Feeling ill, and thinking those feelings are a necessary consequence of ME, can be disempowering and overwhelming. A symptoms based approach to ME can help. NHS treatment for ME often advises against 'symptom checking' because repeated focus or worry can increase the sensation of the symptom. Absolutely. But a more occasional, positive, proactive 'be your own detective' analysis of our own symptoms can offer profound benefits:-

First while a diagnosis of ME/CFS can at first be a relief (a name for worrying or confusing illness), ME can ultimately feel too big and overwhelming to manage. Breaking it down into a collection of fundamental symptoms which match our experience of feeling ill gives us manageable chunks which may be easier to find solutions for. With ME, symptoms vary - no one symptom is inevitable or beyond remedy. In fact the label 'ME' can be positively unhelpful in stopping us focussing on small parts of body or mind we can individually nourish and heal.

Second, diagnoses of ME/CFS are handed out without painstaking diagnostic testing. It is perfectly possible that individual ailments you experience are not an intrinsic part or consequence of ME, but ailments which can be effectively addressed in isolation. ME seems to have a variety of causes or stressors: PWME have reported that what they imagined were symptoms of ME ultimately seemed to be stress factors which CAUSED their illness in the first place (for example, physical pain).

Third, some approaches to ME which claim great success, teach patients to see symptoms as fairly friendly signs that the body is sending to get us to listen to our own personal needs. To greater or lesser extents this practice is often encouraged more widely in ME - for example interpretation of ME as a 'wake up call' to look deeply at our lifestyle and the demands upon ourselves is advice much repeated. There would appear to be little harm in playing with the idea that if ME were trying to offer us helpful messages about things we need to address and changes we need to make, what, for you, would those messages most likely be? It may be easier to apply this 'in the moment' when experiencing a symptom: if the symptom does have a message for you, what could it be? Is there a pattern about when, where, and in which circumstances this symptom becomes more troublesome?

Amongst their difficult experience of illness, some PWME have reported regular instances or periods of feeling pretty good, feeling great relief from their symptoms. And by journeying further into what feels good and 'right' at these moments (things from being in the bath to cycling have been mentioned) they have sometimes developed useful perceptions about what precisely it is that offers this 'feelgood'. Questions arise like, 'Is this a quality of feeling I can replicate in different situations - can I nourish and nurture this feelgood more generally in my life?' Or, 'does this feelgood offer me clues as to what my body needs to feel better more generally?'

MEMap is very much about capturing these kinds of often hazy perceptions and going back to them at the appropriate point to see if they can be developed into useful strategies. For now just note your feelgood moments in a Reframe. Later you can journey into the wisdom they may hold and examine the issues the feelgood takes forward in the matching Frame.

Tiredness can take different forms. Positive engagement to get to intimately know its ebbs and flows can be a base for progress. For example, many PWME feel genuinely (often partly) replenished by short rests or sleeps which can feel more nourishing than longer night time sleeping. A handy trick is to tune into how your fatigue feels before these little rests. And then after a rest, check in with how, exactly, the sense of replenishment feels different to the fatigue. Where in the body does the replenishment feel greatest? Is it the switching off that really works for you? Or the being horizontal? Or the losing consciousness? If rest works because it gives you a break, what is it giving you a break from? Putting that another way, if you failed to rest and didn't get that break, what, very precisely, would you be continuing to deplete by not resting? Might there be ways other than resting to nourish what is being depleted?

Later in this Config Journey you will be asked to describe how the parts of your body (or brain) that often feel 'ill' would feel if they were completely well. This is just a slightly different version of taking an experiential journey into and around your body to allow it to tell you exactly what it is it would like to be different. What is not rested? How can it find rest? Where do you feel 'ill' or 'not right'? Intuitively or practically, what changes do that ill or not right part of you need?

Feeling our way into the nature of our tiredness may (or may not!) reveal profound personal truths about how we might take better care of ourselves, or where exactly we need might some nourishment and input.