Posted in inspiration, life, life experience, Loss, Self Improvement

2018 Broke Me

Ever live such a terrible year that when you look back on it you realize you just floated by. You can only recollect parts of the year, the really really hard parts, but the in between of how you lived is a blur? That was my 2018. I lost 11 people in 2018. The first of which being my beloved Daddy. My best friend. The man I turned to for everything. The man I spoke to EVERYDAY. I will never forget the weekend before the Monday he passed. I watched his breathing change. I laid next to him, held his hand and silently cried on his shoulder. I wasn’t ready to let go. Then he took his last breath, tears streamed out of my eyes. I remember leaving the house to run an errand and trying to figure out how life was going on. How was the sun still shining? How were people still smiling? I wished it was all a bad dream. I remember waking up every day for months forgetting he was gone and reliving that pain over and over again. I’d get up to get dressed for work and just stare into my closet. I wished I didn’t have to do anything but sleep and cry in bed all day. But I couldn’t. I had to pay the bills, I had to be a mom, I had to be there for my mom. It was this new life without one of the most important people to live it with anymore and to be honest, many days I didn’t know how I could go on. My entire family was distraught, including my children who were experiencing loss for the first time. No one could console each other as deeply as we needed because we were all in pain. A few weeks later my dad’s brother passed, a few other family members after that. Just when I thought I was starting to cope and my children’s lives were starting to show some normalcy their Dad’s father passed away suddenly to a massive heart attack. A man that was so strong, so kind, so funny. A man who took care of himself. The rock of his family. Our lives suddenly spun out of control again. My kids wore the same clothes they wore to my dads funeral to their other grandfathers funeral because the two dates were so close that they hadn’t even had time to grow out of them. One week later,my dads sister, one of my favorite aunts, lost her battle to cancer. I’m not even going to keep listing the losses because it’s almost crazy to fathom that one family can endure so much pain in 365 days. My only point of writing this is that I can understand how easy it is to live life on autopilot. Truth is, it’s ok. You just can’t stay there. At some point you need to find a way to see the light. You have to live. You have to love. You have to find some way to move on eventually. 2018, you broke me. However, I’m putting myself back together in 2019.

Posted in life, life experience, Self Improvement

Self Reflecting

If I really stop and analyze the worry cycle within myself, it’s a combination of frustrating, enthralling, annoying yet empowering. I will start to think of a problem, stress myself beyond measure at all the possible horrible outcomes, remain stagnant for a few days with very little action and then out of no where I will find this drive to do whatever it is that I need to do to solve my problem. The latter part of this cycle is amazing. However, I am working to diminish the middle part where I wallow in self-pity until I kick myself into gear. Its that middle piece that weakens me. It is a part of me I strive daily to improve on. I have closed that window of time these days. Mainly because I look back and can see how many things I have overcome. Problems I never thought would get resolved are way back in my rearview mirror. This year I set out to work on myself. I feel as though there is always room for improvement. However, I knew it was going to take much more than just pep talking myself and reminiscing on how far I have come. I decided my commutes would be filled with knowledge. I am on book 8 in my audiobooks. Authors ranging from Gary John Bishop, Gabrielle Bernstein, Joel Osteen, Rachel Hollis, etc have been my brain food in self-improvement. Its almost as though I carry these personal motivational speakers with me at the cost of a monthly credit I receive from Audible. I feel so much more whole the more books I listen to. I have even listened to some twice! As soon as I feel myself rolling back to old habits of self-pity, I hit play and listen to something that will kick me right back to where I need to be. Part of my not looking in the rearview mirror is training my mind to react differently. I even take different routes to places, switch around my daily routine, anything that will jerk me into a new mindset. As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, “I want to be better. I need to be better”. Even when I am 70 years old, my goal is to be better than I am today. It is forever a work in progress. I want my experiences, whatever they may be to be worth every second.

Posted in inspiration, life, life experience, Self Improvement

You Will Come Back, Just Stronger

“Is a little sad but will get over it eventually, I presume”

I logged in to my old Facebook account and found this written on a status update in 2008. This update was written right after my divorce. At the time I felt like a failure. I was on the verge of getting my car repossessed. I was lonely. My kids had a step parent and a baby brother on the way, and my grandmother had passed away. There were so many charged things happening at once and I never thought I’d get out of that dark tunnel. I was barely making any money, and I thought I would never fill the emptiness I had inside. Crazy how just reading that status took me back and reminded me of who I was 10 years ago. However, it reminded me how I took that setback and made it an even stronger comeback. The best part? I did get over the sad. Time heals all. The important thing is that you put in the best effort to use that sad and turn it in to something positive. You have to take that setback and decide if it is more important to sit there and sulk over it or do something about it.

My best suggestion is doing things to fill your time so you aren’t thinking about everything you don’t have or are negative about. Read a book that enlightens you. Download the mingle app and find out things happening in your area that are in your interest and go to them. Did you know they have mingle book clubs? Bike groups? Cycling groups? People who socialize in basically every topic you can think of. Get out there and be around like minded people. Surround yourself with people that are going to force you to be positive. It is so much easier to be sad. However, don’t allow the sad to stay so long it now lives in you without paying rent.

Let your comeback be stronger than your setback

Posted in inspiration, life, life experience

Rise

I want to be better. I need to better. I’ve spent years trying to fill my void with a vision of what my life should be. It brought me anxiety. It made me judge anything and everything that wasn’t at the standard of what I thought life should be. But why? Life should be lived minute by minute. Life should be complicated and when it is, we should learn from it. The exciting part is letting it unfold as it should while putting in effort to be better with every second of every single day. I’ve reflected so much lately. I was struggling with this underlying constant anxiety that I didn’t understand. I hated it. It had lived rent free in the pit of my stomach as long as I could remember. Then I realized it was because I was trying to take the drivers seat on what my life outcomes should be. Who am I to know that? All I can control is how I live my life. Do I enjoy what I have? Do I appreciate what I have? I sat with a glass of wine today on my front lawn looking at my home. I took it in for a second. I took in my car, took in the fact that my 2 beautiful children were sitting on their beds, playing their Xbox feeling safe and content with the home I have provided for them, by myself. I took in the fact that they are such amazing kids, because I have strived to raise them as best as I can. And then I paused and I asked myself why I waste so much energy on trying to manipulate my outcomes to be what I think I they should be. My life has not been at all what I wrote up in my mind but here I am. A home, a car, beautiful children, a good job, and blessed. I have friends that pray for me. Friends! Yes, friends that take time to pray over me and my family so that we rise, so that we succeed, so that we are safe and happy. So, I’m letting go. I’m living. I’m loving. I’m enjoying. I’m only looking at today. Thank you God for my struggles. I got this.