Author: admin

Relieve Holiday Stress

I don’t know about you, but for me the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas can be overwhelming. I love the season and everything it represents, but trying to do it all can be exhausting.

This year I have decided to take a few steps to relieve the holiday stress in my life and maybe they can help you too.

1. Don’t do it all.

There is no way for me to be able to fit in every holiday event and party that is going on around me. Sure they all sound exciting, but I’ll be drained making it to all of them. This year I’m choosing just a few events to participate in for my own mental health.

2. Indulge without guilt.

We all need to eat healthy, it makes our lives better in so many ways, especially in reducing anxiety. But at Christmas the goodies are so good. If you want to indulge, do so. Just remember to keep it in moderation. Eat just one or two treats instead of devouring everything on the platter, which is what I prefer to do. I will eat Christmas goodies without guilt this year.

3. Give useful, practical gifts.

I was thinking about what I want for Christmas and I don’t need or want more stuff. I have enough stuff, too much if I’m honest. Most people I know have too much stuff as well. This year, instead of scouring store aisles for the perfect thing to give somebody, I plan on giving experiences. Maybe gift cards for a date night or a craft store where they like to shop. I’ll be able to get all my shopping done at my kid’s school. One stop shopping while picking up a kid. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone.

4. Plan for down time.

I’m planning to keep a few days just for my little family of four where we can spend time together, watching Christmas movies or hanging out. Are they still too young for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation?

5. Remember the reason for the season.

Jesus is what it’s all about. Focus on Him​ and the rest is easy.

How to Help Anxiety

My last post was two weeks ago and it was difficult to write, but I needed to get what I was feeling out of my head and into writing. Thank you to all who read it and thank you to all who prayed for me or sent positive thoughts into the universe. God got them all and answered them for me.

I feel better.

I’m still overwhelmed by all that is happening in my life, but I have found the energy to begin taking care of me.

I have exercised, mostly yoga stretches to get rid of the neck and shoulder tension, for 9 of the past 14 days. It has helped tremendously. I haven’t had a headache in 2 weeks. I also have been doing stretches to help alleviate the pain I experience from a pinched nerve in the front of my hip. That has helped too.

I have begun to eat better, healthier foods instead of running to fast food because I don’t have the energy to cook. I’m still tired most of the time, but not as exhausted as I have been.

Living with anxiety is not fun or for the weak. It takes more strength and energy to get through a day than it should. Fighting the negative thoughts that are always there and pushing back the unnecessary stresses just to function is exhausting.

I still have bad dreams though, so sleeping isn’t really restful for me. My husband says I toss and turn all night long. Some nights are better than others and I don’t usually remember the dreams after waking up. St least the dreams don’t add to by daytime stress.

The biggest anxiety relief for me though, is writing. Writing it down here in my blog, and getting my feelings into words takes some of their power away and gives me my power back.

I’m at my weakest against anxiety when I hold it in and try to make others believe that everything is fine. I need to remember that I have friends and family beside me, willing to help me.

I’m not alone!

Thank you all for that.

Barely Above the Surface

This is a picture I drew to try to make sense of what I’m currently feeling. With all the worries on my mind and actual responsibilities, I’m barely keeping my head above water, feeling like I might be pushed under the surface by the next demand on me.

I’m doubting my abilities in teaching, parenting, cooking, writing, speaking, wife-ing, driving, trusting… Pretty much absolutely everything in my life.

My mind is a swirling mess of questions that can’t be answered by my anxious mind. Moving too quickly from one to the next, never even waiting to be answered, just moving in to something else, more terrible until I’m tangled in the mess of questions struggling to keep my head above water.

I’m exhausted both mentally and physically.

My body hurts. I feel the anxiety in my head, neck, shoulders, stomach, hips, heart, and lungs. It takes all my energy to make it through the day without showing the world how my anxiety is affecting me.

Migraines and headaches seem to be my new, unwanted best friend. They are with me everyday in all I do. I try to sleep them off, but I’m even anxious in my dreams and wake up still in pain, still tired.

I want to get better. I don’t want to feel this anymore, but it’s so hard. I take my medicine everyday and it helps. I know I’ve had periods of anxiety without meds and they are far worse than what I’m experiencing now.

