Turning 22 and Some Other Amazing Milestones

Every year, my birthday is always is a time that I like to stop and reflect. A few years I’ve written blog posts for my birthday, and this year I decided to do that again. 

Looking back, I’ve had some very difficult birthdays, and I even have a birthday I don’t remember at all because I was so sick at that time. I spent so many long, hard years fighting to move forward and dreaming and hoping that better days would lie ahead of me. But it’s funny how we can end up stepping into our dreams and not fully realize that we’ve just reached a destination we had been dreaming about for so long. 

It’s so incredibly easy to get swept up in the busyness of life. We often forget to stop and acknowledge how far we’ve come, and how hard we’ve worked to get where we are right now. We forget to simply just appreciate the blessings that are all around us here in the present moment. 

I’ve had a particularly busy past year, to say the least. I’ve done a lot and accomplished so much and I’m continuing to move forward quickly too. The pace has been so fast though that it hasn’t even fully sunk in that not only have I accomplished a TON of my dreams, but I’ve surpassed a lot of them too. 

For example: This week I started working at my parents office, and it didn’t sink in how big of a deal that is until after a few people happy cried when I told them that news. Having people react that way made me stop and realize, “Wow…Yeah…This IS a big deal.” 

I’ve reached a destination that my past self didn’t think would ever be possible. 

But how amazing that I’m finally to a point in my journey that health has become my normal, so-much-so that I didn’t even realize I’ve arrived here. I didn’t hesitate to take the job fearing “what ifs.” I felt so confident and happy in myself that my old limitations hardly crossed my mind at all. It took multiple people happy crying for me to realize that that is a totally appropriate response, because this is HUGE. It’s surreal that realizing these things is such an afterthought too. 

It’s an amazing feeling to realize that I’ve really settled into my new normal and that my past is just that, just my past, just things that are behind me.

In the last year the thing I worked on the most was healing my ptsd. A year ago I was still frequently hung up by old fears, old limitations, and old anxieties. My body had healed past a lot, but my mind still wasn’t convinced. So I worked very hard to push past those mental walls, and this week, I realized I have. 

As incredibly excited I am for the future knowing that my dreams are possible and within reach, this week, and yesterday for my birthday, I’ve made sure to stop for a moment to be present, to count my blessings, to pat myself on the back, and to thank the universe for sticking by my side through everything. 

Past me would not believe where I am right now. 

Past me would be bawling happy tears. 

Past me would be so proud. 

But present me is proud too. 

I saw this quote and it’s so relevant to how I’m feeling. 

I spent too many birthdays so very sick and wishing I could do so much more. I wished I had the energy to get dressed, to do my makeup, to brush my hair, to go out, and wishing I had friends to go out with. I would spend the day at home with my family, and I was so grateful for that, but I also longed for so much more too. 

Yesterday, I spent my 22nd birthday doing pretty much what I’ve always done. I had a pajama day, I didn’t do my makeup or brush my hair, I didn’t go out, I didn’t see friends. I spent the night laughing with my family…not because I was sick or limited, but purely because that’s exactly what I wanted to do. The difference now is that I have options, and I chose to spend my day the same way I always have. I have friends, I do go out when I want to, I can get dressed up and do all of the things. But isn’t it funny how you can come full circle and realize that all-along you were already in the exact place you wanted and needed to be. 

Knowing that I actually have a choice now makes a world of difference, but realizing I was always exactly where (deep down) I wanted to be is healing beyond what words can even express. 

End Of The Year Reflection

Reflecting On My Past Year

I’m not one who does “New Years resolutions” per-say, but the last few years I’ve created long lists with goals or things I would like to get done in the next year or so of time. As a Capricorn, I do love a good, categorized list. 

At the end of the year I like to reflect and go through my list and appreciate everything I accomplished in the past year. Then for the beginning of the new year I make a new list. Anything I didn't get done the past year remains, anything I want to continue to do remains, and new goals get added as well. 

This year I didn’t accomplish everything on my lists for “work” or “adulting”, but I did make “love” a priority, and that makes me happy. I did almost everything on my “health” list, I kept my “mindsets” in mind, and above all else, I accomplished everything on my “self love” list, and I love that. 

Really, my main intention this year was to choose love and happiness everywhere I could. I decided I would choose the things that make me happy and things that fill my heart, and I’m very proud to say that that is what I did with my year. 

I intentionally put “work” and “adulting” on the back burner, and I’m thankful that I was able to do so and that I was able to give myself this year of love and happiness instead. What an incredible blessing that is. 

It was so need too. 

My body, my mind, and my soul needed this replenishing year, more than you can begin to imagine. How lucky am I that I was able to recognize this too, and that I was able to give myself what I really needed? 

I know not everyone feels like they have this chance to give themself that much self love, but man... If you get a chance to be able to chose love and happiness, I highly recommend that you take that chance and claim your joy. Life is too short to let that pass you by. Don’t wait to be happy. Don’t wait to choose love and value your heart. You deserve those things always. 

Some Cool Things I Accomplished This Year

• I branched out and made new friends. 
• I reconnected with old friends and hosted a class reunion. 
• I’m 50k+ words into writing my first book. 
• I became a certified reiki master. 
• I’m 90% better, health wise. 
• I’m finally back to weighing what I weighed before I got sick. 
• I moved out into the pool house and am living with my boyfriend. 
• I’m finally driving (I got my permit a few months ago and didn't really tell people.)

I read good books, I learned new things, I tried new things, I listened to good music, I binge watched a few good tv series, I caught up on movies I wanted to see, I got back to doing more hobbies and things that make me happy, I got back to enjoying life. 

