Moment of Clarity

This "positivity kick" that I am on did not start right on New Year’s Eve. That is just when my intentions were set and my path became clearer. I had a moment of clarity months before that really put things into perspective.

Last spring I went to a doctor after a string of migraines that wouldn’t let up. Not one to have headaches frequently, let alone migraines, I knew something was not right so I decided to have it checked out. After some blood tests and a CT scan, a small growth was discovered on my meningeal tissue of my brain. It's suspected that it's a meningioma, which is a small tumour that is often benign.

Typically these types of tumours are asymptomatic and slow growing on the tissue surrounding the brain – not in the brain directly. A neurologist will typically monitor it and ensures it's not growing too much or too fast. If it does become problematic, we will then look at removal via radiation or surgery. This is usually only done as a last resort. You can find more info on meningiomas here.

I have an appointment to explore further, with a Neurologist in September, which is another soothing thought; if it were urgent, the neurologist would see me more immediately. That and, Sheryl Crow has had one for years without issue. I am not the kind of person who freaks out unless there are clear signs that freaking out is necessary. Even then, most of the time, I don't because freaking out never seems to fix the issue or help in any way. In this case, the doctors don't seem to be worried or in a rush, so I will follow their lead!

In the meantime, I haven’t been advised to do anything differently in terms of living life. I can eat, drink, exercise, socialize, and continue on as normal. But I what I realized at the time, was that I didn’t love how I was living life; I was in a fair amount of debt. I wasn’t eating right and I was 100 lbs overweight. I was always stiff and sore due to inflammation in my body and not exercising. I rarely went out with my friends anymore, and I was in a relationship that was slowly moving backward!

In the grand scheme of things, what I have, and where it is at in terms of growth, is quite minor, and absolutely not life-threatening. But it was enough to shock me, to give me that jolt, and to remind me to think about what is important and to take care of my body, mind, and spirit.

After hearing this news, I decided I really needed to start putting myself first. As a classic caregiver, I was constantly putting my own health on the back burner to attend to the needs of others, which turned out to be in vain in the end.

I ended my 6-year long, backward moving relationship. I had wanted it to work so badly, that I had moved out, but didn’t break it off at first. But it had been 10 months and things weren’t getting better for us, so in the spirit of putting myself first, I ended things at the end of August. A weight was lifted and I suddenly had more energy to focus on other things.

I got my finances in order with a major budget overhaul, courtesy of my dad’s lovely wife, who has experience personally and professionally in financial matters. I got advice and set up on a plan to pay off my debts, from a bankruptcy trustee, though I did not have to file for bankruptcy. I am not fully debt free just yet, but I have a plan and a budget and I am sticking to it. For the first time in my life, I have savings in my savings account. I’ll call that a win! Or at the very least, a ton of stress lifted off my shoulders.

Next, I focused on my health. I went back to my Naturopath to restart her weight loss program. I knew that I needed a sustainable plan for after the program, but that I also needed a springboard and some guidelines to get me on track to start. This isn’t for everyone, but I know that is what works for me. I need structure and rules and guidance until I am confident I can do it on my own. I am now on my second round of the program, and I am ready! I dream of healthy, colourful meals that often include avocados. I also recently refreshed my memory on the Paleo lifestyle, which conveniently goes hand-in-hand with CrossFit. I have done this in the past and it works really well for my body. But first, I had to tackle emotional eating, because you can know what you’re supposed to eat like the back of your hand, but it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t care.

So with health comes mental health. I started to going to one on one counseling. I met one of the counselors at my naturopath’s clinic. It’s an integrated health centre, which I love because I can go to many practitioners for many services and they will all work together for optimum results and health. I did one on one counseling sessions once a week, as well as a group session, for emotional eating, once a month. I also read and post regularly on the weight loss program's private Facebook group. Many of the members there, go to the group sessions and between online and real-life, I have made some pretty great new friends. There is a level of trust and support that is built when many people are working for a common goal and we can talk about it and open up about our struggles and emotions. Naturally.

Parallel to working on my health, I started reaching out to friends and catching up. Many of them picked up on my new outlook and commented on it. People are naturally drawn to positive people. Of course, they were there for me through the low points in my life too. I am the one who pulled away or fell out of touch, being fully engrossed in trying to fix my partner and our relationship, and I can’t blame them if they grew tired of hearing about the struggles I was going through, continually giving me advice, then seeing me continue to make the same mistakes, clueless as to why I was unhappy. I cannot express the amount of gratitude that I have for these people who were all seemingly more than happy to pick up where we left off. When it comes to my friends, I am truly blessed.

I started calling my mom more often too. She lives in Calgary while I live in Vancouver. Our chats are often long. Sometimes they are menial but they can also get pretty deep, but most often we laugh a lot. I used to dread long phone conversations and my mom has a knack for calling when I am out with friends or otherwise unable to answer, but I will admit that I was terrible at calling her back. Now we talk often and at length and my heart always feels full after.

My younger sister lives 15 minutes away from me, walking distance. She comes over often and is probably the person I see the most. She is always on the go so she has a key and she pops in when she is in the area. I love that we have this open and trusting relationship. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

My older sister and sweet 4-year-old nephew live a little further away. We see each other in spurts of often, then not. But between my decision to live my best life, and my intentions that I set for making more time for family, I certainly have been making more of an effort to see them, as well as message my sister to stay in touch. I truly hope to see more of her this year.

I make more time for my local family as well. My dad got married last spring and with his new wife, came 6 new siblings! And with 6 new siblings came new nieces and nephews too! Family gatherings are something to behold. I have been making an effort to get to know these people. Most of us are adults already so the dynamic is not something that can be forced. But we do have things in common and I am honing in on that and initiating one on one time when I can, to get to know them better. The one thing we ALL have in common is our love of food. So we often have dinners at the house all together, or I spend one on one time with the two eldest, while going out for dinner.

As blessed as I am to have wonderful friends, I am 100 times more blessed to have a big, loving, fun, supportive family and I definitely look forward to spending even more time with all of them in our ways.

Mental health. Physical health. Family. Friends. Self-care. Happiness. These are the things that I realized were important to me, and these are the things I chose to set my intentions around on New Year’s Eve. And funnily enough, after those intentions were set, things like the loss of my job (not a bad thing), blogging, photography, CrossFit, and socializing with my friends and family more, have fallen into place. Of course it takes effort to do these things, but it’s an enjoyable effort. These things invigorate me, feed my soul, and give me life.

Best of all, I have come to realize that you don’t look for happiness - it’s not something you find. It’s inside you already. You choose it. You nourish it. And you be it.