I know it will eventually pass, but I want it to end now.

I know I can exercise and eat right and talk to someone, but all of that takes energy that I just don’t have right now.

I do my best to take care of my kids and meet their needs and I know that I need to take care of me too, to meet my needs or soon I won’t be able to take care of them. I will be a lump in my bed, unable to function at all.

Knowing that I can do something to make this better and not having the energy to do it just adds to the anxiety. It’s a vicious circle.

I’m tired. I’m overwhelmed. I want to go to sleep and hide from the world.

At the same time, I don’t want to get pushed beneath the surface by life’s demands.

I want to get to the other side.

 

Ten Things I Want My 10 Year Old Son To Know

This past week my son turned 10 years old. I know the next few years will be hard as he learns to navigate junior high and high school, so I made him a list of ten things I want him to know in life and I’m going to share it with you.

1. Know who you are and what you value: you are an incredible young man with a good heart, who cares about others. You are talented with music and singing. You are smart and understand things more deeply than most people.

2. Be you: it’s not enough to just k ow who you are, you have to always be you. Don’t change who you are to make people happy, or to make them like you. If they don’t like you for who you are, they aren’t worth your time.

3. It’s okay to grow and change: while you shouldn’t change who you are for others, it is okay to change for you. If you find something about yourself that you don’t like, change it. If you learn something new and you want that to be a part of who you are, change; but only for you.

4. You’re anxiety isn’t you: you have anxiety. It’s a pretty of you, but it’s not everything about you. You can learn to live and thrive with anxiety.

5. No means no: no matter what, no matter when, where, who or why. If you say no don’t let anyone change your mind. If somebody tells you no, leave them alone, don’t try to change their mind.

6. Stand up for yourself and others: when bullies are doing their thing to you or somebody else, tell them to stop and walk away, taking the victim with you. Tell an adult, or don’t engage with the bully. There are lots of ways to stand up. Find what works for you and do it. Always.

7. Don’t be a bully: people worry about enough in their lives. Nobody needs or wants you to point out their flaws or shortcomings. Just don’t do it.

8. People are not for your entertainment: your friends and family or anyone, are not here for your enjoyment, entertainment or pleasure. If they are willing to do that for you, enjoy it. If not, entertain yourself.

9. Nobody owes you anything: the idea that you deserve something because you are you is called entitlement, and its a big pile of poop. Nobody owes you anything. You need to work and earn things for yourself. It feels good when you work hard, instead of getting everything given to you.

10. You are responsible for you: when you do something good, take credit for it. When you make a mistake, own it, fix it, learn from it and mo e on. Also, you are responsible for you and nobody else, don’t stress about others behavior. You can talk to them about it, but only worry and stress about you and change what you need to about you. For you.

I hope he remembers these things for the rest of his life and I hope they are a part of your life too.

Thought Spirals

Within the last two weeks I have read two incredible books about OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). One was a memoir titled, Obsessed, by Allison Britz and the other book was a fiction novel, Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green.

Neither of these books were about anxiety, but they helped me understand my anxiety a little bit better. OCD, is an anxiety disorder, after all, so it makes sense that I could relate to the thought patterns expressed in both books.

One thing about mental illness is that there are no words to describe how you feel. For body illnesses we have a ton of words, nauseous, dizzy, headache, shooting pain, dull ache, shortness of breath and tingling sensation to name a few.

The best way to describe how we feel suffering from mental illnesses is to use metaphors. In the book, Obsessed, the author describes her thoughts as angry bees buzzing in her head. John Green calls them “thought spirals.” In another part of John Green’s book, he has the therapist say something like; thoughts are like cars driving by. We can just let them go or we can get in with them and see where they take us.

I try to explain how my anxious thoughts form a coil inside of me, pulling me in tighter and tighter until the thoughts can’t get any tighter and the coil is going to spring loose and hurt me and everybody around me when it does.

The coil in me is metal, so when it springs loose it is dangerous. It will hurt. I try to avoid hurting anyone else by isolating myself from others, then I’m the only one getting hurt by it.

