The kind of stress I was dealing with was being worried about my mom, who's friend's son had passed away. My sister and her family driving cross country for their first family vacation. Doing some extra driving to serve both of my sisters. Dog sitting for a lovely friend over the holiday weekend, knowing I'd be giving one of dogs anxiety medication because of the very loud "boom" sounds of fireworks. Going to a friend's sporting match. Fixing some odds and ends in my friend's house which I love to do.
It's a lot of activity in a short amount of time. Some of it was a lot of fun. Some presented challenges. I was able to prevent self injury, rest as much as I could, take preventative steps to reduce the stress and give myself permission to take things slow. Normally, I would get myself so wrapped up and worked up, I couldn't see past the trees.
Nowadays, I have a better chance of seeing past the trees when I look through them one at a time.
Recovering from stress is so important for the body and the mind.
What do you do to recover from stress?
Today is my five year anniversary of sobriety. Five years of choosing not to take a drink when things got really bad and really hard. Five years of choosing to follow God and not follow the bottle. Five years of saying "no" to the easy way out and yes to the way that will make me a stronger person. Five years of really hard living that would have made it easy to give up but instead I chose to walk the narrow path that has shaped me into a better person. Drinking for the alcoholic is easy. But alcohol never kept it's promise to bring me happiness. Sobriety isn't always easy. But sobriety kept it's promise that one day I would know happiness. I've been blessed to have many of those days. Thank you, God!
