Dancing Through Anxiety

With 12 days left until Christmas it's officially crunch time. If you have someone in your life who didn't make a present wish list you may be struggling to think of something they would like. I decided to make a holiday gift guide comprising of gifts I think someone who is fighting a mental illness may enjoy (or anyone else honestly). I know that finding the perfect gift for someone is my favorite part of the holiday season so, hopefully these ideas can inspire you and help check names off of your list! Books - Sometimes the best thing to do on a tough day is curl up with a good book and escape reality for a little bit. For anyone in your life who is struggling I highly recommend a book by Jenny Lawson. If you're just looking for a good book in general I would check out Kate Morton's books or A Southern Haunting Book Series. You can find book one  here  on Amazon.  Adult Coloring Books - These are honestly so stress relieving. It may seem silly at first sitti...

Wow I don't know about for you but for me it feels like FOREVER since I have posted on my blog! I super apologize! I was on vacation the week of Thanksgiving enjoying time with family and then after I came back I took a bit of a mental vacation to help ensure that I wouldn't fall into a post-vacation depression. So much has been going on these past couple weeks and still is, especially with Christmas coming up. I've had good days and bad days and everything in between but I feel like I'm overall in a pretty good place and have been making continuous forward progress. That's what I wanted to share today: two big things that have happened to me over this time that have really helped me understand just how far I have come and that my hard work is worth it. I have been working on both of these things since I started therapy a year and a half ago. You read that right, a YEAR AND A HALF ago and I'm just starting to fully understand and see those concepts come to li...

From the very beginning of my official diagnosis of anxiety, along with my other issues, I've always said the hardest thing is knowing that I'm the problem and the solution, but not knowing how to fix it. It's such a defeating feeling knowing that everything you need to overcome an issue lies within you, but still not being able to get better. Why am I stopping myself from being okay? Why am I self-sabotaging and telling myself I can't do something that I know I can? Obviously, over time I've learned that I'm not consciously telling myself to not be okay, but that's what my brain tells me. I have this image in my mind that it should be as easy as snapping my fingers to find the solution to my anxiety. I know I know, you can laugh with me on that one, because I know there is not a solution to my anxiety, it's more learning how to live with my anxiety and dance with it, creating a relationship. During my therapy session on Monday, we realized that I...

Happy November friends! November officially starts the holiday season in my mind and this is one of my favorite times of year. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday I enjoy getting to spend so much time with my loved ones and creating new memories. November especially is a time to give thanks for our lives and what makes them special. I'll be honest with you though most days it is very hard for me to focus on the positive and not the negative, but like I mentioned in my last post I am trying to focus more on what makes me happy and living in the moment. I think November and the holidays are the perfect time for this and am hoping the holiday spirit will help me be able to find the positive in all aspects of my life. I'm personally going to participate in the 30 days of thankfulness whether it's in my blog, social media, or personally in my journal. I really want to spend this month focusing on what I am grateful for and learning to appreciate even the smallest...

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 ...