If you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ll know that I believe practicing meditation and mindfulness are a super power and the answer to all things in life. 😊 I just heard the phrase from Gaia during an audio session on Insight Timer this morning: Master Your Mind, Master Your Life. I think this was yet another message I needed to hear after I almost had a mental breakdown a few days ago…
It all started early last week. I was doing good with all the quarantine and COVID-19 stuff. When I say good, I was working hard not let it get to me. I was limiting my time on social media, making sure I was taking care of me, meditating….I definitely felt like I had control of what I was allowing into my life. I know I am somewhere on the mid to high end of the empath scale. I always say, self awareness is a bitch because then you have to actually work on whatever it is that is coming up because now you know about it.
Last week, everything took a major turn for me….it started with the George Floyd murder and all the craziness that happened after that. All of the sudden, I didn’t know what was happening to the human race…so much hatred. Every time I would hop on social media to post something on my business page, I couldn’t help but get negatively effected by all the accusatory comments…
At one point I was getting so upset that I made this comment to my boyfriend:
” They are making feel guilty …..” As soon as I heard those words come out of my mouth, I was again self aware enough to know that they were not making me feel guilty, I WAS ALLOWING THEM to make me feel guilty. I got myself in a place where I wanted to be angry at what was happening but at the same time, that same anger was eating me up inside….to the point of not being able to work or focus.
On Thursday, I got on social media again and it took less than 5 minutes for my heart rate to go up and to start getting angry again. I meditated twice in an effort to detach and get grounded and that didn’t work. I got distracted by my online Toastmaster meeting at lunch but before I knew it, I was back on social media and getting pissed off again.
I started talking to my boyfriend trying to describe my feelings and I went from: “my heart is hurting” “I just want to break down and cry and don’t know why” to “I’m so angry” and I don’t know what to do anymore…Talking helped but my heart was so heavy.
What would I tell my TRU TRIBE Run Team to do? My running coach skills usually flow over to life. One of the many things I do in my TRU TRIBE group, is curate content for them on specific topics. Last month, we observed Mental Health Awareness month. I had found information on the Feelings Wheel and we even did a fun 7 Day Photo/Feelings challenge in May. The Feelings Wheel can help us put words to emotions. I decided to look at that again so I could try to pin point what feelings I was having. It was a mix of anger, sadness, disbelief, shock, overwhelmed and disgust. That was a lot of toxic feelings I was dealing with (that I rarely do!) and I was literally getting sick to my stomach.
I decided to look up ANOTHER meditation on Insight Timer, and found this one called Sit With Anger. Things finally started clicking (I highly recommend it by the way) I was finally able to wrap my head around it. I was able to realize what had really been triggering me and how I was going to start dealing with it.
On Friday morning, I usually share #funnyfriday posts on social media. I’ve had people tell me that they can’t wait to see what I’m going to share. Last Friday, this is what I posted on Instagram and Facebook:
Along with these photos:
It’s currently 10:17 on Tuesday and I still haven’t been on social media (except for a quick minute to go find something that I needed to know) I will admit that it was much easier this weekend because I was out of town with no WiFi and limited cellular. But as of right now, I am not missing it all!
In addition to staying off of social media for the last 5 days, I:
- Spent lots of time in nature: hiking, sleeping/napping outside (glamping!), feeling the energy of a 350+ year old Alligator Juniper, soaking in the sun rays and “smelling the roses” (not literally but I love me some purple flowers!
350+ year old Juniper tree
Purple flowers stood out everywhere!
I may have been a cat in a past life but this is one of my favorite things to do…when it’s not 112 degrees out!
- Spent time with friends: these are my closest friends from high school and we get together at least once a month. I also got to see a few of my TRU TRIBE peeps up in Heber for a lovely hike too!
#trutribe in Heber!
- Tried to stay as present as possible and go with the flow. If a song that moved me came on (Unforgettable from Nat King Cole), well then yes, I will ask my honey to dance with me. (Do you see that beautiful art tree in the photo made of bicycle parts? Check out their website here! These are my friends!)
Slow dancing with my honey!
I can literally feel the personal growth still happening from this experience. As much as it took a huge toll on me emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, it was another life experience that I needed to have to become stronger and to share with others in hopes that they can learn from this too….and it all started with me being self aware enough to know what was happening, do something to change it and know that I had the coping skills and ability to handle it….which all happened because of my meditation practice.
I was not expecting to be this vulnerable and spill my guts out to you but one of the other big lessons from this was that it was really OK for me to be totally transparent and share this on my social media pages. I read a few comments before leaving for the weekend and was pleasantly surprised at the positive vibes I was receiving from people about my statement.
Before today is over, I plan to log in to share this blog……and the cutest dog video ever (thanks to Amy for sharing this with me in an effort to cheer me up!) and read all the comments in hopes that those will seal the deal for me. I am getting back on Instagram and Facebook, mainly for my business, but I’ve had time to recharge. I will be setting a timer every day when this happens and sticking to two 10 minute sessions a day. This was a tough but valuable learning experience and I am grateful for this process! Hope you learned something too!