Less than a week before our first OCONUS PCS (overseas move) last summer I found myself headed to the hospital. A week before a total of three sets of moving companies would be showing up at my house…a week before we closed on the sale of our home and officially became (temporarily) homeless. In other words, not a great time to be seeking medical treatment.

My doctor had ordered a chest x-ray and blood panel to figure out the source of persistent pain in my chest and fatigue that had completely sidelined me and forced me into bed. As I drove, my mind was filled with questions. Do I have pneumonia? Is this COVID? Am I dying? 

Last week I shared the first half of my top ten takeaways of 2020. Today, I’m digging into the second half of these lessons: How my stress and anxiety got the best of me in 2020…and what I learned in the process. 

Find Strategies to Release Stress 

Spoiler alert: I didn’t die. And I didn’t have pneumonia. But my anxiety had gotten the best of me.

I’ve said for several years that all the systems of our body are connected. When we allow negative stress to build up in our body, it can lead to a variety of unwanted physical, mental and emotional responses. And while I knew this, it didn’t stop me from experiencing it firsthand.

And so a week before our big move, I ended up sick in bed. Low grade fever, fatigue and chest pain that wouldn’t go away. I knew I needed to keep sorting and packing, but I had zero energy. The results of my x-ray and lab work? Low Vitamin D and advice from the nurse to “manage my stress better.”

While the nurse was correct, her advice was unhelpful to me in the moment. At that point, there was little I could do lessen the stress in my life. After months of uncertainty, we finally received orders to move…three weeks before we closed on the sale of our house. We needed to coordinate the shipping of our vehicle and a total of three separate pickups of our belongings, before finding a place to live for a month while we waited on our flight overseas (in the middle of a pandemic). This would be followed by two weeks of quarantine with three small children in a strange location with whatever we had in our suitcases. 

We’ve been through several extremely stressful moves before, so I wondered why this move? What was it about this move that had caused my stress levels to explode into a full-blown anxiety attack? In hindsight, there were two distinct differences about this move:

1. 1. By the time the actual move happened, my stress had been building for a long period of time.

2. I didn’t have strategies to release stress. 

My anxiety and stress increased drastically with the onset of the pandemic. I worried about catching this strange new illness. At the same time, I was trying to sell a house, keep said house clean, work from home, and take care of three young children full time. My stress inputs drastically increased and for a sustained period of time.

The other big difference in this move was no stress release. I typically do my best to make space in my schedule for activities that help me release stress. For me, this includes activities like regular chiropractic care, deep tissue massages, alone time, sitting in coffee shops and girls’ nights out. None of these activities were easily available to me due to COVID. And those activities were not replaced with other outlets to release the stress in my body. As a result, my health suffered. Lesson learned. When stress increases, make sure you have healthy outlets to release stress.

Self-Care is not Selfish 

This takeaway is related to the previous one. Often times we think of self-care as a selfish act. Isn’t it selfish to think of our own needs? Shouldn’t we be solely focused on others?

Honestly, sometimes self-care is the most others-centered thing you can do. Why? Because when our cup is empty, we have nothing to give others. We can even end up, as I did, sick and unable to do anything for anyone. Conversely, when we do things that fill and fuel us with life (self-care), we have a full well to draw from. Healthy inputs – mentally, physically, and spiritually – lead to healthy outputs. 

I was already struggling to take care of myself going into 2020. A year with three kids under the age of five, including a newborn, makes self-care challenging. But I knew it was important. In fact, one of my big goals for 2020 was to prioritize taking care of myself. 

But then COVID happened. I didn’t know how to implement COVID-friendly self-care and I felt overwhelmed. And so I did nothing. Instead of finding ways to incorporate things that fueled and filled me with life, I continued to pour from an empty cup. In the end, it ended up having negative consequences for my health and my family. 

Looking back, I now understand even more that self-care needs to be a part of my regular routine. The methods of self-care may need to shift based on what options are available to me in a given season of life (newborn, pandemic, deployment, etc), but prioritizing self-care should not. Self-care isn’t selfish. 

Focus on Contribution

In the messy middle of whatever challenge you are facing, life can feel overwhelming. It can be difficult to see a light at the end of the tunnel or believe that life won’t always feel this heavy. It can be hard to believe that things will get better. There were plenty of days in 2020 that I felt this way.

