Category: choice

People are Scary!

People are really really scary.

What if I say something embarrassing?  What if I make a fool of myself again? What if I can’t solve their problem?  What if I can’t make them happy?  What if I am not good enough?  What if….What if….What if?

What if just keeps going through my mind.  I know it is because of the anxiety, with some perfectionism thrown in there for fun.  Knowing this doesn’t make socializing any easier. It makes me think 2 or 3 times before I say anything. Because trust me when I don’t really really bad things come out of my mouth.

These what ifs have kept me from reaching out to people since we have moved. It has been almost exactly a year since we moved and I really don’t have any friends.

I get frustrated with myself often.  But then I go and put my pajama pants on and all is good!  Life, though, isn’t lived in front of the T.V.

The truth is people are really really fun too. People will share the most amazing stories with you.  People you don’t even know will love and take care of you. People are all scared and uncomfortable at some point.

Not connecting with people makes for a lonely life.  So it might be scary and I might say something really dumb.  (Sorry honey it is usually about you!) But I am going to do it!  Wish me luck.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

Crushing Life Thursday!

I have run for years.  I was never super consistent until about ten years ago when my husband needed to do something to get his blood pressure under control.  We decided to start running.  Now my husband hated running!  But it was cheap (unless you think about the cost of running shoes!) and easy to do since you can just go out your door and do it.

We started really slow; run 2 minutes walk 2 minutes for about half an hour.  We eventually worked up to running races.  I have run half marathons and a full marathon.  My husband and I have run 6 relay races.  And it took me years before I would say I am a runner.  I still don’t claim that title very often.  I had a friend refer to me as a runner a couple of weeks ago and I said “No I run I am not really a runner.”

Why would I say that?  Because I don’t have the look of a runner.  I am not as fast as I think a runner should be.  I just felt that claiming the title of runner means I should be better than I am.  But guess what?  I run so I am a runner.

So often in my life I put down what I do because I don’t feel I am good enough.  I don’t claim all of the amazing things I have done in my life!  I am a runner, I am a mother, I am a blogger, I am a quilter, I am a speaker, I am a pageant girl, I am a joy coach.  I am amazing!

What amazing things do you do that you haven’t claimed?

This month’s is all about you!  I love the back to school time.  Getting to buy new notebooks and pens.  This time of year, more than January, makes me think about what I want in my life.  What do you really want in your life?  What one thing would you love to try but you are a little nervous, ok a lot nervous?  What habits would you like to break or make?

Join me every Thursday this month for Life Crushing Thursday!  Where we will explore different ways to explode our life into what we want!

Chocolate solves everything!

I love no adore no worship chocolate!  It is my go to for any problem or stress.

When I am feeling stressed, a little bit of chocolate will calm me down.  Maybe I am bored and a little bit of chocolate will make life more interesting.  If I am feeling bad about myself, a little bit of chocolate is always there to help me feel better.  Do you notice a pattern here?  Chocolate is always there to make me feel better.  But I have started to wonder if that is really true.  Does chocolate really make me feel better?

My goal has been to feel my feelings and emotions instead of eating them.  Yesterday morning I had to run to the store to get a hair dryer.  Of course there is candy in the checkout line.  I was feeling really nervous.  I want to do so good with this blog but I am not sure what to do or where to go.  I have big scary goals and I am not sure how to achieve them.  It is Monday morning and I have to figure out all of this right now! I was standing there in line thinking I could just get a little something it will make me feel better. (Yes I know I am addicted to food. I sound like a drug addict!)

Finally I put the candy back.  Eating the candy won’t change my goals or help me achieve them any faster.  It won’t really help me calm down because after I eat it I will just feel guilty.  But putting that candy back reminded me that I have the power in my life.  I have control of my feelings and thoughts.  I get to decided!

When I was in the middle of the anxiety I didn’t feel like I had any control of my life.  Anxiety attacks would come out of the blue. (Or so I thought!) Life was hard and crazy.  I had so many different emotions I was trying to figure out.  I carried chocolate with me to be able to handle all of those emotions.

