What word did you choose and why?

Balance

I chose this word for a very specific reason.  I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 11.  A lot of people don’t understand what that means: It’s an imbalance of emotional and thought processing.  So for a lot of my youth – i was very hyper -picture a bouncy ball in a box, that was my mind.  I had a lot of high highs and a lot of low lows. 

When I was 19, I tried to take my life.  I turned to my parent’s and they helped me get the help I needed.  I struggled at inpatient therapy – I knew that I had a good life – i just had a major chemical imbalance in my brain.  So to get closer to getting balanced, I started seeing a therapist that I had been seeing since I was 11 and I met with a new Psychiatrist – so with this combination, I wanted to work on getting off of medication.  For the life goals I had, I needed to be off of it all. With their help, I was able to do that. 10 years later, I had my beautiful son. 

My son has a lot of health issues and working through that, really started to affect my mental health.  On top of that, I decided I wanted to take on a massive project.  

I now understand that taking on big stressors is really hard for someone like me.  I do have an illness.  I am bipolar.  There is no cure.  When I got of medication, my doctor explained you may be good for a while and you may struggle later on as life evolves. So with all of that – I’ve been working on getting back to balance.  That means saying no to things.  It means practicing yoga more than I teach.   It means getting balanced in all areas of my life.