Happy Birthday To Me :)

   People, today is my 31st birthday!

   I'm not sure why I'm so excited about getting old exactly....except that this birthday marks a year of change for me. A year ago today I was a different person, and not at all a person I was happy to be. I needed to change, but I felt stuck. 

   It wasn't until October last year that my life had a serious stick stuck into it's spokes, and I went flying headfirst into the rubbish heap I had made of my life. What caused the fall isn't important, but falling was necessary, and it started a chain of choices and events that changed me. 

   So, today I want to share the things that I have learned this year that helped to make me into the person I am today. A person who is new, & renewed. By God's grace I can look back at this year and see how all the struggles,  the poor choices, and all the hurt has brought me to the feet of Christ, and humbled me, and made me new. 
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Friends are important:
 
    I know. Crazy, right?

   I have thought back on my life and have known some situations where I had friends because I should have them as friends. But they would be so negative, or "toxic". They would have such different values than me, or even just different ideas on life and fun! 

   We will have people in our lives who tire us out, but we need those people in our lives to help us develop virtues (...like patience, or love, or kindness), but also for the others persons sake. Who knows what they are needing, and if God is working in you to help that person through something.

   We may also be that person to someone else! We need people too, people who seem to push us and challenge us. A person who doesn't care if they are "friends" with you, but still speaks life into you. 

   When I say a "true friend", I mean someone you choose to share with, and be open with.  Someone who doesn't drain you because they give back as much as they take. You can be open and honest, and so can they. You both challenge each other, and want to see the best from one another. It is mutual. Sometimes it can be a little lope-sided, but the roots are mutual. 

   In the last year in my life I have gained and lost some friends. Some of these losses and gains have really surprised me, but through it all, I am learning about friendship, and what it should be. I have a few really close friends, a few dear people who know ALL of my darkest secrets, and love me anyway. What a true and honest blessing.
 
   I also have a group of people who I am so glad to call friends who, perhaps don't know all my garbage, but know enough of this crazy lady and still choose to be my friend! People who share, and love, and encourage and visit (usually inviting themselves because my introverted self forgets to invite them over!), and make me laugh, and who laugh at me! 

   I am learning that friends are necessary, and that I can't do life alone, no matter how much (read-how Dutch) I think I can. 

   Be a real person, be a true person, let others know you and see you for who you are. Be a friend, and make some friends! It's important!    


Drugs are good:
   
   Okay, well, not the illegal kind. 

   Last year in the late fall, I felt like my brain fell apart. I felt so off....I don't know how else to put it. 

   I would wake up in the morning with dread for the day. I would feel anxious throughout the day, and would constantly be checking my pulse because I could feel my heart pounding. I was fine one minute, than having a serious breakdown the next minute. I have a bit of a temper, but it suddenly was a hair-trigger temper. 

  There is a history of mental illness in my family, and I knew I wasn't immune....as much as I wanted to imagine I was. 

   I told my husband I needed to see a psychiatrist. 

   The psychiatrist told me what I had thought, I was a little messed up. He diagnosed me with a Borderline Personality Disorder, and Bi-Polar II. 

   I am not the type of person who immediately takes a Tylenol when I have a headache, or cough medicine when I've got a cold. I like to fight it out, to figure out a healthier way. But with this, there was no healthier way. 

   The psychiatrist put me on a mood stabilizer called Lamotrigine (which was originally intended {and still used| as an anti-colvulsant drug). Lamotrigine is the first mood stabilizer to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration is 30 years, which is when Lithium was approved. 

   Do I think everyone should be medicated? Nope. But, do I think there is a stigma around mental illness? Big time.

   There is shame and embarrassment associated with being "crazy", but there shouldn't be. I wasn't choosing to act like a crazed woman, but I sure was acting that way! I would feel such embarrassment and regret after having flown off the handle, so for me, the so-called embarrassment of taking meds is much less severe. 

   Taking meds has levelled me out. Though, once a month I still feel un-hinged, but that should just show you the power of those pre-menstrual hormones! Geepers!!! 

   If you feel like something is not right with you, like you know you think and feel so differently from other people, talk to your doctor, see if there is something that can be done. I thought everyone lived in a state of anxiety and despair, but they didn't. It was me, I needed the help. 

   Life now is so different. I thank God for the people who developed  the medication I am on! What a life I had been missing out on by being so afraid of the "mental illness" bug. I can see now that a good part of my adult life has been spent working around and trying to live with this illness. 

   I feel relief now. I feel "still" instead of on edge and anxious. Being honest about my mental state was the best thing I ever did for myself and my family.  
 

Don't carry other peoples monkeys!:

   A good friend told me this in the spring, and it turned me around. 

   I was sharing with her about the guilt I felt from a situation, and she listened with open ears and heard that I felt guilty for what I  did, but also guilty for what it caused in the other persons life. She told me, "don't carry other peoples' monkeys!". 

   Basically, a monkey is your "stuff". Your troubles that you carry around as you work through them. I was carrying mine around, and someone else's. It is appropriate to feel regret and remorse about how something you did effected someone else, but to carry around the guilt from their part in it? That is theirs alone, so don't do it.

   I was literally burdened because of the real or imagined problems I had caused, and my dear friend spoke life into the situation, and I got rid of that extra monkey! I just said to myself, "you've got your own monkey, and that person has their own monkey. They can carry their own, it's not mine". And moved on. It changed the way I was thinking and feeling, and has helped me in many situations since.   


