#YouAreEnough30 Blog Challenge: Days 13-15
Day 13: In Chapter Ten, I talk about how sometimes survival is about whatever gets you through the day. Share what has “gotten you through the day” or held you together during tough times: faith, family, friends, alcohol, food, TV shows…whatever your glue is, don’t be afraid to get real.
November 13, 2018: Working out, jigsaw puzzles, sitcoms, and online trivia quizzes have helped me through my tough times. These activities have been something I looked forward to after getting through tough times as well as busy, exhausting days at work and school.
I’m the type of person who rarely gets bored. As a child, I learned that if I complained about being bored, then Mom would give me chores to do. What child wants to do chores unless they are getting an allowance for it? Luckily, I often entertained myself and enjoyed my own company.
During that last rock bottom moment nearly nine years ago, I found solace in exercising (took up Zumba that year in addition to walking, stationary bike, and water aerobics), putting together jigsaw puzzles while watching sitcoms, and playing online trivia games. These activities helped to exercise my body and my mind and relax me. At Christmas that year, my parents gave me a special table designed for jigsaw puzzles. After frequent use over the years, that table eventually gave out and had to be tossed in the garbage.
After Dad passed away nearly five-and-a-half years ago, I returned to the solace of jigsaw puzzles and sitcoms. Leave It to Beaver was on Netflix. While I worked on more jigsaw puzzles (1000 pieces usually), I watched the entire series.
To this day, I still exercise (no Zumba now, but many other forms like Jazzercise, yoga, etc.) and play lots of trivia games online. I do jigsaw puzzles occasionally, because I don’t have the time. Instead, I’m more focused on my writing career and back to cross-stitching.
Day 14: In Chapter Eleven, I share some of my experiences in group therapy. Talk about your own experience with therapy…what it has taught you, how it has helped (or not helped) you, how it has helped you see how ENOUGH you are. If you’ve never been to therapy, talk about why. And what you would hope to learn from it if you ever went.
November 14, 2018: I’ve been in therapy throughout my life due to anxiety and depression and have seen at least a dozen different counselors. The experience I would like to share is the only male counselor I ever had. During my rock bottom moment in 2010, I requested that my counselor be a Christian, but I did not request a female. I felt that it was time for me to be open to having a male counselor.
R, a blind man in his 60’s, had a guide dog with him at all times. At the beginning of each session, his dog always came over to sniff me and with R’s permission, I pet the dog. Then the dog would go lay in the corner of his office. Throughout our five years of counseling sessions, I learned a lot from R. As a blind man, he was very observant about my voice and could often tell if I was close to crying. He would say, “Let the feelings be there. Let them out.” It had always been my experience that the men in my life hated it when I cried and would tell me to stop. R was the first man to let me know that crying was allowed. I also learned that I had “all or nothing” thinking. Any time I talked about how I felt that maybe I was destined to be alone forever, R would catch me and say, “There you go again with that all or nothing thinking.”
Another important thing R taught me: Stop thinking of every male as a potential husband. Of course, it took me years and my last relationship experience to realize that. Now, I no longer look at every single man as a potential husband. After R retired, I started seeing a different counselor who I’ve seen for three years now.
Day 15: Also in Chapter Eleven, I talk about the power of SURRENDER. Share a time when you had nothing left to do but surrender, and how it impacted your life to just let go and let God.
November 15, 2018: My most recent surrender moment occurred three months ago. I was at a crossroad in my relationship with my fiancé. After being engaged for about eight months with no wedding date set or a house to live in, things felt like they were not moving forward. I had been in denial about my feelings regarding the relationship. He seemed to want to end things and I kind of wanted to hold on.
One morning at church during praise and worship, I knelt at the altar and prayed. I don’t remember what I prayed about, but two women were praying with me and for me. I realized then and right there, I had to surrender the state of our relationship to God. I prayed for God to have His way in this matter because I no longer knew (and probably never knew) what was best for this man and myself. I got up from the altar and Pastor came to me. We prayed and I told him what was going on. He said something about leaving the matter at the altar which confirmed what I had already prayed. That day, I felt peace for the first time in quite a while and the migraines and fatigue faded. My fiancé and I hadn’t been talking much and we hardly saw each other due to his demanding work schedule. When he called me about a week after I surrendered our relationship at the altar, he had told me he wanted to wait until I got back from my trip to talk about our relationship. I told him I thought we were better off as friends.
Here I am, nearly three months later, and still trying to make the most of my life. I admit that there are moments when I feel sad because I thought by now I would be married and I came close to it. The amazing thing is that I really came close to marrying again when all these years I wondered if I was doomed to a lifetime of singleness. Now I no longer feel doomed. I believe I’m single again for a reason in a season of my life, but not forever.
