Posts | April Smith | The Thriving Spoonie

You don't have to earn rest 🍃

Hey Reader, I want to ask you something. When was the last time you rested without negotiating with yourself first? Not rested because you'd finally done enough, or because you crashed and had no choice — but just rested because your body asked for it and you said yes. If you're like most of the people in this community, that's a hard question to answer. Because somewhere along the way, we all absorbed the same message: rest is a reward. You earn it. And if you haven't done enough yet, you...

4 days ago • 1 min read

The consistency advice you've been following was never meant for you 💙

Hi, Reader! I want to start with something important: you are not the problem. You've tried harder than most people will ever understand. You've set the alarms, built the schedules, color-coded the planners. You've pushed through symptom days to keep the streak alive. And then your body did what it does, and the whole thing fell apart — and somehow you ended up feeling like you failed. You didn't. The framework did. The consistency model most of us have been handed assumes something your body...

11 days ago • 1 min read

🔄 The pacing shift that changed everything

Hi Reader, For a long time, I thought pacing meant cutting back. Doing less. Cancelling more. Shrinking my life until it fit inside my energy. And honestly? That framing made me resist it. What I eventually realized is that pacing with chronic illness isn’t about restriction. It’s about structure. It’s about protecting your baseline so you’re not constantly recovering from energy crashes. That shift changed everything for me. Because once pacing became foundational instead of reactive, my...

18 days ago • 1 min read

🌿 The things no one told me after my diagnosis

Hi Reader, When I was first diagnosed, I thought the hardest part would be the symptoms. I was wrong. The symptoms were real, yes. Disorienting. Limiting. Sometimes scary. But what caught me off guard was everything around them. The silence. The well-meaning comments. The identity shift. The subtle pressure to “handle it well.” I originally wrote a version of this post in 2024. I recently went back and fully updated it to reflect what I understand now — with more clarity, more depth, and more...

25 days ago • 1 min read

Protecting Your Energy Isn’t a Personality Flaw 🛑

Hi Reader, There’s a belief I hear over and over again in the chronic illness community. “I’m just bad at boundaries.” It sounds self-aware. Responsible. Honest. But it’s usually carrying something heavier underneath. When you’re living with chronic illness, unpredictable energy, and fluctuating symptoms, boundaries that protect energy aren’t a personality trait. They aren’t about being confident enough or assertive enough. They’re about adapting to reality. In this week’s post, I’m breaking...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

🧠Why chronic illness feels exhausting—even on quiet days

Hi Reader,There’s a specific kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from doing too much. It shows up on days when you didn’t leave the house. When your to-do list looks reasonable. When nothing “big” went wrong—and yet you still feel completely drained. If you live with chronic illness, that exhaustion usually isn’t physical overexertion. It’s invisible work. The constant mental calculations.The emotional labor of managing expectations.The energy spent preparing, anticipating, adjusting, and...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

💭 When being “easy” costs more than you realize

Hi Reader, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how often people pleasing sneaks into life with chronic illness without us even noticing. Not the obvious kind.The quiet kind. The kind that looks like pushing a little longer, explaining a little more, resting a little later. The kind that feels responsible, considerate, and necessary… right up until your body starts pushing back. I wrote a new post this week about people pleasing and chronic illness, and it’s a tender one. Not because it...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

🪫Burnout with chronic illness isn’t a phase

Hi there Reader, I wanted to share something a little different this week. I just updated an older blog post on burnout and chronic illness. Not a light edit, but a real revision that reflects how my understanding of burnout has changed over time, shaped by lived experience, boundaries I had to learn the hard way, and a much clearer picture of what doesn’t work. Burnout with chronic illness isn’t loud for most of us. It doesn’t always look like a breakdown. More often, it shows up as quiet...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

🔄 What if catching up isn’t the answer?

Hi Reader, There’s a phrase I hear all the time in the chronic illness space, and I’ve said it myself more times than I can count. “I’ll catch up when I have more energy.” It sounds reasonable. Responsible, even. And yet, if you’ve been living with chronic illness for a while, you’ve probably noticed how often that plan quietly falls apart. The catch-up day takes more out of you than expected. The next few days feel harder. And suddenly you’re behind again, wondering why this keeps happening....

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

🫶What to do when self-compassion feels out of reach

Hi Reader, If self-compassion has felt distant lately, awkward, or just plain unavailable, this is for you. Not in a “you should be kinder to yourself” way. More in a “there might be a reason this feels hard right now” way. A lot of chronic illness advice treats self-compassion like a skill you can strengthen if you just try harder or practice more consistently. But when you’ve spent years overriding your body, managing symptoms, and staying functional under pressure, kindness doesn’t always...

2 months ago • 1 min read