Know when to push through, and when to rest…

Hello friends, I miss writing and interacting with all of you. I wish I could be on here more, but between health struggles and working crazy hours, I don’t get on the computer too much, and I detest typing on my kindle. Here is some insight into my days…

Today is one of the bad days. I have been struggling all week, but just kept pushing through. Now, today my body says: “No More!”

Is it my thyroid? Is it my depression? Is it my insomnia?  Is it just my sinuses acting up, which is causing this horrible headache and exhaustion? Maybe it is a combination, or none of them at all. I never really know. I just use my natural remedies, paired with medicine, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, it has been over two hours since I took the last of my “please make me feel better” pills, and yet I feel no better.

My children are disappointed, because we will not make our co-op gathering today. I am angry and sad, because at 40 years old, I should be able to function on a daily basis, without all this pain and grogginess.

It feels like I have been sick forever, but in reality my symptoms only got to this level in the past year. They have been especially bad the past 6 months, since I started working overnights. Beth has declared that when I am better, she wants to use all her dollars to take us out to celebrate mom being healthy again. While, this is beyond sweet, it also tells me how much my illness affects my babies.

Tomorrow it is back to work. I will have 3 twelve hours shifts, walking 20 miles each night, only getting 4 – 6 hours of sleep in between shifts (if I am lucky). I will have to push through those days, because my job supplies our insurance and helps pay the bills. So, today I will rest as much as possible. The laundry I didn’t get done yesterday, because I used too much of my energy on cooking and cleaning, will have to be done at some point, but it will be done slowly. It will be a light school day, and we will play a lot of games, while I sit.

At some point, I pray that I will be more functional, but for now, we will make the best of a bad situation. We take it one day at a time in this family, and some days it is one hour at a time. Today may even be a one minute at a time day.

Thank you for listening, I hope to see you soon. Love and peace friends.

Have a blessed day everyone, and don’t forget to smile. ♥

Serenity Spectrum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Five Years of a Blessed Commitment

♥ Today marks my FIVE year anniversary, being committed to Al-Anon. ♥

I walked into my first Al-Anon meeting on May 16, 2010 and instantly felt like I was home. I started attending meetings regularly and could feel myself healing from many of my emotional wounds. Then I got pregnant again, and our world slowed to a crawl due a very difficult pregnancy. I still read my literature and tried to practice the principals, but no longer attended meetings on a regular basis, if at all.

On January 3, 2012,  I went to what would become my home group meeting for the next few years. Instantly there was peace in the center of my mental storm. I committed to my program that day, because I wanted to be better for my girls. I wanted them to have a different life, and sense of self, than I had. I wanted to break the cycle of self-loathing and self-destruction. I went for them, but I stayed for me.

It’s been almost 7 years since my first meeting, and 5 years since I committed to this amazing program, and today I can say that I am a different person. I look at the “pre-Al-Anon” me, and cannot even believe that I still have friends from that time, I was so horrible. I thank God every day for the people who loved me enough to stay, even when I could not stand to be around myself. Today, I love myself and I am proud of the progress I have made. I am not perfect, nor would I ever wish to be, because God created me to be human with all my imperfections as tools to build a better me.

Daily I pray only for the willingness and strength to carry out His will, and not force mine. An example of His will versus mine is that yesterday I visited my grandmother, for the first time in over 10 years. I honestly had no intention of seeing her anytime soon, I had given thought to seeing her when I reached Step 9, but God had other plans.  I followed His message and did as He asked. It was a nice visit. We sat down like old friends, talked about current life and reminisced about the old days. Then when we were leaving, we hugged and agreed that we did not want to rehash the ugliness of the past, but start with a clean slate going forward. This visit brought me some peace, and gifted my father and grandmother with much happiness. I am not sure what the future will hold, but I know God has a plan, and my job is to follow the path He lays in front of me.

Thank you Al-Anon for helping me build a loving relationship with my Higher Power, whom I call God. Thank you God for loving me and blessing me with your grace.

Have a blessed day everyone, and don’t forget to smile. ♥

Serenity Spectrum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Stress and Praise

Hello friends, I hope you are all doing well. I know I have been missing-in-action for many months, but life has been a bit more chaotic then usual. I cannot seem to find the time to devote to blogging, and I suppose it is because so many other things in life are simply more of a priority at this time. I keep searching for the secret that will leave me some energy at the end of the night, so I can start writing again, but so far it has not materialized. We all know that Life is One Day At A Time, and I have faith that soon there will be a better balance in my life.

As I have been searching for that balance, one thing stands out to me… the repetitive pattern of problem and solution. The majority of my problems come from stress, which is a result of me trying to control everything. Most of my solutions come from prayer, which is putting my faith in my Higher Power, whom I call God. When I stress, and allow my worse-case-scenario imagination to run rampant, I end up exhausted and sick. When I praise God, and thank Him (and His angels) for being with me always, I am peaceful and strong. It really comes down to putting my pesky ego in it’s place, and accepting that through God all things are possible, if I am willing to get out of my own way and let Him work.  As we say in program: “I can’t. He can. I think I’ll let Him.” ❤

 

 

 

Have a blessed day everyone, and don’t forget to smile. ♥

Serenity Spectrum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.