Month: April 2019

Finding the Positives

~ Carrie ~ Leave a comment

I feel silly for having all of these realizations lately…It’s strange being surrounded by older people who had to have realized all of this so long ago and here I am like, “hey, did you know that it’s possible to be genuinely happy for someone else without being jealous?!” I mean, my mind is blown, but they’re just like yep.

It truly just started sinking in this week that it is possible for me to be happy for my friends without being jealous of them and wanting to pull them back down to my level just so we’re together. I’m not feeling it quite yet, but I’ve definitely been thinking about it and trying to wrap my head around it.

One of my friends is getting married this summer and, I’m sure I’ve addressed it at least a little bit, but I’m having a hard time with it. Just like with everyone else, I’m scared that it means that she’ll be leaving me behind. I was struggling with it so much for a while that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to go to the wedding. Oof. That’s a big admission. Our friendship is one of the most important relationships in my life and I want to be there for her, but it’s a legitimate struggle for me.

Oddly enough, it took my brother’s family finding out about it last week to make me realize that I can set aside my feelings and just be so happy for her. We ran into her at church on Easter and she finally got to meet my niece and nephew. After my niece found out she was engaged, I’m pretty sure she turned into a real life princess. And somehow, that made me realize that while I may be having feelings about it, she’s one of my best friends and I don’t want that to ever change. That means that I need to be there for her on the biggest day of her life.

Another one of my friends is extremely committed to every aspect of personal development. She actually stopped buying PD books so she could take a deeper dive into the ones she has and really implement the changes she’s learning about before moving on to something else.

Meanwhile, I’m not allowing myself to slow down because I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll lose interest and drop it and I’m not willing to give up or move on yet.

We are both trying to focus on how food affects our bodies and eliminating or finding substitutes for the foods that don’t agree. But she’s taking an all or nothing approach, whereas I like to think I’m looking at the bigger picture and figuring out how I can maintain a diet change long term.

Same with exercise. She loves high intensity body weight exercises and night-workouts and I like to ease into the day with yoga and sprinkle in a few walks.

She’s a much stronger personality than I am, so it can feel at times like she’s progressing more quickly than I am and, dare I say it, looking down on me for not “keeping up.” Oof. Another big admission.

And maybe she is progressing faster than me. Maybe progression isn’t something that can be measured and compared. But either way, why am I attaching any emotion to it other than being happy for her?

It’s also possible to be happy for myself and celebrate where I’m at in my journey without comparing it to anyone else’s. *insert mind blown emoji here*

I am so happy with where I’m at in my journey. I love my morning routine of gratitude work, devotionals and yoga. I love my walks with my dad and/or dog. I love that I can make healthier eating choices without feeling guilty about maybe wanting to make muffins or cookies every now and then. I love that I can breathe my way through anxiety and have so many examples of how powerful mind over matter is. I love that when it comes right down to it, I’m going to fight for my life, whether that means ignoring my mom’s pleas for me to do yard work when I know my mind or body needs to rest or making an appointment with a therapist.

That’s right. I made a decision. There were too many signs that if there was ever going to be a right time, this was it. It scares the shit out of me, but not because I’m afraid of it not working. I believe that it will. That’s the scary part.

I said that I love where I’m at in my journey, but I’ve also decided to do therapy. Those two things don’t seem to match up. But again, it’s possible to find the positives in the present, while also trying to be better for tomorrow. There’s obviously a reason or two that I felt now was the time to start therapy. There’s a reason I have so many examples of how powerful mind over matter is. There’s a reason I know how empowering it can be to start my days with gratitude and yoga. There’s a reason I now know when and how to let my mind and body rest.

I am constantly learning more about myself, physically and emotionally. When I was younger, I never understood what adults meant when they said things like that, but now I get it. If you’re not growing, you’re dying.

The twenties is an interesting decade. (And I’m only halfway through it!)

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A Girl With Anxiety

~ Carrie ~ Leave a comment

I am currently relapsing. It feels irreverent to use that word because I don’t technically have any diagnosed condition or addiction. I’m just a girl with anxiety.

After a few amazing weeks health-wise, my anxiety is once again making itself known in a physical way. As I remember, I was suffering with bouts of nausea for most of February. I wasn’t keeping track of exact days and exact symptoms, (which I am now doing) but I vividly remember 2 weeks of having a hard time falling asleep, not being able to think about or stomach a lot of foods, not being able to think about anything that made me nervous in any way and because of all of that, being very withdrawn.

March was all about healing. I worked on my body from the inside out. I cleaned up my eating (once my appetite returned). I was religious about morning yoga. I was intentional about quality time with friends. I went through every day looking for things to be grateful for because at the end of every day I would pick 5 things to write down in my journal. This was also a period when I was feeling especially fired up about personal development books (and when I had to wake up at 4am a few times…).