I appreciate language. I appreciate that we have so many words, but sometimes our language falls short. We need words to describe how mental illness feels without requiring people to become experts in metaphors to be able to explain their pain.

Mental pain is real and we need words to express it.

Thank you John Green for giving us the phrase “Thought Spirals!”

How To Escape Whatever You Need To Get Away From

Our lives are busy. There is too much going on. We have jobs, family, friends, homes, sports, responsibilities and many other things that overwhelm us. Sometimes we just need a way to escape.

My preferred means of escape is sitting on a beach, listening to waves lapping peacefully on the shore, feeling a warm breeze under a shady palapa.

Or maybe a weekend in a cozy mountain cabin, with the sound of a babbling brook floating through the windows on a cool breeze.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a budget that supports that kind of travel as often as I need. Statistically, neither do most of us. We have to work to pay the bills.

So how can you escape?

Books! Books can take you to amazing places and they’re easy on your budget.

Libraries let you borrow books for free, so do friends and family. Kindle and Nook allow you to download books onto their devices and maybe even onto your phone.

Then, there are magical places called bookstores that will happily take your money in exchange for books.

If you don’t like sitting down to read, or don’t have the time, there are audiobooks. You can listen to a book while you take care of your responsibilities! How amazing is that?

Books can take you farther than vacations which keep you trapped in this world in this time. Books can take you to Narnia, the Wizarding World, into the future or into the past. They can take you to alternate dimensions or different worlds.

Books are an incredible, cost-effective, escape strategy and there is an incredible opportunity to stock up on books for people in California’s Central Valley.

I will be there selling my book, Worthless No More, along side about a hundred other authors selling their books.

You will be able to purchase some great escape opportunities and meet the authors that wrote them.

Hope to see you there!

Cognitive Distortions

It’s exhausting having anxiety. Even when my dark enemy is quiet, I know it’s there, just waiting to whisper something in my ear. Anxiety’s goal is to convince me that I’m not good enough for anything or anyone and that the worst possible thing I can think of is what will happen in any given situation.

I. Hate. Anxiety.

Some people have to work harder at some things than others, I know that. I just wish daily life wasn’t such a challenge for me.

There are plenty of things that come easily to me that others can’t do so easy.

I can keep a group of teenagers paying attention in history class for 50 minutes.

I can write pretty well (I think) and get an idea across to others.

I can plan itineraries for “nerd” vacations, as my children call them where we can mix up fun and education in a new, exciting place.

I can get into a car and drive for hours to see family.

The hard part is getting out of bed and getting started.

When the alarm goes off in the morning, most days, I’m immediately overwhelmed by the enormous amount of tasks to accomplish in one day.

I think that I’ll never get it all done. It’s impossible.

As the day wears on and Anxiety’s negative thoughts creep in, I constantly have to push them away, like holding back the ocean’s waves. It’s exhausting.

Through therapy I have learned strategies for dealing with the intrusive thoughts that Anxiety brings. I’m thankful for the skills I’ve learned to combat the negative thinking Anxiety always has for me.

Today I read an article about Cognitive Distortions. It was extremely enlightening, so I’m going to share it here:

https://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions/

Also in that article is a link to another article that discusses ways to fix the  cognitive distortions in your life.

I know this tools have helped me, maybe they’ll help you too.

If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do.

And please share the article with a friend who might be helped.

Have a wonderful weekend!

The World’s Gone Mad

Things are crazy out there! Hurricane Harvey just left thousands of people devastated, having to clean up and rebuild their lives. Then there’s Hurricanes Irma, Jose and Katia lined up to do more of the same.

Then there have been earthquakes shaking things up all over the place, like Mexico and Idaho.

Don’t forget about the fires devouring the Western United States and Canada.

And all of that are just the natural disasters! I haven’t even brought up the crazy guy in North Korea who wants to blow stuff up, or ISIS who terrorizes people anywhere and anyway they can.

The world’s gone mad, I tell you, mad!!!!

However, there are some amazing people doing heroic things in all of this.

Fire fighters.

People pouring into flooded areas to help rescue people caught in the rising waters.

A makeshift hospital in Mexico, treating those injured in the earthquake.

These people are bringing hope to the lives of people whose lives have been destroyed.

