Today was a really great day. It started off with Breakfast With the Authors at the Hyannis Yacht Club. Just driving there I was elated with just being alive and living on Cape Cod. Elin Hilderbrand, author of my favorite beach reads, was one of the speakers. Hearing her journey was fun and inspiring. If you need a great summer read, her newest, Silver Girl, just came out on Tuesday – grab it. I can’t put it down.
Next came shopping for the finishing touches for the latest room makeover. After that, home to finish the painting, and then the cleaning of the whole upstairs. Next, exercise, run, and shower. Then off to the store for dinner stuff, as hubby is on his way. As you read the rest of this story, keep in mind all the things I did today – with a light heart.
Throughout all this today, I was extremely happy from the inside out, for the first time in six months. I spent the first three months figuring out something was wrong, and the next three fixing it. I cured PTSD and beat depression, without drugs, therapy, or alcohol. I did it with God, friends, yoga, walking, exercising, running, writing, and reading. I completely understand the causes and symptoms of each one. It was the most painful, but incredible journey I’ve ever been on. I do believe God brought it on because it was His way of drawing me back to Him. I know this because before a heartache can touch my life, it has to pass through His hands. I asked Him to take it away, but I also said if it was necessary for my good and the good of others to go through it, just give me the strength.
I had strayed slowly over the last five years and completely lost the person I used to be. Family and friends saw it and tried to tell me, but I couldn’t see it at all. In a nut shell, I created what I feared. I feared retirement and began to “seek approval” for everything I did from where I went to what I wore. I lost creating my own energy, and began to suck the life out of the very people I loved.
The train wreck began when my elderly mother fell last June. I began to fear losing her, and I did. But I didn’t react. I pushed the loss aside, inviting PSTD right into my life. Then I began to fear losing a close friend. I overreacted and lost the friend. At the same time I was fearing losing my dad. I started to overreact, but fixed it in time before I lost anyone else.
There is no scarier experience in life than fearing loss. The fatigue and lethargy of depression is the worst thing I ever lived through. I’d get home from yoga at noon and spend until 10pm at night in the same chair. The pain and tears of loss were consuming me, swallowing me alive. I knew this was not a good road to be heading down. Somewhere along about March I forced myself to get out of the chair and walk down the road at 3pm everyday. After a half hour walk, it’d be back in the chair. The tears and pain would consume me once more on into the endless evening, until, thanks to yoga, sleep would claim me by 10pm.
I read, wrote, and dragged myself to go out and do things with friends. I hung on. I knew I couldn’t give into the chair. In the fifth month I started adding a 5pm exercise routine, with a run around the block afterward. Now, in the 6th month, I am out of the chair at 2pm and do huge amounts of the projects I ignored all winter long. My 12:30-2 time in the chair has now become my lunch and me-time. A positive thing. I learned to take care of myself. I learned to listen to my body and what it needs each day. Yoga helped teach me this. I go everyday and the teacher says check in with your body. Where is the tension today? Are your feeling emotional or physical things? If you read my blogs over the past six months, you will see Bikram yoga saved my entire life.
Today is a victory day for me. I no longer get my energy from things outside of me. My energy radiates from within, just like it used to. The next time I have to face loss in my life, this will not happen. I am better equipped and understand the process of losing and gaining in life. My hands will never grab and squeeze tight and try to control to avoid loss ever again. I have relinquished all control back to God. It’s so much less work and worry to let Him do it. I have risen above the people and events that will occur from now on in my life. God’s got it. I can rest now.
And so, as another day goes by, I thank you my dear readers for holding my hand on this incredible journey, and I have written.
I haven’t been reading because of my life’s “busy-ness” (2 more days of class), and I’m just catching up with your blog….I thought about you this morning, and wanted to send you lovingkindness!
Peace,
Diane