Live in the Moment

Today I am working on living in the moment.  For me, this is a very hard thing to do so I am hoping to acquire a habit of it.  I tend to ruminate on the past and worry about the future.  My justification for worrying about the future is that I need to be prepared in case my fears come to fruition.  The glaring problem with this mindset is that while I worry about the future, I don't do much to prepare for it.  My worries paralyze me and I do nothing.  So what, then, is the benefit to all my worrying?

One thing that I have been practicing is being mindful of where I am.  Sometimes, when my anxiety gets the best of me, I try to fill my senses with my present surroundings.  I tell myself where I am, what I can smell, what I can feel with my hands, and what I see.  This helps.  It grounds me to the present, and helps me see that there is nothing at that moment that warrants my debilitating anxiety.

All of this requires an attitude adjustment.  I really believe that adjusting my attitude will bring me benefits.  As I read some of the blogs that inspire me, I see that the wisest people advocate changing your attitude.  This is not a new idea for me.  I have always found Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, to be one of my favorite inspirations.  The book presents his philosophy that you can change how you feel about things, how you react to things, how you view things, thus exercising your free will in even the most horrific times.  What is new for me is a concentrated effort to live this way.

So today I am making conscious choices.  I am choosing to be happy, to live in the present, and to be mindful of where I am and what I have. 

Fear

I have been wracked with fear.  I wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing, gasping for air.  During the day I am so afraid that it debilitates me.

Some of my fears are legitimate:  I am not currently employed, unemployment is running out and I don't have any of my savings left.  At 48 years old, with a young child, this is truly frightening.  I get that.  I am doing what I can to update my career credentials so that I can go back to work, and my former employer seems committed to having me back when this is accomplished, but I worry about how long it is taking.  I know that I should "let go and let God," but this past year, with the suffering and death of my father, I have lost my faith.  If I let go, who is there to help?

My father.  My hero.  My friend.  He died in August after nine months of rapid decline and ill health.  For nine months I was constantly in a state of fright/flight.  Every single day I had to fight with someone:  the doctors who couldn't say definitively what was wrong, the nurses who ignored him, the nursing home that neglected him, the insurance company that denied coverage, the family members who were of no help to me, and even my Dad who hated me because he couldn't stay in his apartment alone and blamed me for it.  Then there was the false hope that he would rally, that we would have more time together, that a miracle would happen.  There is nothing that sucks the life out of you than the realization that the hope you've been clinging to is a chimera.

I have been cold with fears of death.  In my darkest moments I have seen my future as one slow march toward nothingness.  I have been preoccupied with my health and convinced that I harbor cancer or life-threatening organ damage.  At one point, when I was really at a dark place, I felt that death was all around me.  I could not shake this preoccupation with death and my fear of it.

I recently read (and I wish I could credit it, but I will be more careful about that from now on) that grief sometimes takes the form of a fear and preoccupation with death.  It has only been months since my father died, and it is possible that I have not processed it all.  Or, this could be just a stage of my grief. I am going to be more cognizant of my feelings and try to deal with them in a healthy manner.

It is 2013 and the past eight years have been the toughest of my life.  My life is such a mess that there are times when I don't know how to get through the next minute.  Really.  I am at a point where my survival is minute-by-minute.

2013 has brought a yearning in me.  I want to enjoy my life again.  I want to smile genuinely, look forward to something, feel contentment, and be at ease.  The trouble is that I have forgotten how to do these things.  I have been so unhappy for so long that everything is a burden, my worries overwhelm me and, though I am lonely as hell, I want to be left alone.

A voice inside me tells me that it is a hopeful sign that I want things to be different. 

Since I don't know how to get to the place I would rather be, I have decided to just journey and hope I wind up there.  My journey is going to be reading all that I can on changing my outlook, healing my wounds, forgiving those who have hurt me, finding my faith in God again, and moving toward my goals.  At this time I cannot afford a therapist, so I will cull the Internet for articles, quotes, prayers and advice and use this forum to comment, journal, and hopefully, grow.

I have to believe that moving forward has got to take me away from where I stand now.  Baby steps are better than no steps at all.  I just can't remain where I am right now.