Peaceful

Today is my 11th day. Today was also my second counseling session. May I first begin with this statement?

God is awesome. 

I work in the social work field, which means that our corporation pays a company to give us free counseling. I get three free sessions just because of where I work, the only catch is I have to go to whatever counselor is in the network. In Champaign, which is 25 miles from my house, there are a few counselors. I just picked a random one, well the lady on the referral line picked her, I simply agreed. You know why God is awesome? She's the perfect counselor for me. There are NO accidents in life. 

I had my first session last week and I just can't explain how completely safe I felt. She's this old Chinese lady who is all about natural healing. Um...yes! If you're not close to me or don't know a lot about me you might not understand why this is important. I am extremely adamant about not taking meds of any kind. I mean, literally the only drug I put into my body is caffeine (which I would like to slowly cut out). I don't take ibuprofen for a headache, I drink water. I don't take Midol for cramps, I do yoga and deep breathing. My counselor, Ann, is all about listening to your body and your mind and incorporating all of these things together to heal yourself. 

Today we did a brain exercise that literally blew me away. I walked out of her office literally feeling like I was floating. I had to text Abbyblujay just to tell her about the floating because I just felt so good. When I got to the office the first thing I had to do was take off my shoes. Fun fact: I love being barefoot, so I was instantly excited. Ann had me write a sentence on a notepad, any sentence, about anything. I wrote "I'm excited to have the day off and have a day for myself". Then I stood on a balance board, facing the wall, doing some twisting motions. Ann told me that this would be like a "brain massage". After I did the twists, I had to throw a beanbag in the air and catch it, while watching it 10 times to the left, center and right. Then I turned on the board so I was standing with the rockers so I rocked forwards and backwards instead of left to right. I did the twisting and the beanbag exercise again. Ann had me step off the board and walk around, first of all, I had supermodel posture which was amazing, second of all, I felt weird...in a good way. Ann handed me a folded up piece of paper and had me write another sentence. I wrote "I'm feeling good about today, very optimistic". She unfolded the paper and it had my first sentence at the top. Now, while the content of the sentences hadn't changed much, my penmanship had and the amount of pressure I had written with. My second sentence was visibly lighter than the first and the spacing indicated peacefulness. 

In my session Ann had me think of a positive memory, and I chose being at the beach yesterday. We focused on that and I did breathing exercises and eye exercises as we talked. Something that was really neat is she moved her hand in a few different ways and had me choose which one was most appealing to me. I chose the figure 8 motion and we incorporated that into my breathing and movement. As I talked I began to trace figure 8's on my leg with my finger and move my hands, almost hypnotically in a figure 8. She had me remember something mildly upsetting and had me be hyper aware of my body. I noticed myself tense up and clench my fingers. We did that a few times, retraining my brain to react differently. The word I focused on was "peaceful". 

I told her that my whole life people have told me how strong I am. Even now, the friends that do know what I'm going through, "Sarah, you are the strongest woman I know." I've always prided myself on being so strong and tough. I told Ann how it was really neat that the word I chose to focus on was "peaceful" because it shows how my priorities have changed in the past 11 days. I don't find strength in being strong,  I just want to be peaceful. When I'm strong, I don't feel, I hold it in, I suppress. I want to be peaceful. I want to know I have struggles, I have demons, I have bad memories, I have ugliness, but I'm at peace with it. I want to feel this way. 

I had it in my head that I might relapse this week. It's not going to happen. Want to know why? I love this feeling so much that I don't want to ever feel the guilt, anxiety and ugliness that comes along with relapse. I want to float. I love counting up. 11 days. 11 days of healing, beauty, and God's glory reigning inside me. I pray that if you don't know God, you search for him. There is something so divine when he takes over your heart. He changes you, forms you so perfectly that you feel strength in his strength.

There's a saying "If you want to know where heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders". That saying used to disgust me, because I knew where my mind went. It made me feel awful to think that's what my heart was made of. Let me just tell you, my mind has been wandering straight to the throne lately and that makes me happier than anything. I love the God words that come from my mouth. I ask that you keep praying for me, here are some specific prayers you can pray for me. 

1) Pray that God's words fill my heart and mouth

2) Pray that in my weakness I would turn to the Savior 

3) Pray that my heart breaks and fills for God 

4) Pray that His will be mine

5) Pray that I hear Him everyday 

"Her mouth speaks from that which fills her heart" 

-Luke 6:45