A Love Letter to Me

It's a rough night.
It's been a rough week.
Month.
Semester.

In an attempt to process some feelings, I started working on a writing assignment given to me by my new therapist.

There are 5 categories. You start by expressing your feelings of:

1. anger and blame
2. hurt and sadness
3. fear, insecurity and loneliness
4. guilt and responsibility
5. love, forgiveness, understanding and desire

If at any point you feel emotions from a previous category, you go back up and let it all out, working down to the bottom.

What was cool is that when I got to that last level, one of the prompts was:

"I love you because..."

And I felt strongly that I needed to direct that part to me.

Jesus taught us to love others as we love ourselves.

But what if we don't love ourselves??

If I spoke to other people the way I speak to myself, I would have no friends, and lots of hurt feelings directed at me.

So why is it okay to treat myself like dirt???

Spoiler Alert: IT'S NOT

I've always endeavored to live by the golden rule, but now it needs flipped.

"Do unto yourself as you would do unto others."

I'm all about love notes for others, so here's one for me.

Dear Natalie,

I love you because you have chosen to be brave and strong. I love you because you're fighting instead of cowering to your inner demons. I love you because you're keeping your promises, even though it's really hard. I love you because you're humble enough to get help, and teachable enough to internalize what you're taught. I love you because when you ache, you accept God's invitations to serve others. I love you because you are a daughter of God who is priceless, worth fighting for, and YES, absolutely deserving of love.

Love,
Natalie

Living My Truth

 We don't always have a say in the hand we're dealt.

But the next play made is our call.

Sometimes it doesn't feel that way. 

When I first got help for my panic attacks, the therapist taught me this:

"It feels like you can't control whether or not you breathe, but you can."

Sometimes it takes longer than I'd like, but I always find a way to keep breathing.

And that's what makes me who I am.

Not the fact that I couldn't breathe in the first place.

It's terrifying how true this one is. 

I can be completely fine, and then get caught up in a memory from YEARS ago that sets me aching and/or panicking. 

The trick is to realize that there is not a dang thing I can do about the existence of that memory from my past. 

But I have all the control over the power it has over my present and future.

I have a really hard time with this. 

I don't want to be perceived as "needy," or "emotionally high maintenance." 

But if I think critically about this:

Need 1 exists.

It's not something I can take care of on my own.

I don't want to come off as needy.

I say nothing about Need 1.

Because Need 1 was not met,  needs 2, 3 and 4 make their appearances.

So in the long run, not voicing and taking care of my needs just makes me more needy and high-maintenance.

Anxiety and depression exist on a continuum.

At one end, you have the basic feelings that contribute to the average human experience.

It then extends to represent completely debilitating life long conditions.

It's a natural human response to be sad and/or anxious sometimes.

We all have moments.

We all feel stuck sometimes. 

Sometimes we dance around on the continuum.

The severity and longevity of our feelings change, but we're always somewhere on that line.

I'm not the same person I was 3.5 years ago, when this whole party got started.
The changes that the Savior and I have wrought in me do not negate the pain and hardship I've been through.
What's happened is this:
I've filled my "tool box."
I now have everything I need to be the one running the show.
And that's pretty great.

One Choice at a Time

Say what you will about BYU-I, this place has been all kinds of good for me.

One of the many blessings I've received from going here is free therapy.

I've been seeing Brudda Hman for about a month now and let me just say, this guy is exactly who I need right now. 

My personal opinion is that the best therapists don't try to change you.

The very best ones simply hold the space and act as a guide for you to do your work and change yourself.

Brudda Hman does that.

Something I love that he does is he'll be mid sentence and then say:

"No, the spirit is telling me to rephrase that."

So he does and what he ends up saying is always exactly what I need to hear.

I'm so grateful that homey is worthy to receive and listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

Each week I've met with him, he's taught me something new and given me something to practice:

Week 1: I am powerless. And that's okay. I get to make choices.

I'm a control freak.

Anyone who knows me personally is, I'm sure, super shocked to hear that news.

*wink wink, nod nod*

There are things in my life that I can't control.

Correction: There are A LOT of things in my life that I can't control.

There are lots of moments when I have to remind myself that I'm powerless.

But the important part of this is what comes next:

AND IT'S OKAY. 

It's okay! 

Really! 

Why?

I get to make choices. 

All I have to do is make the best choice possible, take a deep breath and carry one.

Which, real talk, is much easier said than done.

Some days, I literally have to take it one choice at a time.

"Okay, I choose to open my eyes even though I don't feel ready to face today."

"Great! Now I choose to skim through Instagram so that I can wake up."

"Excellent, now I choose to get out of bed."

One choice at a time.

That's how I make it through my hardest days.

I Am Still Alive

This has been a very hard week. 

One of the worst "brain weeks" of my life. 

The intrusive thoughts have been debilitating.

The depression has been crippling.

And the panic attacks have been nigh upon unbearable.

But in the words of Christina Perri:

"I am still alive."

Today, near the end of church I started to panic, and ache, and hurt. 

So we hustled out of there right after the "Amen." 

We went home, I took a pill and curled up on the couch.

Where I proceeded to writhe in pain for fifteen minutes.

Then, out of nowhere I started singing a Prince of Egypt song in my head:

"Deliver us, hear our call, deliver us."

And that's when I got motivated to spring into action. 

I went and ate something. 

I sat up and listened to Julie talk.

Then I turned on some peaceful music and laid down again.

Then Julie asked me to help her clean Bee's room.

So I went and laid on Bee's bed, folded clothes and told Julie where to put things.

Then Bee and E needed to pow wow about their love lives.

Then I felt motivated and ready to write the thoughts that have been accumulating this week.

What I learned most from today is how important it is to use all of the resources available to me:

Prayer, medicine, human connection, healthy habits (like eating regularly.)

And as I do my part, God does His.

Do I feel 1000% better?

No.

Am I laying on the couch writhing in pain?

No.

Am I worried about what this week hold?

Sure I am.

But do I have the tools and support system necessary to face what ever comes my way?

Absolutely.

Who Am I? (24601)

Do you ever feel like you're having an identity crisis?

No?

Just me?

Okay, that's fine. 

One of my teachers in the MTC once said, 

"You never know which version of Sister Lewis you're going to get." 

That's bugged me ever since he said it three years ago.

Especially because I know that he had a point. 

The struggle has been really real with this lately. 

There's this Natalie: 

 I enjoy her. 

Other peeps seem to enjoy her.

Then there's this Natalie:

(Ignore the hair if possible.)

I've been feeling like this a lot lately.

Especially in the morning.

Which is when most of my classes are. 

So I feel like the Natalie I'm "presenting" to the world isn't the "real" me.

But I can't just shut this personality off whenever I feel like it.

But I have noticed that when I go over to chill with the peeps at the end of my day, I start out like Poo Poo Natalie. But after being with humans who bring out the best in me, I'm myself again.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's okay to feel how you're feeling. 

It's okay if you can't change those feelings right away.

That's a really hard thing to do.

Maybe you need help.

It's okay to need help.

If there's anything I know, it's that surrounding myself with beautiful, kind, understanding humans is a sure-fire way to guarantee that I am my beautiful, kind, understanding self.

And slowly but surely, I'll find other ways to be who I want to be all the time. 

Until then, I'm just going to enjoy being me. 

Period.