The one checkbox you’ve got wrong.

“Help others who need healing from similar experiences you’ve had.  You will be an instrument in the Lord’s hands in blessing others as you have the courage to open your mouth.“

That is what my husband spoke as he laid his hands on my head and gave me a priesthood blessing. My immediate response? Not in a million years am I going to open my mouth!  Then I humbled a little and thought, ok maybe when I’m dead people can read my journals. No, I should burn my journals. Ok, maybe I’ll open up right before I die. 

Really!?  Who wants to talk about things they consider weak, shameful? Can’t I just keep up a nearly perfect persona? Never mind, I’m not doing great at that anyway. Though, I did decide I could wait until I was perfect then tell people what I was able to overcome waaaaaaay in the past. Then they would just see perfect me and not mind that there was a time long ago that I wasn’t perfect. Are you laughing at me yet?

Oh if we could all get over how we might be perceived and just be real. We would all realize how normal our imperfections were and we could finally exhale!

I know that if you’ve read this far it is because you think this is a lead in to a big juicy story. I’m going to spill it all right now to the 10 people who read this blog. Nope, not quite that brave, old, nor perfect yet.   BUT, I would like to share a little piece with you.

Five years ago I started experience something I had only ever experienced at small but intense moments in my life. You know the feeling you get right before dancing across a stage, taking a test, or getting important news?  Some people start to sweat, heat rises up their neck, pin pricks can be felt on every pore of the skin. 

Me?  Anxiety always shows itself in one of two ways. Right before a performance I was the one who all of the sudden had to pee even though I just went 2 minutes ago.  No, that isn’t what I was experiencing this time. If only.  I’d take frequent potty trips over what I was feeling any day.  

My other fun way to cope with stress?  We’ve all felt “butterflies” in our stomachs.  For me it was not a light little flutter. It was more like pterodactyls in my stomach. Yes, flying dinosaurs that never seemed to tire and were always grumpy. I dealt with these terrible anxiety stomach aches 24-7. Happy, sad, angry, excited, the emotion didn’t matter, it all felt the same. The only relief I had was IF and when I was able to fall asleep. 

The worst part is that all this came on for no particular reason I could identify. The lack of sleep and constant unease started to wear on me and affect how I was showing up in all areas in my life. I started having anxiety about my anxiety, so that was super awesome. I didn’t feel like I could tell people because I had no cool story as to why I was feeling this way. 

I met with doctors, got poked with needles, and prayerfully decided on a treatment. Within a few months I felt like I mostly had my brain and life back. I did have to be careful about what I took on.  One of the hardest decisions was to set aside a successful business that had become a big part of my identity.  Still, I was grateful. Life had its normal ups and downs, but for the most part I functioned fairly well for the next 4 years. 

Then, despite treatment, it all came back. I was angry at myself.  Why was I so weak?  What was I going to do now?  The only difference this time is that I was in tune enough to realize why my body was reacting this way.  I hated that it was so simple yet, so complicated.

My anxiety was being caused by one thing, my thoughts. Yes, simple, but if you could see inside my brain…. complicated. I knew it was something I had the ability to change. But is it stupid that I wished the cause was something out of my control?  Then I wouldn’t be the one responsible for fixing it. I could just blame something or someone else.

I felt the Lord nudging me.  My solution would not be found at the doctor’s office. It was time for me to address the source of my anxiety head on and do some healing.

Ok, can I stop my story really quick to insert here that this decision was made with a lot of prayer?  I in no way think that getting help from medical professionals for mental health is wrong. I believe it is a blessing and wonderful option.  I’m fully aware medication isn’t a miracle fix but it is often what someone needs so they have the mental capacity to navigate needed healing.  Yay for Prozac 😉  

I must say this decision kinda freaked me out. I had A LOT of thoughts that I needed to replace and I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t want trial and error. I wanted a sure solution. Over the years I had grabbed that self-doubting shovel and dug myself into a deep hole of worthlessness.  Yes, I was good at acting confident but in my mind  was a recording playing over and over again.  “You are weak for having anxiety. You’ll never fulfill your purpose if you don’t overcome this anxiety.”  Wash, rinse, repeat.  Result? Paralyzation and more anxiety. 

I realized my whole life I made checklist after checklist thinking that if I could somehow check off each box I could finally check off the last and biggest box….

☐ I am now enough. Check!

I never got to that last box. 

Too bad I didn’t realize that box was already checked off the day I was born.  

What a crisis that revelation was for me. If I was already enough then what the heck was going to motivate me? I had worked every day of my life with one purpose. To be enough. 

I had set every goal out of fear. Fear of never reaching my potential. I guess it worked in some respects because I had still achieved quite a bit. Though, it sure does suck the joy out of life when you are constantly acting out of fear of not being enough. 

Then my husband said something that caused a collision on the road that my brain always happily traveled.  To give perspective, it is helpful know that his work involves helping drug addicts and alcoholics overcome their addictions. He said,

“As long as someone sees themselves as an addict they will never overcome their addiction. As soon as they see themselves as in recovery they indeed start to recover.”

As long as I saw myself as weak and having to work to be enough, my efforts would be fruitless. As soon as I could see that I already was enough, that confidence would enable me to achieve anything. 

I had it all backwards. 

This was only one of truths I had to learn in my journey that I am still on. If you don’t mind I’ll share some more in the coming weeks. I hope they are as helpful to you as they were to me. 

For now I’ll just say. Wherever you are, you are enough. Use that enough-ness to conquer the world, or maybe just get out of bed and take a shower 🙂

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