“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

Cool Hand Luke

I bet that if you live with a chronic illness you understand what I mean when I say:  The single most difficult issue that I’ve faced living with chronic illness hasn’t been feeling lousy or having pain. It’s been knowing what to say and when to say it, when discussing my bad health.

What do you do when you have to talk about something that makes other people uncomfortable, can easily be understood and could potentially put you in a bad light?

Don’t feel silly if your answer is HIDE!   Many of my clients with chronic illness tell me how they do just that when chronic illness symptoms leave them feeling awful or incapacitated.

And, nowhere is this more true than at your job where it seems like you’re only as good as what you deliver.  But the funny thing about life in general — and work in specific — is that a person who handles others with ease and grace and is a good communicator (also known as emotionally intelligent) is often even more highly valued than a person who is highly skilled but is a social wreck.

Funny thing is that when you see your performance sliding because of difficult symptoms, it’s easy to feel shame, get tongue tied and lose your natural voice.

I recently asked readers to respond to a brief survey about what they need  (it’s still up and you can take it) No surprise here. The overwhelming majority said that they need help with talking about chronic illness at work and they’d like it as an e-course.

My booklet, Are You Talking, offers many good tips for dealing with this. But in response to what you said you need, I’m starting to develop an e-course that you can use with this and the other Guidebooks.

I just came across this article, To Tell or Not to Tell that covers many of the points I’ve been making in my writing.  Actually, even the title is something I’ve used.  Oh well, imitation is flattery, no?

If you want to find out about all my new offerings – as they come up – be sure you’re on the cicoach.com e-list.  Either sign up for the monthly newsletter, download an article or buy something like my booklet.

Stay tuned ….

Rosalind  aka cicoach.com