Too Much Mind

There are many reasons why I feel like my mind is a browser with 2000 tabs open at any time. I have anxiety, I'm a woman, personality, just my nature, who knows. But it's a big issue for me. It is completely overwhelming.

Enter mindfulness.

Since 1995, so a good 22 years, I have chased meditation and self-help. Among my earliest books were SARK and I did a great deal of guided imagery. My anxiety just skyrocketed in college and I surrounded myself with anything I thought would help. More meditation CDs and tons of soothing music. Hot baths. Hot tea. It helped, but somewhere around 2003 I realized I needed medicinal help. It changed my life. But you can't just do that if you want to change your brain chemistry. You use the medicine to then help you feel normal, so that you may consciously change beliefs, make efforts that you cannot do when you are depressed, and work toward a better way of living.

I've never stopped looking at the self-help books, but I love to call them self-realization, self-help, self-loving, self-everything good. :) 

Knowing we were going to move from my hometown of 37 years (minus college and a couple years after) to a new city was daunting, exciting, scary, wonderful, right. We had a lot of time to prepare, which was great for outside factors: house on market, packing, not leaving work right away. But inside, I needed to prepare. And I'm so grateful to have had 9 months to do so. It's good to be on a school schedule. :)

Through it all I knew it was right, which was my security blanket. Never a doubt that this was what we were supposed to do together. And though it's been a bumpy six months (depression resurgence, anxious thoughts, lack of a canine companion until december), it's been full of many magic moments, too.

Here's the thing: I loved myself enough to want to dive deep. So with Christmas money, I signed up for the Living Brave Semester at Brene Brown's online community, CourageWorks. I worked through some things, and prepared mentally for others. It was life changing. 

And through it all, I knew I needed to remember mindfulness (which was my word for 2016, Mindful) and that I should just simply start with NOTICING what I do. Notice what my food tastes like, instead of pushing it down my throat for time's sake. Notice what wine tastes like, instead of just expecting it to calm me. Notice as I move quickly from errand to errand. Just notice. I still have issues with these things but definitely am noticing. And it only seemed appropriate this year to move towards Intention, my new word for 2017, so I can not only keep noticing but have meaning behind it. You can have an intention for a year or for the next 5 minutes. So far, I suck at it. I forget my intention constantly. But that's better than last year, now I am at least noticing that it needs my attention. 

It's been more helpful so far in reminding me that I need to BE HERE NOW. It's all we got. Now. As a planner, it's kinda hard, so I plan and make sure that I know what we're doing when in terms of kids' school events and what not. But when I plan and know my time will not be wasted, I relax and can be here now. Because I have already carved out time for things that are meaningful. And I can be here now when I do it all.

At least, that's the dream. :)