I followed my happiness and chose love. 

I was true to myself. 

I was happy. 

THAT is everything. THAT is priceless. 

Healing The Healer: Lessons of self-love, and turning guilt to gratitude.

As a natural, born helper I’ve always been passionate about and driven by wanting to help others — whether that’s people, animals, or even rescuing a dying plant. Ironically, I’ve never once actually been able to keep a plant alive, but that doesn’t keep me from trying!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been this way. I’m a helper. It’s just what I do. It’s what I was put on this planet for, and I’ve never once stopped to second guess that. I’m the type of person who gives 110% in everything I do. Period. 

But suddenly, when I got sick and was only 60%, 40%, 20%, or sometimes even -10% of my normal self, I didn’t have much of anything to give to anyone. I wanted to give 110%, but was only at 5% of my health and needed every ounce of that energy to just survive through the day and make it to tomorrow.

I could no longer be a helper. I couldn’t serve my life purpose.

Being chronically ill was by far the toughest thing I’ve ever been through in life, and one of the hardest parts of chronic illness for me was not being able to be there for people in the way I wanted to be.

So often I felt like I was falling so short, and it wasn’t that anyone in my life (of the people who actually did stick around) made me feel like I “wasn’t enough.” I just didn’t feel like I was enough. I could feel how broken, incomplete, and empty I was. I was constantly, acutely, crushingly aware that I was such a small fraction of who I used to be.

Through the many, long, hard, isolated years of my chronic illness, I was in so many ways literally forced to sit with myself, examine myself, my body, my mind, soul, and top to bottom reevaluate and then reinvent my entire life. 

• How did I end up here?
• How can I survive being in this place right now?
• How can I turn this around?
• What are steps I can take today to help in moving forward?

In that deep, 5 year long solitude, for the first time ever I had to learn how to give myself that same level of love, commitment, compassion, and just true TLC. Those are all the same things that I was always so quick and unhesitant to give everyone else!

Self-care and self-love was the answer to almost every question I would ask myself, and if I could give those things so easily to others, why was it so hard for me to give that to myself?

Even though I knew “self-care” was the answer, it still took me years to learn how to actually take care of myself, give myself 110%, and not feel guilty about that. I even had to learn to not feel guilty for other people taking care of me too!

When my family gave up so much and put 110% into to keeping me alive, I felt guilty. For many years I struggled with guilting myself for the burden I felt I was on everyone. As a natural, born helper I should’ve known better than to do that to myself. I should’ve recognized so much sooner how if the roles were reversed I would’ve done the same thing for these people, and I would never want anyone to feel guilty if I helped them. 

I now have made peace and no longer guilt myself for things out of my control. I replaced my guilt on myself with gratitude for others. I’m grateful for all that they’ve done, and I will cherish this second chance at life that they made possible for me. 

I now understand that in life, at times we are thrust into a position of being a healer or caretaker or being a rock or vital support system for others, but it’s a choice to take on that role, and it’s a choice to stay in that role. We control our own boundaries, and it’s also our own personal job to make sure that we get the help and healing we need too. Even as a constant caretaker for someone, it’s your job to ask for help from others, or ask for someone to “take a shift” for you while you go take care of yourself and rest. 

If you don’t pay attention to warning signs that you need to take care of ourself, your body will fall apart, and then life will halt in it’s tracks and force you to sit with yourself. Life will force you to start taking care of yourself.

I’m now a firm believer in the philosophy of helping yourself first. One of the ways it first resonated to me was hearing it in the terms of airplane or boat emergency advice: “Put on your oxygen mask before you go trying to help others put theirs on.” or “Put on your life preserver before you go trying to save everyone else.”

I will be the first to say that the journey to self-love isn’t an easy one. 

But I’m now also very quick to praise how self-love also benefits your whole self, your whole life, and it uplifts every single life you touch too, because when you are at the best you can be, you can give even more to everyone else. (Spoken like a true, natural-born helper. Even my self-love is inspired by wanting to help others.)

I truly believe that when you are a person driven by the desire to help others, the toughest lesson you will face will be to learn how to help yourself in that same way you so easily help others.

The life journey of “the helper”, “the healer”, “the caretaker”, “the giver”, and “the rescuer”, all have these lessons to learn in common.

• Take care of yourself first. 
• Your self-care and self-love are not selfish, and in fact it’s for everyone’s best interest too. 
• Step away when you need a break. 
• Ask for help when it’s needed, and don’t ever guilt yourself when people come to your rescue. 
• Say “no” when you don’t want to, or are not capable of helping, or when it will damage you you much. 
• The people who truly love and care for you will not make you feel guilty for needing to take care of yourself. 
• Honor, respect, listen to, and follow through when you know what you need more or less of in your life. 
• You deserve the love you give to everyone else, and you CAN give that love to yourself.

Please let my life be a lesson to you. — I learned much of this the long and very hard way.

Take care of yourself first.

Thank you to all of the helpers, healers, caretakers, givers, rescuers, and kind hearted souls who jump into chaos to save others. People like you are the sole reason I’m alive today, and I can’t even express my level of gratitude for the things you do. I see you. I appreciate you. You give me hope. You inspire me, and you are the reason I’ve dedicated my life to helping others in the way you helped me. 

I hope you take time to make sure your self-care is a top priority in your life so you can continue to do what you do. 

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, I just wanted to create this post as a way to speak of the importance of   redirecting your mindset towards positivity, self-love, healing, gratitude, and removing guilt. It's hard to be wounded, and it's hard to be a healer. No matter which side you're on, if you ever need help, ask for help and don't feel guilty.