Last week I shared a few of the strategies I used to reframe my thoughts about my circumstances. Strategies like adopting a role model mindset. Celebrating the fact that we grow through challenge. And choosing to acknowledge our feelings. 

At the end of the day, what got me through many dark days was not focusing on some light at the end of the tunnel or reciting a nice affirmation. It was focusing on others. Specifically, it was focusing on my family and the contribution I wanted to make in the world. 

Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist that survived the concentration camps in World War II, wrote that the quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing. Meaning is found in contribution beyond self. 

I put his theory to the test this year and found it to be true in my own life. In the midst of my crazy move and health issues and anxiety, I focused on being grateful for my family and asking, “What contribution do I want to make? How can I move closer to the person I want to become? What steps do I need to take to get there?” 

This perspective got me outside of myself and reminded me that life is not about me or my struggles. I shifted my thoughts to, “Here is how I want to serve others. Here are the actions I need to take if I want to be this kind of person. And even though I cannot see how I can serve others in my current state, my job is to put one foot in front of the other and take baby steps in a forward motion.”

I can say that choosing to focus on how I want to show up and serve helped pull me out of the black hole of anxiety. And it gave me so much more clarity about how I want to show up and serve others moving forward. 

Showing Up Won’t Always Solve the Problem 

I think often times we believe that once we take control of our mindset and our response, our circumstances will magically improve. Life doesn’t work that way. We can’t control the circumstances, only our response to them. And a better response doesn’t guarantee us the outcome we want. It won’t always solve the problem. 

Once I realized that my anxiety was out of control and that my physical health had taken a nosedive, I took actions to reduce my anxiety and improve my physical health. But change didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it was almost two months before my health started returning to normal. 

I would love to tell you that after two months of taking better care of myself, everything turned around. That isn’t what happened.

Three months after my stress and anxiety landed me in bed the first time, I found myself in bed yet again. This time with shingles. 

If you’ve never experienced it, shingles is an extremely painful virus that can last in your system for weeks or months. A virus often brought on by stress.

I had just gotten back into working out regularly and was starting to build up my endurance. I was forced back into bed, just as we finally received our household goods (after three months of living without our stuff). 

I was so frustrated by the situation and so overwhelmed with my pain. But I had another choice to make. How was I going to respond to this new set back? 

What did I do? I acknowledged my frustration. I reminded myself that growth comes through adversity. I chose to be a role model. I chose to focus on what contribution I wanted to make. I reminded myself that a physical illness doesn’t change who I am trying to become. I reminded myself that this too shall pass. And once again I started putting one foot in front of the other and taking baby steps in a forward motion.

Reflection is Critical to Growth

“Experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated experience is.”  

John Maxwell

At the beginning of 2020, I had grand plans for the healthy habits I was going to implement in my life. None of those plans came to fruition. Instead I battled my way through stress, illness, anxiety, and adversity.

I don’t have any major accomplishments to show for 2020. But was 2020 a failure? Was I a failure in 2020? 

Absolutely not. Because at the end of the day, it matters less what we accomplish and more how we show up each and every day.

When I sat down to reflect on 2020, I walked away with a surprising gift.

2020 brought me gifts of anxiety, of fear, frustration, discouragement and self-doubt. I spent a lot of the year stuck in the messy middle as I wrestled with these feelings and fought to keep moving forward. But at the end of the day, these feelings were a part of my year, but they are not what will define my year.

Instead, when I look back on 2020 as a whole, I see the battle that I fought. I see the effort I put in.

In and of itself 2020 is not a year I am eager to repeat. But in hindsight, I am leaving 2020 feeling empowered. Because I didn’t let my circumstances win. Because I kept moving forward. And because I still have hope for a better tomorrow. 

Taking Time to Reflect on 2020

So before you say “good riddance” to 2020, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your year:

• What are you thankful for?
• What are you proud of?
• How did you grow?
• What do you need to let go of?
• And what lessons do you want to take with you into 2021?

I think you’ll find, upon reflection, that there are blessings and lessons that you can take from 2020. It is not a total loss. My hope is that you will find that 2020 is a year in which both sorrow and joy, fear and peace, confusion and clarity coexisted. Search out the blessings of 2020. And choose to make 2021 a year of continued growth, learning and impact, regardless of what happens. 

Wishing you a year of greater joy, purpose and impact!

Christine