Intentions

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I just drove home from a three day growth conference in San Antonio yesterday. The drive home felt like it flew by because of all the things buzzing in my head. So many incredible thought leaders speaking had so many incredible practices to put in place once I returned to normal life.

One that resonated so deeply was that of setting intentions early in the morning right after waking up. It involved deep breathing and meditation on the things you wanted to accomplish that day. It isn’t just that but I have simplified it here.

This morning I woke easily without an alarm, drank a whole water bottle down, got comfy in my big leather chair with a journal not even cracked open once with the label “my breakthrough year” on the leather cover. I cleared my mind through breathing, returning to my center.

I imagined and visualized my house completely clean and clutter free, felt how peaceful and calm it would make me, smelled the smells of the candle I would light while cleaning, embodied the gratitude for a spotless environment. Then I did my journal work with affirmations. They came more freely than I expected they would.

I got out a new notebook, marked the date, and wrote out a long LONG list of all the areas of my house and things to clean. And I started. I didn’t schedule my day out. I took breaks for a salad lunch and some rewarding hot tub time. By 7pm, my entire list was checked off.

I spent the rest of my evening reading “The Master of Surrender” by Kute Blackson and catching up on social media and texts.

And I felt all the gratitude, smelled deeply the Vanilla Cashmere candle I had lit, and had peace. Just as I had experienced in the morning.

It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t a struggle. It just was intentional.

And I never want to spend another day differently.

Intentions

Slow start

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So far the six days of January have felt like the entire month of December, it has gone so slow. I woke up on January 2nd disoriented to my job, having ten days of holiday time before. I had to remember exactly what I was doing.

This year definitely feels different than all those before it. I feel much more grounded in my life purpose and goals. I feel satisfied with nearly every part of my life. I am in a wonderful committed relationship that breathes life into me every day. I am writing my first book and freeing my story from within. I really got started with my nonprofit organization that I hope to retire building and growing.

But all of that was lost on me on January 2nd. All the goal setting I did days earlier sat dormant in my new journal. I passed the minutes of the day trying to organize my jobs for the year and reach out to coworkers. I had a couple hot tub breaks just to separate the day into smaller sections I could handle.

I choose a word for every year. Last year was “Control” and this year I chose a phrase instead of one word, “Start to Finish.” I have decided procrastination is not going to be in my vocabulary this year or beyond. I will begin things with the end in mind.

Boxes stacked up by the door from Christmas were left untouched. Laundry was undone. Life just wasn’t starting when it felt like I was at the beginning of the rest of my life.

And that is okay.

It is okay sometimes to just not being feeling it. It is okay to decide to start tomorrow. Or next week. On Wednesday, I sat down and wrote down all the things I wanted to accomplish every week. And then I outlined a daily routine that included everything on my list. Now I could be sitting in the evening wondering what to do and look at my list and know what I should do at that moment.

It improved my Thursday and Friday. I am still not completely driven and I plan for that to happen next week. For now I am relaxing this weekend. I did get all the house cleaning done and the laundry started.

So if you are being hard on yourself for not jumping right in to your new year resolutions and goals. Tomorrow is another day. Next week will be there for that. And if not, it won’t matter anyway!

Slow start

Consistent Upturn

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I have been feeling it. That spark that starts small deep within and gets bigger and bigger until a strong flame emerges. I just keep feeding it with small weak kindling at first, then twigs, and finally I am throwing entire logs to keep the fire alive.

This is life now. I found happiness. I almost pause at saying that so as not to tempt God to take it away once more. It feels like this consistent upturn for me though, a mindset that is not going anywhere. And I embrace it.

It is interesting though, the timing at which this steady feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction has come into my life. I question really what I can attribute it to often. After all, I went through probably the second most traumatic loss of my life this last August. I also had to find a new job. My house was a mess. Nothing was pointing to a moment of happiness, let alone a whole season.

I believe that this is where the lesson and the truth is. Sometimes it is in the darkest of times that we can clearly see the light. We can decipher between something that is pretending to bring happiness and what truly does bring happiness. We know what direction we need to walk in.

