up in the air, it was really easy for me to be clear on what I didn’t want. I noticed all of the ways providers tried to sway me into certain decisions that didn’t align with my values. In some of those situations their perspectives made sense and I re-charted my course. In some of those situations, I declined, and I’m glad I did. And in some, I relented and agreed to whatever it was they were offering only to later wish I’d made a different choice.
The key in all of these decision making options was where do I want to go, and how do I want to get there? This is where knowing yourself, knowing what matters to you and knowing your ideal outcome matters. The medical system is a guaranteed place where if you don’t know what you want, you will be told what you want, and what you are told may or may not be in alignment with what you actually want.
This situation made me get really clear on what I didn’t want. But part of being clear isn’t just on what you don’t want but what you do. Here’s where the reverse engineering comes in. Because most people I know can be really clear on what they don’t want. Outcomes, procedures, interventions. The issue with only knowing what we don’t want is that we have a really good idea of what we’re moving away from without any idea what we’re actually moving towards. This opens up the field for something else to swoop in, and because it’s not that thing maybe it’s the thing.
So part of engineering my care plan meant getting clear on what I did want, and when I really sat with it I noticed what I wanted was very different than I would have thought if I’d only focused on what I didn’t want.
What I wanted were feelings, directions, themes. What I didn’t want were ways of getting there. I didn’t want to rush into interventions, but underneath that I really wanted to be supported in my process.
When we get clear on where we’re going, the ways to get there seem to matter less. I can take this path or that path, but I know where I’m going, and in that I can choose the path that best aligns with my values.
You’re allowed to want more than just stable. You’re allowed to want a big, beautiful, abundant, vital life.
So how do you begin identifying what you want, and not just what you don’t want?
Journal prompts for shifting from avoidance based identity into orientation based identity:
What does alignment feel like in my body? What does fear feel like?
What does feeling well mean for me, not just clinically but in lived experience?
Beyond just stability, what am I trying to build?
What outcomes matter to me that can’t be traced in labs or tests?
What leaves me feeling more resourced, not just less symptomatic?
What does self trust look like in my medical decisions?
Want support around creating your care plan? Check out my 1:1 support offerings or stay tuned for the embodied capacity guide coming later this spring
