I finally received my essential oils, via mail, earlier this week, and I am excited to dig into this! I have been doing a lot of reading (thru Pintrest) about the positive benefits of the oils and it has been facinating to learn.
Tonight I am diffusing Lavander, Lemon and Peppermint to promote good health and soothe us (husband and dogs included) to sleep!
Have any good oil recipes? Let me know and I would love to try them out!
Since I am a year into truly understanding my anxiety, I have built up a great support group of friends to help me during difficult times. Since school has been back in session, and my new teaching position differs from what I have done in the past, my anxiety has been fluctuating drastically. Up until Monday it was very high because I felt like I was starting over in career. There was so much to do and I felt overwhelmed. Luckily, my friends and family were there to encourage me and build me up. When I was high, anxiously, I let them know I was struggling so they were there to help me.
It is my goal, this year, to be sure I am taking care of myself so my anxiety continues to become more and more manageable. 😀
We are on the edge of a new week. A clean slate to start again. Perhaps your week was filled with anxious and worried thoughts or taken over by negativity. However, it all starts fresh.
The anxiety that I felt last week will not over shadow this week because I choose peace. I choose to see the silver lining. I have been struggling with self doubt in my new teaching position, but I am going to speak positively to myself and build my confidence instead of destroying it. God has given me the ability to do what I do and the freedom to choose either happiness or sadness. I choose happiness. I choose peace. I choose life.
Today I am reminded of why my anxiety is my blessing. My gift. As many of you know, I am a middle school teacher who is enjoying the last few days of summer break, however, I get a text from my principal asking if I can come in today and meet with a student. This student has an anxiety disorder and needs to meet her teachers to help ease her struggles.
I feel so blessed that I understand this child’s struggle and will be able to help her find ways to cope with it this year. I don’t think many teachers understand the pain of anxiety, especially in middle school, unless they have had it. I feel privileged to be able to draw on my own experiences to be able to help. 🙂
Step into the rain
It washes you clean
Takes away the pain
And leads to possibilities unseen
it has been almost exactly a year since my last panic attack (YAY)! On this very momentous occasion I have been thinking about how I handled my attacks when they came on. How did I cope with them when they happened to strike while I was in public? What did I do before I knew what they were?! From my experience I found the best way to deal with them is to just ride them out. To normalize them and remind myself that I’m not dying.
These questions have been circling around my minds the last few days and I thought I would throw it out to all of you! How do YOU handle an attack? What are your coping skills?
Hold on to laughter
Fill your heart up to the brim
It will overflow
I struggled for years with the idea that my anxiety disorder made me a weak person. A bad Christian. A shameful woman. I felt I had done something wrong and needed to be forgiven day after day for it to be alright. However, no amount of prayer, conversation or willingness would make it disappear. I began to feel like a failure. As if God didn’t and couldn’t love me, and I didn’t love Him, which I desperately did.
Many times throughout scripture, it says to cast your cares. Do not worry. Be anxious for nothing. Since I was unable to cast my cares it made me a bad Christian. Right? Wrong! My disorder has NOTHING to do with my faith or my worthiness as a woman.
I spent many years feeling guilty and ashamed, but I now see that it was in vain. The chemicals in my brain do not define me! The decision to love Christ and those around me cannot be judged on the fact that I carry the burden of an anxiety disorder. I am so much more than that.
God uses everything we experience in our lives to help others, and my anxiousness is no exception. Now that I have fully accepted it as a part of who I am (just a small part not all of who I am) I am finally able to see how He has used it as a blessing.
A part of me is sad that I felt guilty for so many years, however I believe I am not alone in this struggle. Many of us feel ashamed of our mental disorders because some small part of our mind thinks we did something wrong. I am here to tell you that you have done nothing wrong. You are perfect! In fact, you are stronger because of your disorder! Embrace yourself for all that you are!
For the last week I have been staying at my parents house, the house where I grew up, and tonight I came across my old journals. I would write in them every night, sometimes more, to make sure I captured every moment of my day. My husband had looked through them a few years ago and mentioned how sad a few of the journals were sad. I knew he was telling the truth but I couldn’t bring myself to reread them at the time, because the anxiety I felt in those pages still effected me to that day.
There were three solid years of darkness for me. The pain was in NO WAY caused by a single event or family member. My parents offered me every opportunity in their power and worked hard to make sure my life was comfortable. There are no words to express how grateful I am for having them as my parents. However, no one in my family, myself included, realized I was battling an internal war with anxiety.
It really started to wear me down and I was terrified because I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that I didn’t feel right.
Tonight I decided to look at the journals and flip through them. After this year of healing, I was able to separate the woman I am today from the girl I was then. I really was sad and scared. It was almost too difficult to read.
Tonight I am feeling very blessed that I have come so far with the help of God, my family and my friends. I was in such a dark place and i never imagined I could ever live in a place of light! I can go days without anxiety, when all those years ago I couldn’t even go a minute.
Remember, there is hope when you feel that there is none.
Here is a snapshot of an entry I wrote… I have always addressed my journals to God, so that is who I am talking to. 
Here are the three journals that are filled with the worst years of my anxiety. I am so glad that I have come so far!
I am the strongest
Anxiety won’t control
The way I live life.
The Persistent Platypus 