I don’t feel like I have been in a storm and am now out of it. But perhaps that is exactly what has happened to me. When storms come and we don’t sway or falter, when our foundations are laid so strong and solid, when we are steadily growing in our good habits and our faith, we realize the storm raging outside of us isn’t getting in.

It has been stormy for months. Things are getting even more volatile with the transfer of my fiancé to a permanent facility. Yet our love and our bond, and my life’s endeavors, remain strong and safe inside.

Sometimes I open up that door just a crack and let the rain and the wind sweep in. I am reminded how warm and comforting it is inside of myself and inside of my love for others, and I go ahead and shut the door once again. It is a fleeting occurrence and nothing more.

Sometimes I feel like an imposter still. I feel like I am not qualified to weather this storm. I feel like I am not disciplined or simply just enough for all that I pile up on my plate.

My therapist suggested instead of feeling this way, I should reach out to people who know more than me so I can receive advice and answers and eliminate that fake feeling. So that is what I’ll do.

I never know how long the reprieve from depression will last. The brain has a good way of tricking you to believing you will feel whatever emotion you are having now, forever. But I do know that is never the case. Until then, I will be grateful for all the things I do have and like Blue October sang, “remain independently happy.”

Consistent Upturn

Extreme Fortune Telling

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I have taken quite a pause in my writing lately. Sometimes I worry this cyclical activity followed by utter inactivity might render my influence null and void. But I press on, because I really am doing this for my personal manifestation of my life purpose, and not what the world’s response to that action.

I was in therapy the other day discussing the pros and cons of having a prison wedding, when my therapist sat up a little straighter and hesitated. I took notice of this because he doesn’t typically hesitate ever when in conversation with me. We have become cool like that over the last decade of weekly sessions.

He fumbled over his words trying to explain that he didn’t know how to say something, but he felt as though I was certainly capable of thinking about life and future with….

I finished his thought, “catastrophic fortune telling?” He laughed quietly and responded, “I was going to say flights of fantasy, but yes that too.” It is one or the other. My mind operates as though I am some extremely dramatic fortune teller. Death and doom, or luck and love! It will all work out perfect, or it is going to be the worst possible outcome.

This is why I can’t call myself an optimist. Or a pessimist. But I am definitely not a realist. Well, am I?

I take life as it comes and often don’t think there is anything that can realistically happen to improve it. When I am not depressed (which is less often than most), I have this amazing capacity for hope. Tack on the surreal experience of depersonalization/dissociation, and there you have it. A hopeful, apathetic dreamer.

Recognizing this in yourself really brings about a lot of deep thinking. Is it really such a bad thing? I am not really a worrier because I have hope for the best case scenario. I am not a manic lunatic because I assume the tragedy is what is likely to occur. Maybe I am closer to being a realist, when everything averages out.

So let’s take a step back and stop this never ending monologue of introspection. A lot is changing in my life right now. I spent a good two weeks letting myself decompress meaning I slept all the time and didn’t take my eight different medicines to keep me sane and uninflamed. This was followed by two weeks hating myself for missing my medicine, being chronically exhausted with incredible joint pain.

In the midst of all this, I managed to function and successfully interview and accept an offer of employment with a new company. I am really very excited about this new opportunity in my life, and feel the leadership of the company are real people with very personable approaches to the work environment.

So, I got back on the wagon, took my meds religiously, and started feeling better. But not tip top, resulting in my rheumatologist changing my treatment to biologics, which are injections of very expensive meds that will wipe out my immune system. Yay me! I never quite understood this whole kill the immune system to deal with autoimmune disorders cure.

So, I am finishing up my current job, taking a second vacation to the beach (part two will be much better!), and starting fresh the week after Thanksgiving with my new job. Hoping and believing the best will come from the med change and job change and life choice change…. And staring at the possibilities of failure too.

I think I am swinging on the pendulum of life and it is ever so gently slowing down to where I am supposed to be. We’re pretty dang close! Or maybe that is a flight of fantasy!

