Let me start by saying anxiety sucks. And when I started experiencing some horrible anxiety symptoms I knew I had to change some things so that I could function. The first symptom I had was heart palpitations that caused me to be very tired all the time. Then it moved into full-on anxiety attacks over the most stupid things. For example one morning I was making breakfast and one of my girls asked me a question. I think it was something like "Do you like my picture?" And I felt so overwhelmed that I couldn't function. It was like she had asked me to solve the hardest math equation in the universe. This went on for a few months before I got enough gumption to do something about it. These are some things that I did to bring order to my life.
The first thing that I did was to start exercising again. It not only gets me out of the house but it also gives me a way to work out my anxiety. I saw a huge difference in my moods with in the first couple of days. I try to go at least three times a week, but life happens and I'm trying to go with the flow.
The second thing was to realize that this is only a season in my life. That seasons change and that I should enjoy where I'm at. I also needed to stop listening to other women who either can't understand how I can stay at home and homeschool my kids or make me feel guilty because I can and they can't for one reason or another. I had to realize that I feel called by God to raise and school my children, this is my job and I need to take that truth and use it against the lies that satan likes to use to bring me down. My worth comes from him not others and I need to rember that. I plan on expanding on some ways I used to organize and take better control over the job God has called me to do in a later post.
This next thing was one of those times that I learned something about myself that brought my whole world into focus. As moms, wives, homeschoolers, and house managers we are in a sense jugglers. Something I realized about jugglers is that they do not start juggling a bunch of balls at once, they start with two and keep adding more and more as they get more comfortable. I realized that I was trying to juggle to many things that I thought needed done all at once, instead of adding things in as time aloud. So instead of having the perfect order of balls going in a circle they were basically just falling on my head. It is a very simple concept but I am one of those people that allows guilt to rule my decisions instead of God and it was a very powerful thing for my heart and head to land on the same thing at once.
Time management is not one of my strong suits I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants type girl. Which is fine if you are single but when you have to orchestra a family, homeschooling, cleaning, cooking and shopping flying by the steat of your pants can leave you frazzled. I have always had a calendar with all of our different activities but now I have steped it up to a crazy level of organization. I want to go into more detail about this later but just to let you know what I've been doing I'm going to give you a brief description. I first started buying in bulk, then moved on to shopping once a month, except for the farmers market once a week. Now I have price lists of all my foods caterigized by yearly, monthly and weekly shopping. I have all our favorite meals, as well as we're to find them. I have also moved on to monthly menue planning. This all seems overwhelming but I just took one ball at a time until I felt comfortable adding more. I feel so much more in control in this area and even though it's still a work in progress I have been staying in budget and eating whole food which is a huge weight off my shoulders. Because every time I went over in my budget I would feel like I had failed, which would lead to anxiety. It is interesting how much sin can effect our health. If I keep my focus on him and find my worth in him my anxiety would be gone. I pray that this post lifts you up and helps you fight anxiety and depression in your life. Don't forget God has given you the power to take control and he has given himself to lean on.
