365 Ways To Wellbeing – 245th Way
Have you ever read the definition of a word crisis? Here´s one:
“Crisis = A point in a story or drama when a conflict reaches its highest tension and must be resolved. A crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point.“
Crisis are a part of life. We all face some kind of crisis during our lives. A lost of a loved one, a divorce, a disease, a burnout, an accident…there are many reasons which may trigger crisis in our life.
First real crisis in my life “reached its highest tension” in the beginning of this summer. Insomnia, panic attacks, lack of appetite and crying that felt endless were the ways I reacted to it. Dark thoughts and feelings have become my companions as an opposite to those wonderful moments that I have told you during this summer. All this has scared me a lot, because I’ve never experienced anything like this before in my life. Thanks to my husband`s support I still continue this blog. He has turned my thoughts into sentences for I didn’t have energy to do myself. He has supported and helped me when I’ve been at my weakest.
As all parents know the first years with small children are balancing between joy and tiredness. They are years when both you and your loved one are under a big and constant stress and you’re forced to stretch in every direction. Years that may trigger a number of different crisis. And I had mine now.
Two challenging pregnancies and labors, long-lasting and ever increasing sleep debt and extra challenges in the family have played a big role in my crisis. However, they haven´t been the main thing. The main thing has been becoming a parent. It´s now obvious that a motherhood has been the biggest thing in my life that has started to change me. Love to my children has made me to think about more and more about myself; my past, my present, my future. What kind of a person I am? What kind of a mother, a wife, a woman and a human being I want to be? What kind of a family life I want for our family? What kind of an example I want to give to my daughters? How can I prevent that my burdens don´t move on for them to carry? Those are some of the questions that becoming a mother have got me thinking.
When I now look back to my blog I see that it has been my way to search the answers. Through my blog I´ve started to search myself and my sources of wellbeing as well as obstacles that stand on their way. I’m facing those obstacles now. Unsolved things from my past that my mind hasn´t been able to process. Some emotional gridlocks that have prevented me from being that person who I feel deep inside. My past started to reveal itself to me through my memories in the beginning of this summer. I’ve been forced to go through and rethink my whole life until now. I just can´t continue my life without processing them now thoroughly. I see my life and myself already clearer than ever and the big picture keeps getting brighter day after day. The whole process is painful and difficult to explain. It´s like a secret door into my mind that I didn´t even know to exist.
This summer has been the summer of opposites for me. On the one hand I´ve experienced darker feelings and deeper moments of despair than ever before. On the other, I´ve experienced moments when I´ve felt myself happier than for years. So, in good and in bad I´ve started to feel deeper during this summer. I`ve felt that some sort of a wall has started to crumble around me. Lightness of my mind, sensitivity to my senses and being present to life is something I’ve been able to experience stronger than ever before. That has been something indescribable. I don´t want to lose that!
All positive signs in me have made me realize that all this does very good to me. It´s healthy. Like realizing my own smallness and the fragility of life. I feel that I´m lucky that I’ve got a grip of myself and the shackles of my life. That I´ve got a chance to realize that already in my 30´s! That´s why my will to go through my crisis thoroughly is strong. I now have chance to change myself so I really can be a better human being, a wife and a mother in the future. Even thought I know my way is going to be a long and painful I have a feeling that in this crisis there’s a key to a more profound and genuine wellbeing in my life.
I feel that during this summer I´ve been reading my blog more than ever. You can´t even imagine how important it has been for me to see pictures about my moments of happiness and wellbeing during my dark moments. And read my own encouraging posts, like this. So yes, I’ll continue my blog because it´s really important for me too.
Whether to tell about my crisis in my blog or not has been the big question. The one I´ve been asking from myself many times during this summer. Where goes my line between public and private? During the summer I´ve learned that I am not the only one experiencing these kind of thoughts and symptoms. Having crisis is normal, and reacting to them both physically and mentally is normal. That´s why I´ve decided to write about my crisis in a way I feel comfortable with. I hope it will help someone else when they’re going through tough times.
In the same way as there are pessimistic and optimistic people, there are also people who take a negative attitude or a positive attitude toward crisis. I want my crisis to be a positive turning point in my life. A turning point that has given me a possibility to learn and understand something new about myself, make positive changes in my life, grow stronger and improve my wellbeing. That´s going to be my way and of that I´ll keep on telling you about!
Now that I watch my baby learning to stand up and take her first steps I see a lot me in her. I have to stand up too and learn to take those baby steps. To not be afraid to fall occasionally, but to stand up and keep on practicing. To keep on learning and developing.
As the saying goes “After the sun comes rain, and after the rain comes sun again”. Well, at the moment it´s raining in my life a little bit more than usually. But I can already feel that the sunshine is coming. And all the sunbeams feel so good!
Read more about my “Wellbeing Challenge 2013 – 365 ways to wellbeing”.