Extreme Fortune Telling

Hit the Snooze button

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***Trigger warning: suicidal ideation***

Everyone says I am depressed. I go to my weekly therapy and my therapist listens to me talk ten minutes straight how life is going and then says “Sound like you are really depressed.” I send off a video message to my best girlfriends who live in different states. The reply comes back and says “I don’t know but it sounds like you are depressed right now. Go sit outside and soak up that vitamin D.”

How am I missing this? I am a self-proclaimed expert in the self awareness arena. I know depression. Very well. I think it must be that I have never in my life been depressed when a desire to sleep forever is not part of it. Yes, I am talking about suicidal thoughts. I don’t have any of them.

This surprises me a lot. Everything that I know about the disease that is called depression lends to the progressive nature of suicidal ideation. I am at the stage of this disease that a minor bout of depression invokes the full ideation gameplan.

Before I go further, I need to reiterate that I have done A LOT of therapy on this topic, and it is a solid agreement with myself, a promise, that I will not entertain any of these wild thoughts that come about due to depression. So we are all good there.

It is just I have never had every physical and emotional symptom of depression without the desire to not be alive. It almost messes with my head. It is a sneaky tactic of my enemy, depression. The alarm didn’t go off or in my stupor, I hit the snooze button instead of deploying the arsenal of coping mechanisms.

So where does it leave me now? Where do I go from here? Now that I am convinced by my trusted friends and professionals that I am depressed, what is the next step? I mean, have you ever heard of a depressed person who has a solid sense of joy? I am grateful constantly, but the emotions don’t match.

I know…. This doesn’t make much sense. I don’t understand it. I am in love. I am grieving a loss. I laugh every day. I have no motivation. I perform well at work. Sometimes I sleep all through the day. I am textbook confused.

I have decided it is okay and safe for me to just continue. To be sad and grateful. To be sleepy and productive. I will feel what I need to feel when I need to feel it.

It is okay for me to hit snooze right now. Slow down, make the problems wait just a bit longer. When I do wake up, I know I have everything I need to shake off the depression.

Hit the Snooze button

When Dreams Are Too Big

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I started back down the path of learning how to get my dream of building and operating a state of the art, comprehensive, revolutionary mental health facility going once again. Looking at average salaries, I added up the cost of a core staff (2 doctors, 4 counselors, 33 nurses, 42 mental health techs, 10 kitchen workers, and 10 admin) and wow.

$5,472,000 in labor costs not including benefits. That is every year!

We are not talking about occupational therapists, or janitorial staff, maintenance workers, or accounting/billing department.

Excuse me while I look up contact information for every celebrity I have ever known. I honestly don’t know how this can be done. But I know big things can happen when you start small. At least I am telling myself this.

Throw in operating costs of the facility itself, the construction, the specialized network for a lock down unit, training costs, marketing. I guess I just need to pray some endowment for $20 million falls in my lap.

I know this can happen, but I am not quite sure how. One thing I know is it can’t happen by just one person, being that of myself. I will need people of influence on my side from day one and I will have to delegate even though I would love to be in every part of it.

So if you are reading this and have those special connections to people impacted by mental illness who have the funds to support a radical way to change the healthcare system, please send them my way. I will welcome them all with open arms, and we will create the dream that was too big together!

When Dreams Are Too Big

The Cost of Happiness

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Several months ago I started a new “add-on” antidepressant medication to be taken in addition to my current medication regimen. The doctor handed me a small white paper bag containing a few months worth of pills in sample packs for me to “try before I buy.”

Much to my surprise, they worked! I had a long and disappointing track record of medications not being effective for me. The new technology in pharmaceuticals really is something! My brain fog lifted, I felt more grounded, engaged, and energetic.

The next visit followed suit like the first. I reported the great results and we adjusted the dosage slightly and I walked out with my white bag of happiness. A couple months later just before Christmas break, I phoned the doctor’s office requesting a script to be called into my pharmacy as I was running low.

My pharmacy run went smoothly, $57 for my first medication, and $32 for my new one. Despite a stressful holiday season, I made it through with a little more motivation and peace.

