My eyes are closed, as I breathe in, I envision light entering my body as the darkness leaves with my exhalation. Breathing in the new and releasing the old. My mind has been a whirling cascade of emotions and those ups and downs always leave me feeling powerful and drained at the same time. I fight with the comfort of the old, while desperately clawing at the new to re-create myself into who I am meant to be. In this moment I take a few minutes to meditate and re-align those whirling thoughts.
It is a battle to appreciate where I have been, but not get sucked into staying there when I know it is not what I want for my life. The comfortable caves to the fear and limits my life and I want to be limitless in pursuing my passion. I am building a new self and it is both slow and beautiful.
I have struggled on and off with depression since I was a teenager. Add in a little anxiety for good measure and it is a battle I am unfortunately familiar with. It is just now becoming okay to say to myself you need help. I have fought with this for over 15 years on and off and in just the last 2 years have I given myself permission to address my issues without my own judgement. Many who know me know that I am self-reliant, which is great until you rely on your broken self to try to fix something you don’t have a clue how to fix.
I am learning day by day that I am worthy and that I don’t have to be perfect to be worthy. This is one of the hardest things for me to do, but my survival depends on putting in the work. I don’t want to waste another minute of my life being sucked into the perpetual cycle of anxiety and depression. I want to learn the tools to combat the war and win. Is everyday a walk in the park, hardly. Just the other day I felt the crushing desire to run away, anywhere, hop on a plane or in a car and just escape. It feels like I want to crawl out of my life as quickly as I can. In this moment, the very last thing I wanted to do was workout, but I went in the garage and started my punching bag routine. I just kept spiraling until I was like you need to run. Instead of running away from my life, I went for a literal run. When I returned, I was almost back to normal, but kept the momentum be cleaning the kitchen with headphones on only focusing on the task in front of me. It took almost 2 hours to come down from the anxiety spiral, but I used my tools and found a healthy way to win that battle.
New slates are never easy, they come with their own hurdles and past emotions trying to suck you into the familiar and comfortable. It will take me a long time to create new moments that turn into habits that will lead me to the life I want, but I am worth it!
I started this blog a long time ago and I let myself quit. I had a dream and I let that dream die, not again, I will start a fire that blazes, and I will rise from the ashes as the woman God created me to be.
Today I want you to know wherever you at in your life you are enough. You are valued and are amazing. Everyday I am still learning to believe those things, but you must start somewhere, and I am starting here.
Conquering Momma,
Charity