Don’t Lose Your Imagination

Living with chronic illness can narrow your world, reducing days to appointments, symptoms, and the careful management of energy, yet imagination remains one of the few spaces that illness cannot fully claim. When the body feels unpredictable or limited, the mind can still wander into forests, old memories, future hopes, poems not yet written, conversations not yet had. Imagination is a way of staying in relationship with possibility. It allows you to picture a version of yourself that is more than a diagnosis, to rehearse courage before a difficult appointment, to dream of connection on nights when pain keeps you awake. For those of us who live inside long term illness, imagination becomes a quiet form of resilience. It keeps the inner world spacious even when the outer world feels small, and it reminds us that creativity, meaning, and wonder are still available, even here.

Dr. Jeffrey Bone