Last week, I needed a refill of my fancy new drug. I called up the doctor, and shortly after received a call from the pharmacy. I thought it was a bit odd because usually I just get a text notification when my scripts are ready. The pharmacy tech politely said, “We have your script here, and we already applied the manufacturer’s coupon for $400 off. But the balance for one month supply is $900, and we wanted to see if you still wanted this filled?”

*Gasp* NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS for 30 pills?? How in God’s green Earth could a tiny pill cost so much? Without the coupon, that is roughly $43 per 1mg pill. That is more than I spend to feed my whole family of three in one day, at a nice restaurant nonetheless. That is like me going out to eat a filet minion every day of the year. Apparently the last time it was filled, I had met my deductible and out of pocket max.

I smiled and thanked the pharmacy tech for the call and let her know I would pass on filling the script. Flashbacks to when I found the only effective medication was not labeled for depression and the typical administration of it was intravenous infusion, costing $500 each time. Thankfully, I was able to manage to convince the doctor to order me the oral compound version for $1,943 less each month.

What I can’t understand is how we expect society to avoid constant mental illness crisis among the poverty-stricken. To obtain my medication, I am required to visit my psychiatrist every two months, by law. If I had no insurance, this is $250 for 15 minutes, or $1,500 a year. Medication is not enough though. For my therapy every week, it costs me $70, or $150 for uninsured. That is another $7,500 a year. So sure, let’s go ahead and tack on another $15,000 for medication.

This is what I need to live. I know I quip this is the cost of “happiness” but it isn’t even that. It is the cost of functioning at a job, parenting my children, keeping myself alive. I have a terminal illness called major depression, where if untreated has a fatal prognosis.

So what can I do? What can anyone do? How does it change? I do the only thing I know… I go to my doctor and ask for another white paper bag, praying the day never comes that they stop receiving samples to give.

The Cost of Happiness

New year, new word

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Starting back in 2016, I started choosing a word for the year to focus myself and my goals to center around one thing.

My past words include simplify, peace, happy, dependable, consistency, and align. To be honest, that last one “align” wasn’t completely decided on for 2022 and I had abandoned in large part the idea of whether my words were even helping me.

They all are significant to me though. They are a great recall of where I was mentally and spiritually in life. The first three are from the end of my 13 year marriage and navigating through the storm of divorce. The last three are redefining who I am and creating a solid identity of self. All represent who I wanted to become.

About a week ago, I started stirring around ideas in my mind of a long and detailed list of all I wanted to accomplish and adjust in my life this next year. In some ways, this past year has proven to be very much a breakthrough in success and positive habits. However, I end the year feeling more pulled apart than I ever have been.

Today I had a conversation with a friend who is struggling to find reasons to keep going in life. I noticed the things I was saying to support this person were things I had said many times before, and really things that had been said to me in therapy so many times. It was a ongoing life lesson I had memorized by heart. It is something that I actually had internalized so deeply that I believed every word I spoke and could smile knowing that truth.

I broke it down as simply as possible that in our lives as humans, we are actually in control of much more than we ever realize. The choices we make are so powerful and significant to what takes place after those choices, that we stand to change everything about our life and circumstances.

But we rarely see it this way. We see limited avenues of action based on all the external things at play. We don’t open our minds to the possibilities because they seem so far fetched and unreachable.

For example, at this very moment, I could choose to put up my house for sale, move to the beach, find a random job that pays just enough for room and board, and live a completely different life. But I don’t do that for a myriad of reasons – it would change my ability to see my children and be a part of their lives, it would be starting over with finding new friends and support system, and so many other unknowns.

But just living with the knowledge that I can have complete control over something that big and life changing, makes me know I have control over smaller things too. I can choose to spend my money on take out or groceries, I can choose to exercise or veg out on the couch, I can choose to engage in conflict with my ex-husband or walk away (all hypothetical situations).

I used to be a person who felt permanently trapped in whatever emotion I was feeling, unable to move in any direction but whatever way life chose to deal with me. It felt powerless and hopeless and without meaning. As soon as I sat down and really thought of all the different lives I could lead, however easy or difficult they could be, it truly freed me to live through whatever I was facing.

