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I’m proud to say that my journey of rediscovering myself has been an insightful one. Not knowing what’s around the corner and just trusting God, has elevated my willingness to surrender and create a posture of humility. When we reach a certain place in life that forces us to look at the distance of where we’ve come from, where we are, and where we want to be, it kind of pushes us to navigate things differently. That is what happened to me not too long ago. It happened suddenly and without warning. One day I just found myself feeling so unfulfilled and that generated feelings of insecurity, anger, and depression. When I could no longer get out of bed and take on my daily obligations, I realized that I couldn’t go on operating at that capacity so I embarked on a journey I didn’t feel up to facing but was a necessity.
My first step the journey was acknowledging that I wasn’t happy with where I was in life. I’d set all of these goals for myself and had to come faced with the fact that many of them hadn’t been accomplished. My empty planners and dated journals spoke volumes on how much time I’d allowed to slip by. I allowed myself to feel disappointment and boy did I feel it. I would then go on to spend days crying and mentally antagonizing myself, not realizing that the negative way in which I was responding to my own unrealized trauma, was pushing me further into a depressive state. It had come time for me to acknowledge that I needed help outside of myself.
The second step led me to therapy. Quite naturally, it felt a bit uncomfortable initially to divulge my personal business to a complete stranger. I had to surrender myself to process through if I wanted to see results. The first session involved me talking about my upbringing, my family, and what was currently bothering me. I had to admit that I felt helpless and couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was like I was traveling up a steep hill, unable to see what lie ahead on the other side. The fear of the unknown created what my therapist described as anxiety.
In the proceeding sessions, I discovered that this wasn’t my only encounter with anxiety but I’d experienced it years prior but it was never properly diagnosed. I can recall one encounter when I felt like a heavy weight had been laid upon my chest. I can’t recall the events that led up to but as I set upon my bed, I couldn’t rid myself of chest pain that I was having. I went to the emergency room and after doing an EKG, I was told that there was nothing visibly wrong. Thereafter, I would have small panic attacks where I felt so anxious that it was debilitating. I couldn’t process thoughts properly and would sometimes become light headed. It wasn’t until I took some time away from work, that I had time and space to examine my feelings and get to the root of what was bothering me.
Childhood trauma can oftentimes travel well into our adult life. Although I’m not yet ready to discuss this part of my life in detail, I admit that a lot of my adult concerns can be traced back there. Somewhere along the line, I went from being this feisty independent pre-teen, to a person uncomfortable with making minor decisions on her own. Every decision that I made, felt like wrong with consequences looming around the corner. Years of not acknowledging this behavioral pattern allowed it to grow uncontrollably.
Once I was able to acknowledge that I wasn’t confident in making decisions, my therapist asked me to focus on all of times that I made decisions on my own that yielded a positive result. I was to no longer base my judgement off of my feelings or what others may have spoken about me, but facts. In doing this, I discovered that I’d made a fair amount of good decisions throughout my adult life. Like all people, I didn’t have a perfect streak but there was enough to eradicate the cloud of doubt that loomed over me every time I was faced with a dilemma. It was also recommended that I work on breathing techniques when I was experiencing an episode. The simple act of inhaling and exhaling can be so rewarding.
Although prayer wasn’t a recommendation from my therapist, I often find that talking to God and listening for His guidance, soothing. There’s a scripture found in Psalms 18:6, “In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.”
Now at 42, I find what I consider myself, as starting over. Facing a storm will do that. I can’t admit to knowing what’s on the other side of that hill, but I know that I can do all things through Christ which gives me strength, Philippians 4:13. A huge part of my walk with Christ is having faith in God. So I trust that as the season change, this new start will be one of faith.