Passing stool as someone living with inflammatory bowel disease means bracing oneself for a head-on collision. Your expectations of what your fecal matter will look like might well crash into the solid brick wall of the reality of your rectal outcome. Whether you were diagnosed long ago or are new to the club: the color of your most recent stool is an integral part of your identity as a chronically ill person. And the shades it can assume can be surprising. In most cases, one reacts to the sight of the stool with emotions such as relief, disgust, anxiety, fear, guilt and/or shame. But what if you were to deal with this situation differently and not allow the color of the stool to trigger a particular emotional response? What if you could momentarily suspend what medical science tells us a normal or abnormal stool should look like and associate the various shades with a different emotional response? What if the bloodiest stool is perceived a pleasant gift and an ordinary brown one as shame-inducing? 

Why not try it out?