Reclaiming My Mind

Before November 2018, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop anytime something good happened. This was how I lived, which really wasn’t living at all, but it was all I knew for the longest time. I was reluctant to let go of the familiar and take risks that could change my position in life. The depression was too much. The anxiety was too much. At times I would make small strides in the right direction, but I couldn’t fully let myself move forward because of the walls I built in front of me.

I was always afraid of what was going to happen next, aside from those few times I would start to dig myself out of my hole, so I kept the real me in a box. But even while I was tucked away, the past always reared its head in some way because I gave it more weight than it was worth. Instead of learning from and using my experiences for positive outcomes, I was letting the things that were long gone control me.

Looking back at my past, I’m grateful that I made it through each and every event, but I unknowingly became the real threat. Giving the past and those that hurt me more power than they deserved held me back mentally and emotionally to the point I had a difficult time processing things when they got hard. I would feel things deeply and had no idea how to process and express them, so I would turn into something that wasn’t me. I also experienced positive emotions with caution as to not be “too much.”

And then there came survival mode, which is difficult to shift out of when you’re always peeking through the keyholes to determine which doors to open.

Everything goes wrong in survival mode because life becomes all about getting through something instead of evolving with the challenges. When I realized that this was what I was doing, I made up my mind that I was going to welcome the challenges and rise above them. But right when I came to the realization that I needed to start living and stop surviving, I was diagnosed with cancer.

This time, the other shoe dropping wasn’t an illusion of my making; it really dropped.

At the moment of my diagnosis, I started fighting for a life that I didn’t want many times in the past. For the first time, those thoughts of ending it all seemed foolish. The past became much smaller, the present developed an overwhelming presence, and the future was a dark chasm. There was no making of intricate plans, just visions of not being in my childrens’ futures. I felt like I couldn’t plan anything, but I…

Related posts:

Comparison without a personal action plan is a sign you are indulging in an unhealthy practice. Habitually looking at Instagram or Facebook and judging your own short, or long term, success and…

What a month January has been! Politics, COVID spikes, school starting, getting The Messy Planner out to readers. I haven’t been nearly as productive on Medium as I was in November and December, but…

These social media management tools can help you save time and resources to achieve business goals. 1. Hootsuite 2. Canva 3. Buffer 4. Hubspot 5. Google