What does it matter that I put the chocolate back?   Because I am choosing to take control of my life.  I am choosing to do what is right for me.  I have used food for so long to help me “handle” life.  The only way that I can grow and become who I am meant to be is to feel my feelings.  I have to let myself feel nervous.  I have to let myself feel stressed.  I have to tell other people that what they are doing hurts me.

I no longer have the horrible anxiety attacks.  I have figured out how to handle them.  Life is still hard and crazy but I am not the same person.  I don’t want to keep doing the same things.  I choose to make changes.

Are you mad at me?

Why are you here? What is your purpose?

Not too long ago I thought my purpose was to make everyone happy.  And I mean EVERYONE! I worried about people behind me on the road when I was driving it was that bad.  The anxiety I experience centers around what others think of me and making sure they are happy.

My poor husband had to listen daily to worries that I had offended someone. When I think back to those days I can remember the worry and the stress.  But very rarely can I remember what it was I was so worried about.

My favorite question during that time was: are you mad at me?  I had to check in with the people in my life often to make sure that I had not done something to make them mad.  I never could keep in mind what my mom always told us as kids, “They didn’t make you made, you chose to be mad.”  It wasn’t up to me to make people happy.  But I just couldn’t keep that in mind.

The reason that I share this story is because I have been thinking about the differences in my life recently.  I can still tell when other people are just a little off or not feeling right.  But I no longer take responsibility for their feelings.  I try to find out what is going on and help them deal with the stress.  But I no longer make other feelings a condition of me feeling good.

I now know that my purpose in life is not making other people happy.  But I wonder could part of my purpose be helping other people find their purpose?

 

Connection to God

Self care Thursday!!

Most of you know that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  My connection to the divine is through my belief in God and in Jesus Christ who saved me and  paid the price for my sins.  That is what I feel in my heart and what I believe.

Why does this matter?  Because one of the best ways to take care of yourself is to keep your connection with the divine strong.

I know that there are many different ways to believe and connect to the divine in all of us.  I have been blessed by knowing and experiencing this connection in many different ways in my life. Today I NEED to focus on a lesson I learned reading in the Bible. A lesson that demonstrated how I had been lifted and carried during the horrible anxiety time when I felt no one was listening.  And has shown me how to weather the daily storms of life.

I was reading in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount.  At this point He is teaching the people how to pray.  He says in verse 11  “Give us this day our daily bread.”  I stopped and began to think about what that really meant to me.  He said give us the bread we need today.  Not give us everything we will need for this week.  Not, give me all of the knowledge that I will need in my life.  No He said give us what we need today.

When I was in the worst of the anxiety I wanted to be given the way out right now!  I wanted the pain and fear to be over NOW! But what the Lord was offering me was a way to become stronger.  He gave me what I needed right then at that moment, in that day, so that I could move forward.

I was given the strength to wipe my tears, get up off of the floor and take care of my family and myself.  I was given the knowledge of what to do that day to help myself feel ok enough to not hurt myself.  I was given friends and family and some people I never saw again to lift me up.  I was given a husband that listened to me everyday no matter what.  I was given exactly what I needed to be strengthened in that day.

What I wanted and what I needed were two very different things. I am very grateful that I was given what I needed and not what I wanted during that time.  I was given the daily bread I needed.

I look back and know that if I had been saved from what I went through daily I would not be who I am today.  I wanted to be saved from trouble and heartbreak.  When truly that trouble and heartbreak changed me into a stronger servant.  And I know that each day I must connect with the divine.  I need to be reminded of who I really am.  In the world today we are pulled in so many directions.  We are told so many things that aren’t true.  As we keep our connection with the divine strong we are able to remember who we really are.