It is NEVER too late to get into shape:

   I am turning 31 today, and am literally in the best shape of my life. I'm talking better shape than when I was young, and dancing, and horseback riding many times a week, and, well, being young! 

   In March I decided that enough was enough. I was carrying grief and guilt about so many things that had happened in the last year, and it was weighing me down-literally. I was at my heaviest (not counting the time I weighed 200lbs before I had Keziah!), and was tired of feeling so uncomfortable in my own skin. I hate that feeling.

   What did I do? What was my secret? No secret, it's just exactly what you would expect: eating right, and working hard.

   Eating right (to me) means real food: meat, fruits and veggies, good fats (coconut, avocado, olive oil) & nuts and seeds-basically, the Paleo (or Primal) diet. I have a treat day to keep me from thinking all day about my favourite food groups (marshmallows and chocolate!), and I don't beat myself up over eating any amount of real food! I can (and have been) eating fruits and veggies and meat and nuts and seeds until I was full, and have lost weight, and gained muscle. Eat real food, your body will be happy with you! 

   As for working hard, I hired a personal trainer named YouTube. Did you really think I hired a personal trainer? I'm too cheap. For the first few months I basically only did Jillian Michaels workouts. Is she annoying? Yes. But, does she have some amazing workouts? Yes. Are they freakin' hard? Yes!!! 

   After that I started to look around YouTube more, and found so many workouts that I really enjoyed (in that completely exhausting kind of way!). I like to do videos because it keeps me moving, keeps me from stopping to rest, and really pushes me. 

   I will have ups and downs, but I want to stay like this; happy in my own skin, feeling so healthy and in control, and feeling a little bad-ass for how hard I've worked and for knowing what I'm capable of! 

   Some of my favourite workouts with my 'personal trainer' are this Kick Boxing video from my pal Jillian, this series from Jillian (I started at level 1 for this series and worked my way up!), and a favourite channel is from POPSUGAR Fitness. Now go break a sweat! :) 


Don't follow your heart!: 

   If I hear one more song, or see one more Hollywood film say "follow your heart...." I'm going to loose it! I know it's something we hear all the time, and from a lot of different places, but I will plead with you-do not follow your heart! 

   A very wise person, whom I love very much, gave me a quote last year, and I will try to sum it up further for this. It hit me hard, and really made me look at my heart, and see that I do no want to follow it.

   The quote is from Oliver Heywood (1825-1892), and is from his book "Heart Treasure".

   "Store up experiences of deceitful operations of the heart. The heart is a very sad book, but you must read and re-read it. If you do not, you will live and die in serious ignorance. Study then the diverse windings, the cunning strategies, and secrecies of your depraved heart. Consider and remember well all its ways of craftiness and guilt which have cost you so much. Now, in view of it's sad history, will you trust your deceitful heart again?

   Who, but a fool, will hand over everything he owns to a known thief? What wise man will be exploited by a famous con artist? He who trusts in his own heart is a fool. 
   And will you not be the greatest fool that breathes, if after so many betrayals and tricks, you still confide in this complete traitor?  

   Ah reader, I appeal to your own experience. How many a grievous experience you have had of the hearts deceitfulness! It is prone to deceive, and to be deceived. It is the latter, the proneness to be deceived, that is the more dangerous quality! 

   The reason that a person indulges self-confidence is due to ignorance. He is ignorant of the trickster within. He does not know the working of his own heart, or having gained some knowledge, he forgets this sobering experience. 

   A person who declared bankruptcy in desperation does not want to study the list of his debts, fearing the reality of his condition. He wants to run away from the truth of his predicament. In the same way, a poor deceived sinner does not want to look into his heart. He has a vague and uneasy sense that all is not right there. He wants to cover and conceal, even from himself, this terrible sight which destroys his sense of peace. 

   The real child of God, however, cannot but see what others overlook or strive to hide. The one living by grace will willingly see these things, and will sorrow over them. May God enable us to know and fear our own hearts, that we shall then trust them less, and Him more".

   I read this quote a few times a week to remind me of who I could be if I blindly followed my heart, and refused to see the folly within it. 
   This idea has honestly changed my life this past year.


Speak truth with love: 

   Ephesians 4:29 says "Do not let any unwholesome (think un-nourishing, energy depleting) talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful (useful, profitable) for building others up according to their needs (struggles, or hurts ), that it may benefit those who listen (not what will benefit us)" (emphasis and bracket thoughts my own).

   This verse can throw away all that you think is necessary to say, and can also push you to say things you  may be unwilling to say.

   To run things you're thinking threw this filter of "is it unwholesome? Will it nourish? Is it going to build them up? Will it benefit the person I need to say it to?" can change the way you see your opinion. Loving someone doesn't mean saying everything you want to, and if the person loves you back they will just take everything you dish out. No, love and friendship is about being forgiving if someone says something hurtful, but a hurt that is lovingly, and truthfully given is a faithful hurt (Proverbs 27:6 "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses). 

   Know your motivation! Speak truth, by all means speak truth-but do it with purpose-to build others up according to their need!

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​   And that is my year in summary. I am blessed, I am new. I am so thankful for the people in my life who love me, and push me and challenge me. I am humbled by what God can do with the broken pieces of a life, and that He loves me too much to see me continue on a road of destruction.

   I couldn't have guessed all that would transpire in one year. But there are seasons, and I am so happy to be looking at the season past. I am standing at the top of a long, steep hill. But I am standing, and I am stronger, and I am wiser. 

   Gosh, I am still human and will stumble and fall a lot, but I can see that there is a solid foundation beneath my feet now.

   Happy birthday to me!  :)  ​