First, I'd like to thank the Creator for blessing me with this spark.

Disclaimer: I am okay. It is important that you all know that. I am okay.

I am an anxious person. Lately, I don't know if it was because Mercury was retrograding its behind off, other personal issues or a combination of both, but August has been a hellish month for me. The month's stressors caused me to be more anxious than normal and to the point that I wondered if my therapist was right last month when she said that I don't suffer from anxiety.

I needed to check myself. So I began processing (both internally and externally) to determine what was causing the stress. I read more, prayed more, practiced crystal therapy, did yoga more than usual and started an "overcoming anxiety" plan on my Bible app. Bringing me to today and the reason for this post.

I'm on Day 5 of 7 of this plan, and today's topic was on "remembering gratitude." There was a little exercise that involved scanning my room to locate 5 red things. This proved to be quite difficult since I don't really own anything that's red, but I powered through. Next, the exercise instructed you to not look away from the phone and try to recall the yellow things that were around the red items.

Impossible.

The point of the exercise was to illustrate what happens when you focus on the red (stressors, anxiety triggers) and not the yellow (faith). What gets your focus is who you become. If you're praying to God to remove your worry, but then leave your meditation only to worry about what you just asked God to take care of, you're focusing on the red and not the yellow. You have to relinquish control. The idea is so simplistic, but it got to me. I think I finally listened.

The final exercise was to list 10 things that we are grateful for. You would think this would be an easy task, I mean, it's only 10 things, right? Wrong. It took me a solid 2 minutes to come up with 10 things I'm grateful for--and that's a long time. So I took that to my prayer. I admitted to God that I was so focused on what was causing the stress this last month and trying to control it, that I wasn't looking at what good was occurring. I wasn't being grateful for what I was being given. Doors are opening in my life in ways I didn't think possible, I was taking myself out on dates again, making new friends, etc. I apologized to the Creator for that and asked for help with the reset. Refocusing on the good in my life. I'm a firm believer in energy, and I realize that one of the reasons I was so stressed was because I was spending so much time with it instead of focusing on the good and embracing gratitude for it. Also being grateful for the stress. There are GOOD lessons to learn from situations that stress you out and cause anxiety. You'll learn them if you allow for stillness and quiet instead of trying to control.

This is a glass half empty/half full situation, people. It's all in how you look at things. Last month, I was grateful for what was happening in my life, this month I could only focus on what wasn't happening. And some pretty great things happened! I understand that the red will happen, I'm not naive or trying to bury my head in the proverbial sand. The red will happen, and that's fine. But I can choose whether or not I want to wallow in it, and I can decide HOW I let it impact me. Remembering to be grateful will keep the anxiety at bay. I'm returning to her.

I don't think I have some grand message or opinion for you today, I just wanted to share my thoughts. I had a breakthrough moment and I felt like writing. Thanks for reading.