Hang in there when it’s hard

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Just recently I was having a hard time with feeling in control.  Right now I’m about to start a whole new career.  I’m starting school learning about something totally different from what I’ve known, starting a new job in an environment I don’t have experience in, in a different town.  There was a lot going on.  And I was going a bit nuts.  It didn’t help that with all these new things going on, I was learning about abuse.  I’m healed from the abuse, but learning about it in a class setting, all the statistics, the different kinds of abuse, videos of people being abuse, I couldn’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed.

I tried everything.  I tried all the tools I had and after 6 years of combatting abuse and its after-effects, I had a lot of tools.  I tried to journal, I tried to meditate, I tried to get my mind off of it by cleaning, I tried reasoning it out.  Nothing was working.  I still didn’t feel good.  I felt scared, I was worried that I had lost all my healing.  My head hurt from constantly trying to understand what is happening and reasoning it out.  I couldn’t think straight for the life of me because I was all over the place.

Eventually, after a week and a half, I threw my hands up and pretty much said I give up.  I’m done trying.  Now just so you know I wasn’t saying I gave up on myself.  I just gave up trying too hard, trying to get better quickly.

Once I did that, things started to get better.  I started to think clearer, and then eventually ideas started coming to me.  It’s funny how taking a break does that.  I feel sometimes we can get so caught up in solving a problem that we don’t take a break from it and the problem gets harder to solve because of fatigue and down we go a vicious cycle.

So this is what I did:

-My mind was all over the place, so I said, I’m gonna stop trying to think about this.  When a though came in, I ignored it.  It took me a couple of days to do this right.

-Then I went on the day as usual.  Walked my dog, took care of errands and chores, spent time with my boyfriend.

-I ignored that I was having a hard time.

-Then things started to clear.

-Then I allowed myself to use some of my tools.  Instead of journal to try to understand, I just started to write out my blessings and how far I’ve come.  Just to give myself some credit.

-I started to write out things I’ve been wanting to do and I started doing it.  I got so excited to try a new recipe for Red Velvet Cake.  I started getting excited about blogging again.

-I stopped being too hard on myself and I stopped expecting perfection from myself.

-And it’s like weight was lifted off my shoulder and I don’t know how.  In hindsight weight got lifted maybe it’s because I stopped trying to carry the world on my shoulder.

When times are tough, hang in there.  It happens to everyone.  Everyone has to confront hard times whatever the hard times may be.  Also what I constantly remind myself, learn how to tolerate tough times.  I tend to want to get out of tough times as fast as I can.  But it’s the tough times that we learn something and grow and it’s part of life, so I need to keep reminding myself to just hang in there.  Also I think, I’m healed, I shouldn’t have any difficulty, everyone goes through it.  This is all part of what I need to learn, now that abuse is out of my life, problems aren’t out of my life, everyone goes through it, so when I come across a problem, I don’t need to automatically think, oh I must be doing something wrong, or I must be thinking a wrong way.

Hang in there, and when you want to give up, hang on a little more, and that’s when things will change.

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