So my word may seem strange this year, but maybe the words above give meaning to it. My word for 2023 is “Control.” Knowing what I have control of, what i don’t have control of, and the power for positive change that comes from that.

I want to take back control of my finances, my health, my friendships, my time. I want to push the limits of my external circumstances and find the little parts I can control to change the outcome.

If you have read this far and you feel stuck, I want you to think of what you could change if there were no limits. Sometimes just knowing you could change your life is enough to prove to yourself you have the power and ability to keep going.

New year, new word

Cast Your Cares

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I perform what might be considered a ritual every time I visit the ocean. I walk up to the waterline, immerse my feet in the tide, and block out any activity around me.

I stand there, just the waves and myself. Taking it in, the never ending, always changing constant of the waves. And in one exhale, I throw every problem and worry and sadness as far as I possibly can beyond the horizon.

And I leave them there. Allowing them to drift away further and further from where I stand. I know eventually they will return, sometimes like a message in a bottle to remind me of where I came from, sometimes smoothed down and easier to carry.

The next morning I awake to the sunrise and allow it to renew me. I rest. I absorb every ounce of strength that the ocean displays.

I am learning to live as though this ocean to let go of what hurts me is always with me, there to comfort me and tell me that I don’t have to carry the burdens of life.

I think this is what God means when He tells me to be still and know that He is with me. That he is the neverending, always changing constant waves to wash away my troubles.

So I can turn the next page in this season and see what He has for me.

Cast Your Cares

I Survived

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Last week I went to therapy without a voice.

Literally, no voice! Just faint whispers and head nods to indicate the person I was communicating with understood what I was trying to say. So, how do you think it went? I’ll tell you… it was flawless and epiphanic!

I began the session half-whispering, half-mouthing the words “I know this is less than ideal. On the way here, I quickly realized how poorly thought out this was.” But I did in fact think it through. I had a plan. Today, the therapist was going to talk to me and I would listen and take notes.

While slightly reluctant, but completely in sync with my master plan, my therapist started out saying, “I have observed a common pattern resurfacing once again. You do extremely well for a period of time, then you flip a switch and decide to exorbitantly overwhelm yourself. This continues to a degree that can bear no more, and you fall apart and spin down the spiral to despair.”

He looked into my returning stare as if to siphon out a response from my mute vocal chords. “Ah! But there is also THAT! You have the innate ability, the extreme talent, of rationalization and justification right to the very edge before you plummet. I fear you are very close to that edge right now.”

Readers, my therapist gets me. I mean, he really GETS me! Without a single syllable vocalized, he knows what I would say. “But, I actually survived this time. I came out the other side. I compartmentalized my life to a measure that prevented the world from collapsing. Sure, I didn’t eat, sleep, laugh, or live for four and a half months while my work life dominated every waking minute of my day.”

“Absolutely, I drive myself to the point of physical illness that robbed me of the very thing I needed to be successful in my job at the most critical moment, two days before the hard deadline. I had no voice. I had no energy. But I also had no emotion. So I survived.”

This is what I said without the sound waves crossing the room. This is what he already knew I would say. He agreed, although not with approval. He told me how I had practiced a new level of coping skills that had served to make the outcome of a outrageous stress level a positive one. He said, “You know, you really don’t need to come every week. Once or twice a month, maybe. You have elevated to being able to be your own therapist.”

This isn’t something I hadn’t heard before. After all, 8 years ago when I began weekly therapy with him (sometimes twice weekly those first years), I had already navigated three decades of my life with depression. There wasn’t anything new he could tell me.

I regulated my breathing, and whispered, “I know that. But this is one thing that will never change. The same day I came to terms with the solid fact I would take one or more pills every day for the rest of my life to save my life, I also knew I would enter this office once a week for as long as the door was open and the lights were on. Besides, this is my one hour a week to lay it all out there, to process, to laugh or cry or yell or rest.”

He nodded, “Yes, I will say this was likely your only act of self care these last five months.”

Yes, and because of it, I survived.

I Survived