Mindset Changes With Heart Failure

Most of us can remember a moment in our heart failure journeys where the advice given to us is to be grateful because things can be a lot worse.

More often than not, it leaves you feeling misunderstood, like you are complaining all the time.

Well-meaning but hollow support with heart failure

Was that statement supposed to make us feel better or worse? The honest answer?

Probably neither, but they want to make us feel better and to raise our spirits. It’s just like when there is a death, people always say cliches like, “they’re in a better place”.

Nobody wants to hear that after the death of a loved one.

It’s also hard to know what to say to someone who has heart failure because people may want to be empathetic, but at the same time, not know what we go through as heart failure patients.

Can you realistically shift your mindset about life with heart failure?

The daily struggle with fatigue, side effects from medications, bad moods, depression, and anxiety can begin to take its toll.

It becomes easier to complain and always be in a bad mood when your world is falling apart.

When you are in crisis, only negative thoughts come to mind. Whenever you get a test result or go through a procedure, you experience anxiety from wondering what the result is.

People mean well often don't "get" life with heart failure

It is a very frustrating experience dealing with heart failure on a day-to-day basis. It’s hard to watch people around you who are healthy and who don’t have heart failure tell you how you should be grateful.

Better mental health

It’s not something that comes easy at all, but at some point, when the dust settles on your heart failure diagnosis, you must learn to shift your mindset.

Now, before you roll your eyes and stop reading this article, let me explain.

According to Psychology Today, “shifting mindsets means replacing our dysfunctional beliefs with more productive ones that change the options we consider and even our identity.”

I will use my journey as an example.

My heart failure diagnosis changed my mental health

I became very frustrated and bitter when I was diagnosed with heart failure because I couldn’t do what I used to do.

My life did a 360 when I was just 25 years old.

I would cry every day because I didn’t know why this was happening to me. I was just angry watching my cousins and friends who didn’t have anything wrong with their hearts.

I even questioned my faith in God. How could God let this be a part of his plan? What did I do to deserve this?

How I found a mindset that helped navigate heart failure

It took some time for me to realize that heart failure wasn’t punishment, but my purpose.

Raising heart failure awareness provided purpose

I stopped thinking about myself and what I was going through and started focusing on telling people about heart failure.

I talk about being diagnosed and how I was the healthiest one in my household, and how I still ended up with advanced heart failure.

Looking back on it, educating people by sharing my story has been one of the best things that could ever have happened to me. That may sound odd, but it's true.

Having a better mindset about heart failure takes effort

I am not happy that my life turned out this way, but I make a choice every day to be content.

Changing your mindset is easier said than done and if I’m honest, it takes work, but if you master it you can change your whole outlook on life. I’m not asking you to change your mindset to have a mindset like mine.

What I am showing you is how I changed my mindset into something positive that I can give to others.