Strong

Today:  I am   strong  .

Or at least I am trying to be strong.  Do you ever have those times when something said to you or another person's actions or just something silly triggers something inside of you that you don't like to be triggered?  Maybe it's from a bad experience or maybe it's a fear or makes you nervous.  I've been dealing with this.  I always wonder at what point this will go away and this "bad experience" will no longer be within me.  Turns out that it's going to take longer than I thought it would.  Then I'm left with deciding how to overcome this.  I know the Sunday School answers... prayer, scriptures, Heavenly Father, my family.  I look to all of that for support.  But how can I make my head go "eh... whatever"?  That's what I want to figure out.

I've learned the last few months that trials never really leave us.  Sometimes it's big enough that it makes an entire change in our family dynamic.  Sometimes it's small enough to jolt us, but really we can snap back easily.  I savor the strength and happiness that I am beginning to feel more and more of.  I wish that I could say it's something that sticks around constantly.  Unfortunately, it doesn't take much and those feelings are whisked away from me quicker than they came.  Anxiety is a pain in the butt like that.  For example... having a dental check-up and cleaning last week, the dentist asked if I had recently bit my tongue because of a sore on it.  I wasn't sure if I had or not but it seemed likely after eating as much Halloween candy as I had.  He could have stopped there.  He could have left it at a sore on my tongue and checked it out without saying a word.  He did not do that however.  He went on to say that sometimes a sore like this is a sign of tumors in your tongue and then let me know he was checking the back of my mouth and tongue for signs of a tumor.  He also felt the lymph nodes in my neck.  Pretty sure it was Halloween candy... and while I'm thankful to him for being so thorough, I still walked out mad.  I didn't let him know I was mad.  But I was.  I was mad because I knew that my mind was going to run wild with this.  Despite my best efforts to control the storm brewing inside my head, I suddenly found myself worrying about health problems again.  It was only for a couple of days but during those couple of days I lost track of things I should have been doing.  Things that help maintain my happiness.  As soon as I got back on track I felt better. 

I've been struggling with a few things lately that are mostly brought up from my past.  Sometimes I don't know how to handle things so I just sweep them under the rug.  They eventually fester and irritate me... then make their way to the surface and I have to deal with them.  I've found that these problems don't necessarily make me have anxiety, but instead bring me down.  I don't know which is worse... depression or anxiety!  It's like when you know you need to vacuum your floor but for some reason you find yourself to busy to get it done.  It gets worse and worse... but you still just can't take care of it.  Then one day you have a free minute... whip out the Dyson {which I don't have, but wish I did}... and ta-da!  Your floor is cleaned!  In that moment, before you put the vacuum away, the peace and happiness that is felt is priceless.  I keep telling myself if I just deal with these "problems" I'll probably feel that peace.  They won't keep festering like a bad infection.  They won't keep weighing on my shoulders.  I also know that these "problems" can be hard and bring about experiences that I really don't want to encounter right now.  This is when I turn to prayer.  I rely on the Lord to help me through these times.  It's times like this that I realize no matter how strong I like to think I am, I still have a ways to go.

I'm very thankful for having my eyes opened to these things within me that need to be "fixed" or mended.  I'm thankful for the tools that I'm learning to help me through this.  I've noticed more and more daily that my sweet little girl is anxious.  I see the signs that I have in me of anxiety.  I see how she handles problems, the tantrums she throws, the stress she carries over simple things and I realize that she is dealing with a much bigger issue.  I'm thankful for recognizing this.  I now know that punishing her or grounding her is not the way to handle the situation.  I'm trying to find things she can do to make her feel in control and keep her mind busy.  Luckily she is a very creative little soul.  A good art project always seems to calm her.  I hope I can relay the same hope and strength to someone else in the world :)

xo, Heather