These people are going out of their way to help others.

The world might be have gone mad, but there are plenty of people who haven’t.

Praying for those in the midst of the madness.

Thankful for those able to help, praying for them too.

 

Why?

Simon Sinek is a business speaker and I had the opportunity to see a clip of a Ted talk he did about the “Golden Circle” and starting with the question, “why?”

He was talking about business and that successful businesses know why they do what they do, not just what and how, but it can relate to being a teacher, a parent, a friend, writer, speaker, a significant other… the list can go on to include anything that we do.

I was asked why I teach. I always joke and say that it’s for all the time off, and that is a part of why I teach. I thought it would be a great way to have a career and a family. I would be able to be home when my kids were home and spend time with them. I always knew that I would never be able to be a stay-at-home mom so it was the best of both worlds in my opinion.

But the real answer to why I am a teacher is a little sadder than that. When I was in high school I was one of the “weird” kids. I didn’t fit in with any group. It was hard to go to school. Senior year I found a small group of other misfits and we fit together, making that year much easier than it could have been.

People made fun of me for being a Christian, for being too skinny, for looking so young, for being short, for having a boyfriend, for breaking up with a boyfriend, for getting good grades, for not getting good grades, for having a beat up old car, for having a house that looked like a barn… you get the idea. I was picked on.

As a teacher I want to find those marginalized students and let them know that someone at school cares about them. That someone knows that they are there and that they make a difference in my class. I want them to know that my world would not be the same without them in my classroom. I want them to feel accepted and that they belong somewhere. I want them to know that they matter.

That led me to think about writing. What I do is write. How I do it is with creativity, a computer/phone, on the internet and by making time. But why do I do it?

That answer is easy with my first book, Worthless No More. I want people to know that they are not alone in their struggles and that there are people they can talk to who will understand and will help them.

But what about my next book, a fiction novel about a female serial killer? Why am I writing that one? Or the next fiction one that will be about a high school student being sexually assaulted at a party?Why do I want to write that one? And the sequel to Worthless No More?

As I thought about why I want to write these other books, I realized that it’s all the same reason that I wrote Worthless No More. I want people to realize that no matter what their struggle is, there is help and there is hope for them. That their lives don’t have to be defined by what has happened to them or the bad choices they’ve made. We always have a chance to start over.

 

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

 

According to the fictional character, House; everybody lies.

He’s probably right. I know I like every day. Did you hear that? I lie every, single day. I’ve probably even lied to you.

Want to know what my most common lie is?

“How are you?” People ask.

“I’m fine.” I reply with a smile.

The smile is the icing on the cake. If I’m smiling then surely I must truly be fine. If I wasn’t fine, I’d tell you, right?

Not necessarily.

People ask this question as a way of being polite, not because they have the desire or concern or time to know how you are. It’s more out of habit like, “wow, this weather sure is something, isn’t it?”

It’s a space filler. So instead of saying how I really feel, I tell people that I’m fine.

Besides, if you say how you really feel, some people don’t know how to react.

I once decided to tell people the truth for an entire day when they asked how I was. When I told them that my mind was racing and I couldn’t sleep at night because of the bad dreams they looked at me as though I had just told them I was planning a horrific crime. Like something was wrong with me.

Here’s the thing though, there is nothing more wrong with me than a person who has to wear glasses or take insulin or any other medication.

A part of my body doesn’t function properly. There are chemicals that get out of whack and cause me to not be okay…

And that’s okay.

I don’t need people to feel bad for me, or tell me how my life is better than so many others. I need people to let me know ow that it’s okay to not be okay.

Ask me what I do to feel better and if I’ve been practicing those things.

Ask me what you can do to help.

Would you tell a diabetic to just get over it? That it’s not okay to be diabetic?

No way!

Would you tell someone who needs contacts or glasses to just stop wearing them so they don’t become dependent on them?

Absolutely not!

Anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses are exactly the same as other illnesses. It’s not our fault that we have them and that a part of our body, our brain, doesn’t seem to work as well as it should.

We should never be embarrassed of our mental health issues. Everyone needs to quit stigmatizing people who have mental health issues.

I want everyone to know that it’s okay to not be okay!