My mental reset button was broken! 

Have you ever been caught in such a dark hole, you are even annoying yourself? Well, that was me a couple weeks ago. The expression, “When it rains it pours” literally flooded my life (and my basement, but we’ll get to that)! This starts every fall before my husband goes to China. I feel it creeping in bit by bit. I have a debilitating amount of anxiety when it comes to certain things in my life, and my husband traveling overseas is one of them. I see it approaching on the calendar and as much as I mentally try to trick myself, I inevitably end up a basket case! Well, this year in particular, our calendar was jam packed! Work events, school events, birthdays, dance classes and our busiest time approaching for business, not to mention the holidays I overlook until the day before. I warned myself that I would be busy and to try and stay ahead of myself at all times! Well, that pep talk was “cute”! (Insert current me pointing & laughing at hopeful past me)

Cue Mother Nature. We were enjoying our last fun weekend in Wisconsin before the dreaded trip to China & blissfully unaware of the storms hitting our home! The following day we got back home and I heard a noise in the basement. I walked downstairs and as my foot landed on the floor, water splashed up at me! Shit. SHIT! I frantically darted to my office! Water was pooling at my feet and I started grabbing at anything & everything on the floor! Soaked. Everything soaked. Okay, so not EVERYTHING was soaked (insert dramatic “my life is OVERRRRRR me), but a LOT was soaked! WHY wasn’t I more organized so I didn’t have shipping supplies, totes, some t-shirts, paperwork & frosted mini wheats all over my office floor? (Again, insert current me telling past me that she had every opportunity to get organized and she stupidly wasted it, so now she has to deal with the reprocussions)! That night consisted of packing up all our inventory & my kids toys and moving it all upstairs. The next day was a circus of ripping out carpet, shop vaccing, setting up fans, cleaning & trying to gain any form of sanity! It was like our basement threw up inventory & toys! I kept telling myself, “it could be worse, it could be way worse”, but I felt negativity boiling over like a pot of Mac n’ Cheese noodles in my mind.

Add in an overnight trip to Indiana and a long night teaching my dance classes and it was time for hubby to leave for China the same day my business bestie was leaving for Hawaii! Let’s just say my anxiety was on over-drive, flight tracking for 15hrs straight until I received the “I landed safely” texts! Well, there was just about NO WAY I was staying home with my kids & dog for a week alone so off to WI I went. I tried to turn on blinders for what happened at home, but everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong! It was like a negative game of Dominos started and I couldn’t stop it! Work issues to running out of my coffee, I felt like a pathetic, whiny, unhappy version of myself. I was watching myself from the outside telling myself to snap out of it, but I just couldn’t. I literally said out loud (multiple times) that I wish I could just mentally reset! Like when a computer shows you the spinning rainbow wheel of doom and you just shut that bitch off! WHY couldn’t I do that for myself? I planned time with friends, did things with my kids and parents, slept for 11.5hrs one night, but it just wasn’t working! I hoped my hubby coming home would do the trick, and though it certainly did help, I was still staring at myself frantic and overwhelmed!

Now, I typically wouldn’t describe myself as a “poor me” person. I fully believe that if you don’t like something or a situation in life, then you need to fix it and not expect everyone else to fix it for you! I try not to make my problems other people’s problems. And well, the problem with this is closing off the rest of your emotions too. After talking with my mom, she said that she had no idea about certain things going on. She said I was like a sitting duck in water. Above the surface I was still and calm, but under the surface I was doing everything to stay afloat! (This begs the question, do ducks float naturally, or are they kicking under water? Hmm something to research after I’m done writing. I’m not a duck expert. #nojudgementzone)! Anyways, this stuck with me a bit. I think I got a little too good at “tough love” with myself. I got good at telling myself to not be a Debbie Downer (no offense to anyone named Debbie). Nobody likes a complainer. Get the job done & suck it up buttercup! 

Well my cold, frozen, Elsa heart needed to be thawed, so off to Hot Yoga Milwaukee I went. I truly didn’t want to go, but I wasn’t able to go for 2wks and I needed to get all the toxic energy out of my body, so I did it. I started yoga initially to help with my anxiety and work on meditation, but never knew how much it was working until this day. 

Stacy German was the teacher. I’ve taken class with her before and really enjoyed it. Her flow was quick, which compared to some yoga teachers is like a bat out of hell (some are ssslllooowww as molasses) but after 5min I was on her pace & LOVING it. Well, this time she started class by talking about self love and I knew this class was meant for me. Self love is right up my alley. I talk about it a lot and how bettering yourself will allow you to better others and you should not for one moment feel bad about it, yet somehow lately I was showing myself anything but love. Our focus was opening our hearts in class and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. She mentioned that at times the opposite of love is fear. All too often we cannot control the thoughts that enter our heads, but what we can control is where we put that energy when it happens. Trying to focus our energy on love instead of fear was the goal. It was like she was reading my anxious, worried mind! She then spoke about being a “do-er”. These are the people that seem to DO everything at work, at home, in your hobbies. It is hard to let yourself say no and be content with just being. Okay, so now she was really onto me. No really, I think she stalked my to-do list and was speaking directly to me amongst the 30 other people in class! She instructed us to try to take a moment to just be as we lay there in shavasana. And then it started. My cold, anxious, do-er soul started to melt into tears. Now, the benefit of hot yoga is you leave looking like your entire body has been crying, so I could have walked out with some fake composure, but instead I was compelled to talk to people in the locker room crying, followed by Stacy thanking her. Ugly cry was in full force and continued the whole car ride home! 

It was exactly what I needed to hear after my pity party weeks from hell! I thought I could just drink wine & have a mental reset, but what I didn’t realize is I needed to be kind to myself first. I needed to be vulnerable and let it all out before I could start allowing the positives to come back in my mind again! The mind is a powerful thing and though I truly know everything is relative and it could always be worse, I needed to allow myself a moment to be vulnerable and let someone help me get there. And you can bet things started to turn around after that! So, thank you Stacy. And if anyone is ever in Wisconsin I HIGHLY recommend you find and take a class from her! You can find more information here: Stacy German Yoga

And if you can’t make it to good ole Wisco, then I encourage you to find and try a yoga class near you! You truly have nothing to lose, except maybe some negativity! 😉 

I hope you too can find your mental reset button the next time negative Dominos are lining up! 

xo, Colleen