One thing I realized this weekend is that February was one of the snowiest months on record in Minnesota and most of that snow came smack dab in the middle of the week. AKA my work days. There were only a few days when I wasn’t driving through snow. Literally, the roads weren’t even plowed yet because the snow always decided to come during my commutes.

Another thing that was happening more often in February, (thanks to all that damn snow) was that I was spending a lot more time with my niece and nephew. I hate to think of them being the cause of my suffering, but let’s be honest, they’re kids and kids can be extremely stressful.

March was warmer. Instead of snow, we had rain. Because of that, there weren’t any spontaneous sleepovers. The kids were also on vacation for a week in March, which actually made me miss them.

It snowed last week. And because it snowed last week, I was home very early both days the kids were with my parents. And because she didn’t want to have to drive through the insane 24-hour blizzard, my mom decided they would be sleeping over in between. The night they went home, the nausea came back.

Snowstorm: check. Lots of time with my niece & nephew: check. I really hated making that connection.

But that also gave me a lot of hope because that was the end of the snow! I was done, right? Wrong.

It was nearly 70º today. It was gorgeous. I took the kids I nanny on a walk and we had lunch on the deck. Put one down for nap, sent the other off to school, spent an hour in and out of the bathroom, reluctantly eating soda crackers and doing deep breathing exercises. I literally packed a bag in my purse in case I needed to pull over on the way home.

What gives?

Needless to say, I contacted another therapist.

I am done. I am fed up. I am not letting this control me anymore. I got a glimpse of what life could be like for me, and I’m not willing to give that up.

I’m completely convinced that this is a mental thing. I can turn it off, but it’s really hard to get there when your body is telling you it’s going to turn inside out. My anxiety has never affected me physically like this. I’m used to the self-degradation and feelings of not being enough. But I’m not willing to become used to this.

I’m also not willing to hide it anymore.

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Left Behind

~ Carrie ~ Leave a comment

I just discovered a huge trigger of mine: feeling like I’m being left behind.

This has been kind of a weird week for our family and I’ve been trying to get to the root of my moodiness and I realized that’s it. Everything that’s been ruminating for the past week revolves around me feeling left behind in some way.

My brother and I are half siblings and his last grandparent passed away last weekend. His family lives states away and he decided to pack up his (quite pregnant) wife and kids and head out for the funeral. Everyone tried to tell him how unnecessary it was to bring the kids, but he did it anyway. And not to sound petty, but I was actually kind of looking forward to the possibility of spending the weekend with those little kiddos. Or at least more than an hour total this week. No such luck.

I’m also just not great with grief in general. My grandparents all died before I could form any real memory of them. The greatest grief I’ve ever experienced is when our last dog died. It was heartbreaking, but at the same time, I still had my best friend, my current dog, to distract and cheer me up. So I can’t imagine losing someone–a real human someone–who was a part of my story from the beginning, who saw all the jobs, all the moves, all the partners, all the children.

He seems to be taking it really hard and there is nothing I can do to help him. I feel like it’s not even my place, because this is his other family. It’s not even like this is the in-laws. It’s his family, but not ours. He remembers our grandparents and my grandparents, but I don’t. I remember his. And I feel like I’m not allowed to mourn that.

On a happier note, my aunts (yes, the aunts that came to Hawaii with us) called us up a few days ago to inform us that they were heading out our way to celebrate one of their birthdays this weekend and would be in need of our guest rooms. The birthday girl’s daughters are coming along and we’re going to spend the day at an arboretum, shopping, and celebrating at a tiki bar!

I was thinking about reaching out to my cousin’s daughter (who is only 4 days younger than me–comes with the territory when you’re the youngest cousin by far.) and asking her to join in the celebration this weekend so we could sneak off and talk. We were inseparable when we were little and then drifted apart at some point during our teenage years. Like so many of my relationships that ended, I could never figure out why it happened. It would be interesting to hear her side. But I’ve tried to reach out and she never responds, so I don’t want to push it. Sure enough, I feel like she left me behind. I’ve always felt more mature than her, but now she’s married and has a daughter of her own and I feel like she’s probably matured more lately out of necessity.

It’s all just stirring up a lot of feelings right now, because I’m feeling it within myself. I mean, how could I not when I immerse myself in the world of personal development? I can dream about my perfect life and I can even come up with parts of a plan to get there, but actually doing it? Actually starting? Yeah, that’s just too scary.

I have always been terrified of change. I’m terrified of more responsibility and failure. I am so privileged right now and it’s a hard thing to give up. I don’t want to have to start over and fail over and over to get back to where I am.

I had dinner with my best friend last weekend and she is starting to voice her frustrations with living at home and thinking about what she wants her career to look like in 10 years and how to start getting to that place.

But if she goes, who do I have left?

Everyone is leaving me behind.

Most of all, myself.

I am giving my fear all the power. And honestly, this post doesn’t have a resolution, because I don’t know how to overcome this. Yet.

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