2010: Goodbye

I'm so glad 2010 is over. I can say that I learned a lot about myself and I change a lot in very positive ways. So here's the breakdown:

1. I learned just how stong I really am. You know I have this anxiety I get and I can really feel defeated by situations and life in general, but I never gave up. I had to move, adjust to my new/old life and make new plans for my future. There's a lot in my life that I've had to overcome or just plain make it through alive and maybe since I had gotten through a lot of that pain and dealt with it, going through this last year seemed like the worst of all of it. In reality, it wasn't. I cried way too much and shut myself out from everyone several times but I didn't just give up on my life. I finally just decided that I had to be over it all and move on. Of course as soon as I made that decision my life turned all around again except this time for the better.

2. Focusing on the present isn't easy, but you're a lot happier than just trying to get through now to get to tomorrow. This was a huge downfall for me in the past. It prevented me from seeing the little important things in my life. Now that I focus on what's going on today and in this moment I feel so much better about what I'm doing and where I'm headed. It's no longer a race to get somewhere else and a dissapointment that I'm not there yet.

3. My goals and "wants" are just as important as other people's. I have a tendency to put others before myself. I really learned that it can lead to resenting that person even though it was my choice to put what I wanted on the back burner. Also, by having my own goals I can keep focused on what is important to me while still helping out others.

4. Not all doctors will make you feel like a nut job. Funny that I see a specialist after repeated "it's stress" responses from my doctor, the results are given to my doctor and I'm told that the findings were unrelated to my pain. "It's stress and if you can't manage it on your own to make it go away, we will put you on stress relieving medication." I switch doctors for this and several other reasons and after a bad bout with the pain I get up the nerve to brave asking the new doctor about it. I explain my history and he reviews the results from the specialist. The pain was related to the results in fact that's the whole cause! (Sorry for being vague on what it actually was.) I just really couldn't believe it, I mean I went to the other doctor 4 times and to 1 specialist for the problem and I am treated like I'm crazy yet the new doctor tells me right away what it could be after I describe the symptoms and confirms it from the previous tests' results! You can't let people just brush you off, especially when it comes to your health. If you think it's more that just stress or whatever their conclusion in, get a second opinion. The second opinion could be exactly like the first but you'll save so much stress and worry (and money) by doing so.

So many more lessons were learned and so many other things that I could share but these were the core things of 2010. Here's hoping 2011 is better and full of pocitivity.