Dancing Through Anxiety

The other day I was talking to my therapist and she asked me something along the lines of what makes you happy? Later in the day, I was still thinking about this and thought maybe it would be a good topic to write about some day. That night, I started watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and in the first episode the main character changes her life after seeing an ad for butter that asks what makes you happy. After watching this, I knew it was a sign that this was a topic I needed to write about. So here we go. It's such a simple question, but at the same time it's such a difficult one to answer. As I think about it, I can think of many things that make me happy: reading, writing, hanging out with my family, friends and cat, cross-stitching, among other things. Then I started thinking, is this really what this question is asking? I mean all those things do make me happy, but it's an in-the-moment happiness that goes away when I finish the activity. Not that these things aren...

I know there are a lot of people like me out there who are still trying to process the tragic events that have recently taken place. From the Las Vegas shooting to the California fires, not to mention all the other things that aren’t directly affecting me, there is so much sadness in our world right now. I am really struggling with how to process it all, especially the shooting. I know we all process things differently but I’m still hoping we can help each other out, because I for one don’t even know where to start. How do you even begin to process something that doesn’t feel real? How do we process something that we will never understand why it happened? How do we process something we will never really have the answers for? How do we do it? I’ve been telling myself that I’ve been processing everything and handling it to the best of my ability, but honestly I’m beginning to think these are just empty thoughts. Thinking these things and fully feeling them with your body are two c...

I’m still, like so many others, trying to process what happened in Vegas last night. It seems so unreal that someone would want to hurt and kill so many innocent people. I was just hanging out on Sunday night when I opened my Facebook and saw a friend post that she was okay but she was next to someone who had been shot. I had no idea what was going on and quickly took to Twitter and turned on the news. I was immediately enveloped in fear, terror, and sickness. Why, why, why? How? I can’t grasp it. I stayed up for hours watching and reading coverage. My heart broke over and over again. It broke for everyone there who was part of this tragedy whether they were witnesses, injured, or tragically lost their lives. It broke for the loved ones of the concert goers. It broke for the city of Vegas. It broke for our world.  My heart also broke for the mental heath world trying to break the stigma. This was a terrorist attack plain and simple in my opinion. I write this blog proudly ...