The Lessons I Learned, AGAIN

Not gonna lie. 2021 really challenged my @fiveminutejournal attentiveness.

For the first time in three years I was not very good at doing my daily gratitude. I found myself trapped in a depression I couldn’t “Gratitude” Practice my way out of and everything I was in the pattern of doing for over 2 years came to a screeching halt.

I know what it’s like to feel stuck in a dark, unrelenting place. I was so burnt out from work, world noise, and the everyday negativity that seemed to permeate everyone and everything around me that I couldn’t see a way out…not even a way through. I got stuck in the “quicksand” of my hopeless thinking and all my positive practices slipped away.

• First to go: yoga.
• Then art/creativity.
• Months later by my Daily Gratitude Practice.
• Last was my daily water consumption (I always hit 64-80oz).

I finally admitted in October that I had hit bottom.

Here I have to say my therapist kept me from totally drowning. Weekly sessions, working on tiny “No’s” was truly my first step.

I had lost all sense of boundaries. I was an empty shell trying to still get through increasing stress at work, failing to be there as the mother, wife, and friend that I so love being. All because I had stopped “filling my cup.”

Peeps, I cannot stress enough the importance of caring for yourself FIRST.

I continue to learn this lesson the “Hard Way.”

Please, if you take away anything from my experience, let it be this:

• BOUNDARIES
• Acts of SELF-CARE
• GRATITUDE

Keep these ALWAYS.

Then GROWTH is possible. And growth is necessary to our human experience. Growth keeps us moving forward. Keeps our minds elasticity and our body strong.

I pray that I never give up my desire and joy in learning new thing: skills, lessons, practices.

May 2022 bring you back to yourself, if you were lost; bring you positive energy, if you are feeling stuck; love, if you are feeling alone.

Blessings❤️