Making Space

You know, sometimes the anxiety I feel makes my brain want to explode and projects a false identity of space for my life.

ClipArt Kid

When my house starts looking like the picture above, I can guarantee that my mind is in a similar state. I create spaces in my home for creation only when I take the focus off of the anxiety.

Please understand, my home is by no means ever really clean.  My children are master storm debris creators, we are working on the aftermath clean-up pros part.  But the thing is that when my mind is calm and has space to think things through logically, I am more motivated to create a space in my home, my family, and my life for the creation (new and adventurous things).

I am learning to hear the anxiety, recognize its voice and then move on.  I want to move on because the anxiety is usually based on things that are not true or blown out of proportion.  Sometimes anxiety comes up with a lot of what if's that are meant to scare me out of doing something I love, something that soulfills me, or neglect inviting my children to do something soulfilling.  I'm glad I'm recognizing this and am able to enlarge my sphere. Imagine yourself in a sphere, like a very elastic bubble, anxiety wants to shrink that bubble around you until the point that you are in the fetal position.  You take up the least amount of positive space that way. The immense amount of negative space surrounding you feels very heavy this way, breathing even feels like too much strain on your little space.

As I learn not to give heed to the anxiety, not to let it dictate my life, I am able to stretch this sphere of space as far as I want and am seeing that the larger I make it the more it can withstand.  The space of breath and creation is so needed for me to feel complete and it is controlled by my will, not by circumstance.

I took what felt like a huge step toward creating more space to be me over the weekend.  I auditioned for a local artist's original ballet, A King is Born.  Not only that, I signed my girls up as well!  I was both amazed and sore afterward.  I was shocked at what my body could still do, longs to do.  I was also very aware of the amount of work I have to do in the next few months, but I did it.  I will have 3 roles in the work and my girls are so excited to be dancing with mommy!!!

I am nervous and have a lot of body image, capacity, concerns.  I recognize those concerns and am taking measures to make sure I do the best I am capable of doing through exercise and technique practice.  However, I am more excited about being part of this beautiful work than I am concerned about failing.

Con mucho amor,

~Anna K. Morales

Something Finished

Drawing tiny little circles is mundane and therapeutic at the same time. Keep on keeping on.

Con mucho amor,
~Anna K. Morales

Uninspired

I feel like junk, mostly, I think.  I've noticed that I write when I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel.  I write to try and share some of the inspirations that give me momentum to keep trying.

Most days are not made up of that.  I mean, things happen, good and bad, every day.  Today my friend Nicole called me out of the blue because she had some air time and chose to spend it on me!  Did it brighten my heart and give me warm fuzzies?  Yes.  Did I go back to trying to exercise with my brood of children and start feeling junky again? Yes. But that little act of love is now in me and will be drawn upon when I am about to drown.

Yesterday I was so grouchy.  My son had a Dr. appointment and after grumpily getting everyone there safely and yelled at, I tried to distract myself in the office by picking up a book.  Know what I found?

Bradley Trevor Greive's The Blue Day Book: A Lesson on Cheering Yourself Up

The girls and I laughed at the funny pictures of all the animals and recognized ourselves in them.  The girls said that I was like the Warthog... uh, yep.

The day before that I had probably dealt out one (or ten) too many spankings.  When I am in a bad place, I spank.  My kids sometimes put a hand up in defense if I'm getting upset.  This makes me lose it with myself even more.  

I have followed enough blogs, read tons of material, and talked to enough women and therapists to know I am not alone in this fight.  If you can relate to anything I'm writing, please get help.  I love therapy because it gives me the tools to fight the ravenous person that takes me over when I'm anxious or depressed.  Before getting therapy there was no hesitation before acting, to reflect on the weight of what I was about to say, scream, or hurt into my children.  Now there is, I don't always heed that moment and have cause to repent daily, habit is hard to break.  But the fact that reason is coming back into my being on a more usual basis means progress.

**If you have not experienced these things, please have compassion for us who do.  It is a very real fight.  I can't count how many times people tell me, "just stop it."  Well, it's a high speed train carrying tons of weight and won't stop on a dime.  I am doing it.  I have invoked the all encompassing powers of the Atonement and am being trained to stop and choose a better course of action.  

It is hard and sometimes I wonder if I have made any real change.  Overall, I know I have.  Some days I am tired of the effort.  But those are the days, like today and yesterday and the day before that I just have to bite the bullet and tell myself that I can slow down on my check list and that the most important thing is that my kids and I make it through the day having successfully navigated my and their emotional needs for that day.

This is real. This is why I blog about depression and anxiety.  This is not a how-to during the post depression period.  I'm in the thick of it.  And I am telling you that I'm going to make it out alright, it's just that right now.  It's a very real, very hard uphill battle.

As a side note, I have not slept well for a week and a half.  Illnesses, teething and insomnia.  I think there is a huge correlation there.

Con mucho amor,

~Anna K. Morales