Can I just start by saying thank you... thank you for your love and your support and your encouragement and all your beautiful words you sent me via comments and messages and emails after my post last week.
I had hit a real low point, like low kind of low and my anxiety had spiralled com[pletely out of control.
Anxiety and I have never been friends, but most days I am able to keep it at arms length so I was SO pissed off with myself that I had left the door open enough for it to creep in and surprise me like it did.
In hindsight, I was exhausted.
Bone tired exhausted, and as far as anxiety is conerned... being that exhausted is as good as leaving a pizza menu on the doorstep of someone who has given up carbs for lent.
Two words... EASY TARGET.
Last Tuesday night when the panic took hold off me - I begged the universe to give me a sign that it would all be ok... something... anything.
Geez, I was happy with a sniff of a rag used to wipe up someone elses something.
And would you believe it... those signs started coming in thick and fast.
Asides from the overwhelmingly beautiful show of support I received from people far and wide... including YOU GUYS, there were people who out of the blue, walked into the studio fell in love with our space and want to collaborate.
Then there was the incredible energy shared by our guests at our very first workshop in our new home. I could have kissed every single one of them for making me so happy that day.
And then there were reminders of just how many reasons I have to be grateful.
Those reminders were literally everywhere I looked and there were also endless opportunities for me to make a difference to some others who were having a far tougher time than I, tougher than I could even begin to comprehend.
Sometimes it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that "I don't have any time to volunteer" or "I don't have any money to give" or even the old "I'm only one person - what difference could I make?"
But it doesn't take much to make a difference, no matter how small that difference may seem.
A smile to someone who looks like they are having a particularly shitty day, a phone call to check up on someone else who is having a tough time, ten bucks made up of mostly shrapnel you find around your home, down the back of your couch or in the bottom of your hand bag...
It ALL makes a difference and the bonus you get apart from knowing you are helping someone else - is you automatically feel better about your own situation and grateful for what you do have and all the things that ARE right in your world.
So I have spent the last week with my eyes open for every opportunity to feel grateful and today I can honestly say that even though I still feel the lingering hangover of anxiety, compared to how I was feeling this time last week - I am happier and I am hopeful and I am so damn optimistic about what is to come.
The biggest reminder I have had over the past week has actually come via someone I don't know, someone I have never met and someone who will probably never know how truly grateful she has made me feel.
I'm sure Julia from Five Fairies and a Fella is no stranger to most of you guys, and if so then you surely know of the awful news that her fight with bowel cancer is sadly coming to an end.
Julia's story is not mine to tell, but if you aren't familiar with it - I implore you to visit her Facebook page here or her blog here.
Julia is brave and courageous and a true warrior in every sense of the word... but tragically her battle has been lost and all she has left to do is soak up the time she has remaining with her beautiful husband and girls and to turn every remaining breath into a precious memory to leave behind for those who know and love her.
Her friends have set up a Go Fund Me page to raise money to allow her husband and her little girls to be by her side between now and ... well then.
You don't need to give much if you don't have it. Believe me, I had a mere $20 that I could afford to give, but every contribution no matter how big or small will help Julia's family.
It wil help you too because just knowing that you can do something for someone else is a gift and the reminder that no matter how shit life may seem for us right now... we are doing alright in the bigger picture? Well, that is something that is worth a million times more than money you give.
Simply click the image below to donate whatever you can... if you can... and then go and hug your partner and your babies and say a word of thanks to the universe for reminding you of ALL that you do have right in your life right now.