Happy New Year & a Freebie for YOU!

Well the end of 2008 is here and a new year is about to begin! I am looking forward to new things to come in 2009 and hope you are too!

My Mom, who has traced her Indian heritage, become an official member of an Indian Clan and has been given her Indian name, sent an email tonight that really spoke to me and I want to share it with all of you! But before I do that, I want to preface this with a bit of background information about me. I will try to make it short because honestly, I never thought that I would share information this personal about myself.

About a year and a half ago (the summer of 2007), I started to have panic attacks. I didn’t realize that this is what was happening to me until this last summer (2008) when I was finally diagnosed with Panic/Anxiety Attacks and Agoraphobia. I have a great doctor and she has spent a lot of time with me to find out what was going on. She said recently that I am over analyzing it and that I need to “stop trying to figure out the whys and the triggers because she believes that there aren’t any. It just happens.” I do attempt to go out and about and when I do, I prefer to have someone with me just incase, but Eric is always my first choice, whether it is to a place like Target or even a grocery store. I am able to go to and from work usually without issue, but on occasion have had a panic attack or two while at work. Within the last few months or so, not only have the number of panic attacks increased for me but the intensity has become so overwhelming that I become physically ill usually while the attack is happening and it seems to drain me of all of my energy afterwards. (Even as I type this, I am beginning to feel an attack coming on. I am dripping with sweat, my breathing has increased, my stomach hurts, and my hands are shaky and tingling.)

So when I read the email tonight, I felt that it was speaking to me and thought to myself, that I know that I am not the only person in this world that is dealing with something like this. The quote that she sent to me gave me hope and I am printing it out and I am going to hang it o my bathroom mirror so that I see it every day as a reminder. Be sure to read that last line, it’s a doozy!

Below is a quote from book: A Cherokee Feast of Days, Daily Meditations by Joyce Sequichie Hifler: It expresses my feelings/prayers on this day looking forward to 2009:

If, like a Cherokee warrior, I can look at the New Year as an opportunity to stand on new ground, then strength and courage are on my side.

If I have waited a long time for everything to be perfect—and there have been moments, brief as they were, that filled my expectations—then I can face the challenges.

I will remember that things do work out, bodies do heal, relationships mend—not because I said it, but because I believe it. But it is time to make things right, to stay on the path.

As water runs fresh and free from the woodland spring, so new life and meaning will bubble up from my own inner source.

I will be still and steady, because there is nothing to be gained by showing fear in chaotic world.

I can turn from ignorance and prejudice toward a light that never goes out.

“The death of fear is in doing what you fear to do.” ~ Sequichie ComingDeer


Something to think about as we all move into this New Year, 2009! I will overcome this fear! I have to! I really want to be able to go grocery shopping or go out and about without having tag-a-longs all of the time. When my daughter graduates high school in 2010, I want to be able to attend the ceremony! There are a lot of things that I am missing out on right now, that I really want to be doing and just haven’t been able to. So instead of making new year’s resolutions, which I normally don’t make anyways because I would usually break them when I did, I will just set a small goal to attempt to go out and about, to a place other than my job, once a week. Now honestly, that scares me just thinking about it and if that just ends up being too much, then I will attempt it every other week and just try to build up from there. I used to be on the go constantly and I was living! I want to get back to really living outside of the walls of this house again!

Speaking of making realistic goals! Stop by Rina’s blog to read what Denise has to say about making short term/realistic goals and of course be sure to pick up the fab-U-lous freebie which is a gorgeous January 2009 Desktop. I think our Royal Court Muse, Denise was speaking to me also and just didn’t know it!

Before you go, feel free to download the new Blog Wear freebie that I have for you also! I used my Snowmen Kit to create it!

Download here and Enjoy!!!!
If you make your blog super cute using my Blog Wear, link me up! I'd love to see it!!!!