RINSE AND REPEAT!  Why is it in the grand scheme of things, we put ourselves last? Maybe it’s just me, but I go go go go go go and then wonder why I’m so tired or so anxious. I don’t really know how to slow down – until my body makes me. I’ve been running on fumes… literally fumes. Did I say fumes?  We all have those times in life when things peak.  We go up, down, right, left, here, there and repeat.  Just like the shampoo bottle says – Rinse and Repeat.  In order to be truly authentic, I am owning that my anxious feelings have crept back in. Running on empty, not stopping to feel hard emotions, and not allowing myself to not be ok, my body finally screamed STOP. I am worn out – mentally and physically. I haven’t been as healthy as I was before this whole process with my dad started. Eating healthy, less wine, and exercising all helps anxiety (at least it helps mine).  Yet – when I get to a certain level of stress and my anxiety kicks in – I go into fight or flight mode (exercise and diet always come last).  I went on autopilot and continued to Rinse and Repeat….  It’s funny too because anxiety is about what you can’t control yet we lose sight of what we can really control. I had an eye-opening moment this weekend.  I was complaining about the increased size of my butt to my husband. In his usual direct and nonchalant way, he looked at me and said “Well you have control over your weight. You can control this. You can get back to where you were or want to be. If you don’t like it, do something about it.” And just like that he went back to reading the paper. That simple statement sounded crazy to me…

I need to stop rinsing and repeating. We all need to stop rinsing and repeating.  Screw the what shampoo bottle says, I never really do that anyway. I mean does anyone ever really shampoo twice. It’s time to stop repeating with the shampoo and with our messy journeys.  I had gotten myself to such a good place and felt so grounded and then the world started to shatter around me. The moment I got that phone call that my dad’s life expectancy was drastically shortened – everything changed. The man who I didn’t want to talk to and sometimes didn’t even really want in my life – I suddenly needed to hear his voice. Suddenly I just needed him not to die. I literally spent two months watching him slowly deteriorate piece by piece. I watched his ability to walk disappear, his senses change and was on the phone with him (via his nurse) when he took his last breath. I spoke to him more when he was dying then when he was living. Death has always made me very anxious, but then again so did my father. These conflicting emotions have had me running even faster away from feeling anything. Guess what – you can’t do that. Anxiety is like that little whining kid who will keep screaming louder and louder the more you try not to listen.  Eventually the kid is screaming and so is your anxiety.

So here I am… Trying to own it… Trying to be authentic…. Trying to just focus on my breath. Trying to tell myself it’s ok to not be OK.  Trying to tell myself I don’t have to repeat anymore.  This is my messy journey and I do have control over the choices I make. Remember – you have to make a choice to take a chance to make a change. We don’t always believe we have any control when we have anxious feelings. That little voice tries to convince us we have to panic, we aren’t ok, and we have no control.  But we always have a choice. There are things we can control in life and it starts with our choices.  From this moment on, I am going to take a chance to make a choice NOT TO RINSE AND REPEAT.  And you can too!  It’s your messy journey and you have the ability to make the choice NOT RINSE AND REPEAT!