I once heard Oprah say in a podcast that you have to be careful what you ask for because sometimes the things we ask God, a higher power, or the universe for will come to us in ways we may not expect. For example, you might ask for something like courage, and then you’ll be faced with terrifying events in your life that give you no choice but to be courageous. If I remember correctly she joked that the year after she had asked for courage she said, “God this year don’t teach me nothing“. For whatever reason, that statement really stuck with me when thinking about my new year goals this year.

and yet I still managed to screw it up!

Trust.

I declared it a goal to learn to trust life because isn’t that something I’ve been kind of trying to do in the past year or so anyway? Why not focus more on that – seems like a necessary life skill and one I’m ready to work on. Well, I thought so. Now I’m really being tested. The most frustrating part of my situation is that I don’t know if there is a situation at all. But my anxiety is at an all-time high about a particular potential situation in my life that I have absolutely no control over.

But the root of the issue here with trust is not the potential situation, or scary things that life can throw at me, but rather my anxiety surrounding them. I don’t know how to live in the moment when this kind of anxiety is triggered. I’ve read and saved numerous anxiety grounding techniques but they only work for my social anxiety not my -the rug is pulled from under my feet and I feel like someone punched me in the stomach situation- anxiety. I wish I knew how to better describe it but once triggered, there’s the initial shock or struggle. Then I’ll be ok temporarily. But, the moment my mind has the chance to trail off … my anxiety chimes in. I want to forget it, distract myself and my thoughts, but then I feel like that’s irresponsible to ignore what “danger” (for clarity I’m not in literal danger but this is how it feels when you have anxiety) could be coming. I can’t let it go unless I distract myself which I eventually give into.

What it comes down to though is, I have no choice but to trust life. Or to try at least. Because what is the alternative? Life has given me some difficult trials that I still don’t understand. But I’ve also been given a lot of unexpected gifts too.

There really isn’t much of a point to this post, is there? I’m human. I am trying so hard to stay optimistic and positive but life is also testy. But I’m determined not to let one troubling day in my life fuel an anxiety-filled dark hole that I can’t get out of. All hope for 2020 is not lost. My anxiety might be just that, anxiety. An illusion. But whether my worries are valid or not, I have to make a choice of how to deal with it. I am choosing to persevere. Isn’t that the ultimate choice in life anyway? I’ve been through difficult things but there has always been at the very least a flicker of hope in me that if I get through whatever it is, I’ll be fine. Maybe because I’ve witnessed people close to me have their lives pulled from them too soon. Maybe because I’ve experienced someone close to me take their life. I’ve dealt with the fallout of those things and I know that even when life is difficult there’s still some level of privilege to even be here that I don’t take for granted.

This post feels pointless because if I’m not flat out explaining why I’m anxious, what’s the point? Well, the point I guess is, that we all have things we’re dealing with that make keeping our mindset optimistic hard as hell sometimes. I value vulnerability but I also know better than to waste energy writing extensively about things that at this point, are only anxieties and not fact; hence the lack of detail.

I’m human. Anyone reading this is as well so maybe you can relate. Sometimes in the past when life has tested me I have shut myself out and given up on things that are important to me to instead sulk over what I can’t control. But I’m refusing to let myself do that today. No matter what happens, I know that I have been through harder trials. My mind is my own enemy sometimes, often that is the root of the problem. But I’m stronger than my fears. If I can get through the trials that life has thrown me in the past, I can sure as hell get through my fear of what awaits.

If you read this, thank you. We’re in this thing together. This big mutually beautiful and stupid journey of being human. Sometimes it’s amazing, sometimes it’s hard. But at the end of the day, I try to remind myself that I’m one in 7.53 billion and even though some things I go through are incredibly hard, I’m not the first to endure them and I won’t be the last.

The only thing I can do is be encouraged by others who have persevered and encourage others myself, by persevering.

I could have written the post I had planned for today and ignored the fact that my anxiety got the worst of me this weekend, and still has it’s grasp on me, but honestly doing so didn’t feel right. The other option was to not post at all which would’ve lead to feeling bad about letting myself down because this blog is something that is important to me, I’m trying to stick to a posting schedule. Instead, I’m being real about it. I’m the same person who has been preaching that we can and should work on redirecting our thoughts and mindset; struggling to do so myself. But still trying. Because I do truly believe in the power of our thoughts and our ability to maintain an optimistic mindset even when life gets hard.

Sending love & light,