It's easy to like ourselves when things are going well in our lives. We feel competent, friendly, smart and upbeat. When we're struggling with illness, though, our self-esteem can plummet. We may see ourselves as slow, irritable, unlovable and stuck. Research shows that maintaining positive feelings about ourselves during illness flares can improve both physical and mental well-being.

Sometimes it feels unfair to be trapped in your body when you have a chronic illness. But there are still many more good days you can look forward to. Here are some of the techniques the author, a 20-something with chronic Lyme disease, uses to cultivate self-compassion, even on the hardest and most painful of days.

It can be especially challenging to find love ourselves, for example, when living with chronic illness. Why is this? Because when living with a chronic illness, self-esteem becomes heavily impacted. When constantly sick and in pain, we too are confronted with the many negative changes...