Leap of Courage Forward

TLDR: I reevaluated my life, blah blah blah, and now I am starting a business!

Head on over to spiritedwolfmedia.wordpress.com and then choose your own adventure. I mean…..look around and see what you find.

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Now….if you want to read….buckle up buttercup.

Unless you have been living in a cave or alone in the woods with no outside connection – you probably already know that we have entered a brand new decade.

And if you have been living in a cave or away from any civilization – Welcome to the Real World! Also – why are you choosing to read my blog when you could be watching cute puppy videos (see: Super Paws Pack on Instagram)

Oh wait. Where was I?

This is a brand new decade. It is shiny and new and eager to be broken in.

And break it in, I will.

Break it in – I must.

The last decade started rough – I lost my grandma, my person, my guide. I had a newborn that we just discovered had a bad lactose intolerance.

It was a chaotic time. I couldn’t grieve (and I still haven’t been able to). But its like I completely checked out and don’t remember anything about that first 6 months after she passed.

I am missing a good chunk of memories with my B during that first year of her life.

But that is neither here nor there at this moment.

The last decade continued to be rough. Even in the bright spots – L was born, L transitioned to E, we quit jobs, we got new jobs, fell in to medical debt, took guardianship of my brother-in-law which was an exhilarating experience….

But while the last decade seemed like there was more bad than good, my husband and I fought to love eachother and remain a team throughout it all.

Unfortunately, just like it started, the last decade ended with a death of a loved one.

I silently spiraled so far down, I actually scared myself to the point I was waking up with panic attacks in the middle of the night.

Worrying about the what if’s had I actually let my inner voice take full control on that stormy day.

The last decade, the last year, the last month of 2019, couldn’t end fast enough.

Because this new decade, came at just the right time. A new year, a new me, a new us, a new future.

I mean, I knew the new year and new decade were coming. And it is like the placebo effect…am I feeling better because it’s a new year, or am I telling myself to feel better bc it’s a new year?

One may never know.

What I do know, is that on Jan. 2nd, I had an extra hop in my a step, am additional giddyup to my swagger (that’s not right….)

Anyways….I failed epically last year at my planning for my giant solo hike.

But after that stormy day, where my inner voice so badly wanted to be in control, I had to make a decision. I needed to make arrangements.

So now, with the help of my brother-in-law, most Fridays – I get to go on a much neeeded solo hike and take my inner voice to see the therapist aka my other inner voice.

Yes. I do know I sound like I have multiple personalities.

Hey! Wait! Are you talking about us?

Yes now shush.

My BIL helps get E off the bus for me so I can have some much needed time to recharge.

Yes…I hike, I sweat, I curse, and I recharge. Oh, I also take pictures to “capture the beautiful” and not ahem taking photos so I can catch my breath….

Moving on…Last year, my goal with hiking, was to silence the entire world, including my inner voice. Every time that my inner voice would start to make a sound, I’d sing it a lullaby.

I am not saying that that was a contributor to why my solo hike adventure failed last year, but I am not saying it wasnt….if you catch my drift.

So, me being edumacated, and earning C’s in my stats class, I realized I needed to change a variable.

Jan 2nd – I got in to my head so deep I hiked 5 miles without realizing it. It was painful, and angry, and hurtful, and liberating and freeing.

Actually talking to, AND listening to, my inner voice, was a game changer. That hike, that one variable change, has helped set the tone for the past few weeks, and will only continue to be beneficial.

So what have I learned since that day I almost convinced myself the world would be better off with me not in it?

Well, a lot, actually.

After I told a distant family member to eff off and forget my family ever existed, I deactivated my FB in January.

I realized that I was getting to a point where I was seeing my little family, not be invited to anything that any of our other family was going to. Social media was a reason for my spiraling. Not gonna lie.

I was addicted to social media. I couldn’t stop scrolling mindlessly. I needed to make a change. I had other things I wanted to accomplish in my life.

But the truth is – I was jealous. I was jealous of every one else’s life on FB. The parties we didn’t get invited to. The social events we didn’t get invited to. The family we hadn’t seen bc we were never invited to anything.

I get it – I have 1 kid that is on the Autism Spectrum AND Transgender, and another kiddo that is too young to play with the older cousins, but too old to play with the younger cousins. And my husband and I aren’t very social, and we aren’t everyone’s cup o’ tea.

So I ghosted. I only told 2 people my plans with my FB. I kept my twitter bc nobody on my FB was there. And instagram bc, well the Super Paws Pack of course!

I didn’t think I would make it past the first week. I for sure thought I was going to reactivate my FB. I started scrolling Twitter mindlessly and got addicted to that train.

Ok, so I traded one addiction for another.

Not how this was supposed to work.

And then I started forcing myself to do something else. But not having access to FB was driving me crazy. FB connected me to the society that I so deeply needed a break from. Oh and who uses craigslist anymore? Or how do you search for event happenings WITHOUT Facebook?

Facebook may be evil, but it is a necessary evil. So I promised myself, that once I wasn’t craving FB, I could think about reopening it.

I didn’t write another post for weeks. I had to just step back from everything.

I had to re-evaluate ALOT. I had to re-arrange ALOT of spoons.

I learned where I was pushing myself to extremes, and where I was lacking. And I am learning how to stop giving myself a guilt trip for saying no to something.

My inner voice almost convinced me to kill myself in Dec. Jan 2nd, I vowed I would never feel that pain again.

I have had to cut thru a lot of mental bullshit I was experiencing. I had to, and still have to, face it head-on.

Such as – why I can’t get motivated, why do I have to be a perfectionist, why do I fail once and immediately give up, why can I not follow thru and finish something, why am I not good enough, what happened in my childhood that has caused me to not remember 90% of it? etc.

Every solo hike, I work thru something else. I dig deep until I reveal my truth behind my mental bullshit.

I have wanted to blog and talk about what I have uncovered during my hikes. But on Jan 2nd, I made a decision to hold this to myself. At least for a while.

And here we are, in this brand new decade, with a whole extra day to experience life a little more.

Just in the past 8 weeks, I have made many changes that I cannot wait to share with the world.

Because one thing I have discovered, is that what I have to say, matters. We are not in this alone. I am not in this alone.

Changes include: attending CPRT, Family Hikes, Chores, dying my hair purple, changing how we respond to E, getting my teeth fixed section by section, finding and building boundaries.

Oh and I am starting a business.

That is a whole story on its own that I will be talking about soon. But let me just say, that it was an epiphany that made me realize EXACTLY what I needed to be doing.

It is still a work in progress, and I am chipping away at it.

But, I have never wanted something more. Well…besides giving birth to our babies and marrying my best friend…..Of course!

So on this extra day of the first year in this brand new decade – I am taking a giant leap of courage forward.

And I hope you follow along.