Hoda Kotb

1. Take control of your care by spearing your own treatment plan and sleeping schedule with advice from your care team and support family members. Remember if you do not take charge of your own care no one will do it for you. No one will care for you the way you want to be cared for. You have to do that yourself. Yes your care team is excellent but their assistance can only go so far. Make the necessary arrangements and take the necessary steps to be healthy and stay healthy in a way that suits you so that you can have no more side effects of your conditions anymore.

2. Never take no for an answer from your care team. Figure out a solution privately and work on it one to one individually with your parents and by yourself. Create the life you want whilst under your parents roof. An independent one. Even if it means living with them until they pass away. Even if it means hearing snide comments from your family about you not being independent. You can still be independent and live with your parents. Look at other countries that do it and see how it works to benefit the parents and save on rent. Yes it is unaffordable to live on your own. But it is a blessing because you can use this option to save a lot of money whilst you have the time and resource and not too many bills to do so. And take care of yourself holistically by treating yourself once a week to something special and prioritizing your own care and wellbeing. Turn the no into a solution. Turn the no into an achievement.

3. Find options for your care mentally outside of weekly therapy. Does it mean poetry? Does it mean walking in nature? Does it mean calling a support family member? Does it mean journaling? Does it mean adjusting your sleep schedule to benefit you? Figure it out and implement the necessary steps and pointers. And do not become too dependent or reliant on others for guidance and for support. Be that for yourself. Depend on yourself. Rely on yourself.

4. Know your options for recovery from your condition. Research them and create a support group through poetry and your letters. Define your mission. Live your mission. Breathe your mission. Act on your mission. Step by step. Just like Lindsay acted on spreading her mission about her foundation Fertility Hope. Do not let anyone dissuade you from your mission. Or from fulfilling an extraordinary journey in your poetry and letters. You can and you will achieve great things. Because you were called by God to do so. And saved for just that purpose. A second chance at life and living. So do not waste it.

5. Find breakthrough solutions and write about them privately and share them. Write about anything and everything in your journal. Test out ideas in your journal first and then write them in a novel second. Gain new readers by writing about issues that impact them. Or situations they are struggling with. Do this through listening and writing down questions. Constantly question yourself. Constantly question your assumptions. Constantly question your struggles. Are they yours? Or are they someone else’s? If it is someone else’s then give them back their monkey and walk away. Stop being empathetic. Stop taking peoples issues and internalizing them. Stop focusing on others issues and focus on providing them a written solution and a healthier choice in life through living your own life for Christ and God daily.

6. Research the side effects of the medications you are on and educate your family and care team about it. And write about it too. You never know who you may be helping. Be honest about the side effects.

‘Your life if yours to live like a painting. So live it well with amazing experiences and connections that are as rare and precious as a Goncalves masterpiece.’… (mehr)