When we remember who we really are we are better able to take care of ourselves.  We can combat all of the things that we are told that aren’t true.  We are able to lift others and share the light we have cultivated.  When I am connected to the divine I am given the words I need to heal my broken heart and hopefully share that healing with others. When we are connected we are able to live our true selves.  We are able to live the life we were sent here to live.

I share all of this with you because I need the reminder.  I need to remember how it feels when I connect with God.  I need to remember that when I am living in His truth I am living the life he wants me to live.  I want to remember each day the feeling of love and peace that comes God.  I want to remember that this peace is worth fighting for.  I want you to know that you are loved by me but more importantly you are loved by God.

Don’t look down!!!

Sky Trail Navigator Comes to Wahooz

Our family vacation this year was spent at Wahooz!  They have changed a lot since the last time we visited.  One of the changes was the addition of a ropes course.  When I first heard about it I thought it would be a little course with a couple of different things to do.  But the reality was very different, it was huge!  It is two levels the first level is about 20 feet off the ground with different paths going every which way.  It kind of looks like a spider web.  Then there is a second level another 15 feet up.

 

I was so excited to try this out.  I have rock climbed and repelled and it is so much fun!  I thought the ropes course would be something like rock climbing.  My husband and my niece where the first ones on the course and they looked like they were having so much fun.  They were walking around on the different levels no problem.  So we went and got the safety gear on and started up the stairs to the first level.

 

All of the kids scattered to the different paths and were having a blast!  The landing that you come up on has three different paths coming off of it.  I went to step off onto one of the paths and remembered that I really hate heights!  I could step off with one foot but I couldn’t get the other foot off of the landing.

 

My hubby came down to help me.  His first advice was to look ahead to where you are going not where you put your foot right now.  I listened I did but I still couldn’t move.  Finally I decided that I had to move onto one of the paths even if everything in me was yelling at me to get back down on the ground.  I have fought too hard to let the fear win.  So I moved!

 

I decided to go across the path that was a rope that you walk on and a rope that was just above chest height that you could hold onto.  As I worked my way across the path every muscle in my body was tensed.  Every time I moved the ropes would start swinging.  When they would start swinging I would react by moving in the opposite direction.  I was trying to control the ropes but all I did was to make the swinging worse.  I finally got control of myself and the ropes and made it across to the next landing.

 

My husband helped me across the rest of the paths and as I got more comfortable each path was easier and easier.  We spent about an hour on the ropes course and then went and did the other fun things that Wahooz has to offer.

 

Later that day my youngest wanted to do the course again so I went up with him.  This time because I had done it before I was much more relaxed.  Getting my second foot off the platform was still hard but I was able to do it without help this time.  We did end up doing that first path again and I learned something.

 

I learned that if I just relaxed into the swing instead of fight it there was much less swing. I slowed down and enjoyed the journey across.  Especially because our youngest is hilarious and always has something funny to say.  As I finished the course the second time I started to think about what I had learned.  

 

First, my husband taught me that instead of looking at where I am and stressing about how scary it will be to move forward I should look to where I am going.  He told me to look just a little way ahead on the path.  This helped so much when I finally did it because it made the ground blurry and I could really focus on the rope.  But it also took the pressure off of  what I felt I HAD to do right now.  All I had to do was move forward to the point ahead.

 

Too often in life I look at this huge goal I have and it so overwhelming I have no idea how I am ever going to accomplish it.  Aron taught me that I just need to look at the next step while keeping the big goal in mind.  That way I know where I want to get to but I focus on the steps to get there not this huge scary thing I’m trying to do.

 

Second, I learned that when I relaxed into the scary parts it made it much easier.  Instead of tensing every muscle in my body I tried to relaxing into the harness and waiting for the ropes to stop moving.

 

In life there are times that are so hard!  When I was in the middle of the anxiety I reacted to an anxiety attack much like I did the first rope path.  I tensed up got angry and scared that I was having another anxiety attack which made the attack even worse.  As I have learned more about anxiety and how to handle it I have realized that I need to just relax into it.  Now when the anxiety starts I acknowledge it.  I let it take its course through my body and I find something else to do or think about.  Before I know it the anxiety is gone and I didn’t have to suffer.  

