(HumanCare podcast) How to Own Your Chronic Illness: Raquel Hellenga

“Take care of yourself, trust yourself, be willing to be misunderstood.”-Raquel HellengaRaquel Hellenga is a Life and Business Coach for entrepreneurs and creatives with chronic illness. Diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis as a child, she has had chronic illness for over twenty years. She has an undergraduate degree and Master’s Degree in Organizational Communication and is a proud member of the LGBTQI+ community. Her practice involves working with people one-on-one to help them build sustainable businesses that work with their chronic illnesses, not against them. In this episode, she tells her story learning to accept her chronic illness and how it helped her find her path in life. She discusses the importance of mindset and how you can learn to own your illness and work with it to build the life you want. Her message to fellow spoonies is one of compassion and hope.Visit: www.raquelhellenga.comTime Stamps:4:20 – Her diagnosis of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis5:35 – How accepting our limitations is the gateway to the business and lives we want6:58 – The year she was diagnosed7:16 – How her diagnosis affected her family8:18 – On her pediatric rheumatologist9:10 – On bullying by other girls10:07 – The importance of exercise and chronic illness10:35 – Her temporary remission in her teens15:06 – Admitting the long-term nature of her illness in adulthood15:32 – Her decade of doubling down and fighting the truth of her illness16:21 – Her work as an adjunct communications professor that led to burnouts and flares16:55 – The effect of auto-immune disease17:33 – Her realization that she physically could not continue her current path and how it led to her business19:45 – Baby Yoda20:33 – Her career as a Life Coach for chronically ill creatives and entrepreneurs21:14 – What Hellenga does vs what she doesn’t do in her practice23:28 – How she helps her clients25:23 – The importance of being honest with ourselves about how to be successful without being in constant flare26:51 – Stories of people she’s worked with28:21 – Denial and chronic illness28:50 – Admitting chronic illness to take ownership of it31:03 – Unlearning people-pleasing32:05 – Advantages of being chronically ill32:49 – The value of a willingness to be misunderstood42:25 – Coaches vs consultants52:50 – The value of taking breaks from personal development Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.