Breathing

Some days, the very best (but often the least utilized) therapy is simply BREATHING. Long, slow, and deep. A very vital life-activity that can literally hush that racing heart, steady those trembling hands, and silence those darting thoughts. In this day and age when we are all competing for the prize of the BUSIEST, you have the ability to make a conscious decision to RELAX and RELINQUISH control. Your mind is more powerful than you realize.

Try it now. Seriously. Oxygen can be quite palliative.

Inhaling peace, exhaling chaos.

Inhaling confidence, exhaling deficiency.

Inhaling clarity, exhaling uncertainty.

My thoroughbred-themed young adult novel

I’ve put it off long enough. Ever since the fifth grade when I used the Xerox in the church office to make twelve copies of my thoroughbred-themed young adult novel, I have felt this tugging to write.

Tonight, the official ‘Amanda Porter, NP’ blog was born and IT. FEELS. GOOD. (although sadly there will likely be no more talk of thoroughbreds, but mostly of mental health and a few life ponderings).

Writing can be so liberating and constricting at the same time. Because there is this lurking thought: who am I to be doing this? What do I know, and what do I have to offer? There will forever be a sense that I am unqualified, a sense of self-doubt. And what if there are (gasp) critics?

On the flip side, there’s a relief that comes with getting it out of your system and a restlessness that remains until you do. And there’s A LOT to be said of the therapeutic effect of journaling (#introvert) and exposing your creative art (whatever it may be) to the world. And as Emily Freeman has taught me: anything that helps me become more fully myself is NEVER a waste of time.

So, here’s to actually FULFILLING a New Year’s Resolution, and hopefully becoming the Jen Hatmaker of the mental health world.