 

I know that life is hard and there are times that are just ugly.  But I also know that those times are NOT going to last forever.  Relax into that time when life is hard.  Look to your next step.  Look to what needs done right now then the next right now.  Slow down.  Take care of yourself.  Ask for help from people you trust.  Say no to things you don’t want to do or can’t handle right now.  Know your limits and respect them.  You are OK right now.  You don’t have to do anything to fix you because you are perfect!  Right Now YOU are perfect!  Just the way you are!

 

It’s my party!

Tomorrow is my birthday! I have now reached the age that when I am asked what I want for more birthday I can’t answer.  Five years ago I would never have believed that I would reach an age where I couldn’t answer with a thing that I wanted for my birthday.

Now when I think about my birthday I want things that can’t be bought in a store or ordered from Amazon.

First, I want health for all of my friends and family.  Too many people that I love are suffering.  They are having to learn hard lessons and they are hurting.  It makes me sad because there isn’t a thing I can do. Expect love them. I wish you health and healing.

I want peace for those suffering from grief, personal and family problems and mental health problems.  I have been through all of these and they hurt!  If you haven’t yet experienced one of these problems you will.  And I wish you peace.  If you are now in the middle of one of these circumstances I wish for you to feel the love I have for you.  But more importantly I wish you to feel the love of Jesus Christ.  He is there listening and reaching out to you.  Turn to Him He is there and will lift and carry you.

Life is hard.  So many people around the world exist in circumstance that I can’t imagine.  I wish for the world to change.  I wish for war to end and poverty to be eradicated.  I wish I could hold every baby without a mother.  I wish I could save every child that is being hurt.  I wish life wasn’t so hard.

So for my birthday gift this year I ask you to “lift where you are”. (Dieter F. Uchtdorf)  Change your corner of the world.  It won’t solve the world’s problems but it will change one person’s life.  And really what better way to change the world than helping one person?

Annie Spratt photo credit

Choose for yourself!

So often when anxiety is active I feel like I don’t have a choice about what happens in my life.  It feels as if all of the sudden I am sucked into this horrible feeling of panic and despair and there isn’t a thing I can do it stop what is happening or to change it.

 

Last week I was in the middle of a panic attack and I was feeling so horrible about myself that I was falling back into something I thought I had more control over.  Not only did I have to deal with the panic but I also was dealing with horrible feelings about who I am as a person.   I begin to have such horrible self talk that the spiral that began with the panic becomes worse.  I am my own worst enemy.  This time though something stopped me from sliding to the bottom of this well known slide.

 

I realized that I had a choice.  The panic is going to come, I don’t always have control over that, but I do have control over my choices.  When I was a child and would fight with a sibling I would tell my mom that they made me so mad! She would say they didn’t make you made you choose to be mad.  I hated that because it just didn’t seem true (plus they didn’t get in trouble).  Now I understand, I can’t control what others do or how anxiety will come into my life.  But I do have control of my choices.

 

I can start to feel horrible and tell myself what a weak person I am because I am having ANOTHER panic attack when I should be stronger than this.  Or I can be gentle with myself and acknowledge that anxiety will probably be a part of my life for the rest of my life.  I can choose to be loving to myself and let the anxiety pass.  I can understand that having anxiety doesn’t define what type of person I am, I do that.  I can acknowledge the anxiety as something passing through my body it does not define who I am.  I get to choose who I am, what type of friend, mother, wife, sister or daughter I want to be.  I get to decide that from my choices.

 

And the really good part???  So do you!  Whatever challenge you are facing right now is not who you are.  It is part of your story but you get to write how it will turn out.  You get to decide if you will let it define how you react to life or if you will choose a different path.  It is all up to you!  And me!  For that I will always be grateful; I get to choose!