Worry and anger do not make situations better. Different situations or events, little or big, thrown into your day, can change the entire path in front of you. You can’t perform any magic tricks to stop all of those events from ever happening, but what you can do is choose how you react and deal with them. Learning tools and techniques on how to deal with stress, anxiety, anger, frustration, and many other emotions, is what you need to get through those tough, unexpected, situations.
I have been thrown into so many difficult, heart wrenching situations, and in all honesty, they took complete control of me, of my thoughts, and my actions. And the scary part is that it didn’t stop when the situation was over. It continued to affect me long afterwards. And eventually, still had a hold on me when the next scary situation came up. This sucked me into a downward spiral, with no reprieve. Things got dark and bad.
I was fortunate enough to have God never stop loving me and wanting better for me. He never gave up on me. And because of that and the help of others, I have learned a better way to react and deal with awful situations that happen to my family and to me.
Yesterday, I did not click onto this page because I was paying attention to how I was feeling. I was putting things into perspective. I was at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin with my youngest of three daughters. All three of my girls were born with a terminal disease which causes bleeds in different parts of their main organs. It is nicknamed The Ticking Time Bomb, as you don’t know when one of the bleeds could burst and take your life. That alone, took me years to accept, and learn to react accordingly, and deal with all of the emotions that come with it.
Like I said, yesterday I was at the hospital. My youngest was having a type of brain surgery on a second bleed in her brain. They were doing Gamma Knife Radiosurgery. I won’t go into detail about the surgery, that isn’t my point. What I want to share with you, is that finding out my daughter had another brain bleed was very scary. Finding out we needed to do another brain surgery very quickly was also very frightening. The appointments and tests leading up to this were also very stressful. Hearing what the neurosurgeons were going to do, the risks, the hopes of what they wanted to accomplish, and so much more, filled my husband and I with emotions.
Most people would tell you, we have every right to cry, scream, freak out, and well, not be able to function, and that would be ok. And yes we had done just that multiple times in the last 15 years with many brain surgeries and procedures, outcomes, and results for all three of my daughters. Unfortunately those reactions of ours didn’t change the outcomes of any surgery, didn’t give us any answers, and definitely didn’t make us feel better. In fact, it made us feel terrible, miserable, lost, and scared.ย
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Thanks to God, that stopped a few years ago. I learned how to listen to what awful news was shared with us, what traumatic situations we were going to be put in, what scary knowledge we were given, and then react in a way that did not crush me. It actually built me up. These new skills allowed me more strength, and bravery, to deal with what was in front of me, and be there to just simply love my children. Because of the way I reacted before, it didn’t allow me to function properly to take care of my children and give them what they needed in these extremely traumatic situations. And that is not ok.
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So, yesterday, it was all about using the tools and techniques that have become habits for me and I was physically and mentally present with my daughter. Today, recovery begins and I am there for her. I am not hiding in my room, crying, scared, and wanting to escape my reality. This was not learned in one day and magically I got it. It was skills that I practiced over and over again until they became more natural for me.ย
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I donโt want you to suffer through scary, traumatic, unexpected situations in your life. I want you to be able to feel what I feel now. I want to help you live a life filled with excitement and determination, with strength when you need it, and absolute joy in your day, no matter what situation you are thrown into. If you feel stuck and want to be able to handle situations in your life differently, please check out my 10-week Align Program. It might just be exactly what you need to completely change your life.
