Day 2- Music

Music is my life.

I think this image pretty much sums up why.

The best way I can express myself is through music. There are times when I am not even sure what feelings I am having, but music helps me to figure them out. Music also can lift me when I am feeling down.

In 2011 our really close friend (who was practically family) tragically died. It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through. I was hurting deeper than I ever knew possible. A couple days after it happened, I was driving to the store. I was sobbing and crying out to God asking him to take the pain from me. Immediately a song came on the radio. It was a song by The Afters called, "Lift Me Up."



In the short drive to and from the store, the song came on one station after another so that I heard it the entire time. Over a couple week period, every time I turned on pandora or the radio in the car, this song would come on. This song carried me through the most difficult time of my life. It helped to heal me little by little with each time that I heard it.

Music holds a lot of memories for me. This song will always take me to that time and the healing that took place. I have many, many songs that bring up all sorts of memories happy, sad, good, and bad. I just love how music can provide an outlet, can provide a way of expressing myself, can provide healing, bring back memories from when I was a kid, and help me feel joy.

Alone With My Thoughts

I have mentioned before that getting healthy isn't just physical health. Mental, emotional, and spiritual health are just as important. This post is focusing on those aspects of health.

Today my friend was in need. She needed me to deliver something important 2 hours away. I gladly helped her out, but honestly was a little afraid to be alone with my thoughts. I was happy to get to have a 4 hour break from everything and not have kids fighting or demanding things from me, but I'm not used to being left alone to think. So that made me feel a little anxiety.

I turned up the music so I wouldn't think much, but some music brought back memories and so did some places I drove by. Those memories were hard to have resurface. I tried quickly to push them back to the far back of my mind to keep them hidden like I've done for years. Because that is safer...

Then a scene from a show that I watched earlier today popped into my head. The girl had been sexually assaulted. She was embarrassed and felt ashamed. She felt if anyone knew they would see her as unfit for her job (she was a police officer) and see her as a victim. She was told that by not speaking out about it, that she was a victim. But that if she pressed charges, spoke out about it then she wouldn't be a victim any more. She would be taking back the power.

This made me think a lot. All these years of being ashamed, feeling guilt, and embarrassment. All these years of hiding what I went through. I didn't allow myself to heal. It is all still buried deep inside me. It tears me apart daily. It has made me feel powerless. I'm tired of feeling powerless.

As long as I keep everything buried instead of actually healing from it, my mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, AND my physical health WILL be affected. Now it is figuring out how to heal.

I think that often times when someone is struggling with weight issues and some health issues, that they have things buried that they need to figure out how to dig back up, deal with it, heal from it, and never let it weigh them down again. It is a hard thing to do and I'm not sure yet HOW to do it.. but I think it is important enough to figure out so that I can be a healthier person on all levels.

What things do you need to work through in order to allow yourself to get healthy? I encourage you to ponder that question.