Friday, June 16, 2017

Only One Direction From Here

The past 15 years of my life have been one long roller coaster ride. The last three years seeming to be one thing immediately after another - a mix of personal situations and health complications that have just seemed to be almost non-stop.

The last few months being the most hard hit - seemingly with no reprieve in sight and I have had plenty of days where I wasn't sure I could manage "one more thing". There have been deaths of close loved ones, ends to friendships, home upheaval and chaos, a new scary health diagnosis, and travel ... ALL in the last 3 months.

It was a LOT and yet, I was still plugging through. With a lot of tears and meltdowns, mind you and days of wanting to sit home and eat ice cream and cry that "it isn't fair" and that "I hate the world" ... but I wasn't (much) ... I was still doing it. Still managing life.

In the midst of it all, through a social media encounter I ended up planning (while on a train to somewhere else) a last minute whirlwind trip to Reno for two weeks to work with Kathy Reynolds to record new video for Yoga for Scleroderma and to add another yoga certification to my bag of tricks, as well as becoming certified to teach Yoga for Scleroderma ... How cool considering I am already certified to teach yoga ... oh, and I have Scleroderma! LOL. I was looking forward to this opportunity, but on the heels of everything, I already knew this was going to be "a lot".

And it was.

Getting to Reno ended up being what I thought was "the straw that broke Lori's back".

By the time I reached Reno, I was done. Airport security was hard. Luggage was hard. Plane aisles and seats were too cramped. Seatbelts were stuck in cracks I couldn't get them out of. Hitting my knuckles and elbows on things. Everything was just SO hard. I was exhausted. I was cooked. I was throwing in the towel on pretty much everything. I was going to get through this two weeks and then go home and never leave my house again. In my head I was planning my backyard and home sanctuary so that I could remain in a place that didn't stress me out, was easy to maneuver and nothing was hard or a struggle. I wasn't going to deal with the "outside world" any more than I had to. My travel days were over. Finished. Caput.

While on my layover in Dallas, I even cried to my closest friends "this was stupid. I don't know what I was thinking. I can't do this."

What? Who is THAT person? Anyone that knows me for more than five seconds knows that that is not how I roll. I figure shit out. I get it done. I persevere. I rock on.

Not this time. This time I was done. I just didn't have anymore energy. I didn't have anymore desire to "figure shit out". I didn't have anymore of anything. I really felt like this must be my rock bottom.
Once I got out of the terminal in Reno, things started to look up. I wasn't changing my plans of becoming a hermit, but things were starting to look a little better. The rental car receptionist threw in a kick-ass free upgrade for my rental car. I got a good night's sleep and the next morning, I went for a nice drive in the middle of nowhere - driving and seeing nature soothes my soul and clears my head.

My perspective was starting to brighten.

THE NEXT DAY EVERYTHING CHANGED!

After an AWESOME day shooting this video and connecting with amazing people that share my vision and my desire to make life easier for folks with Scleroderma - we have new plans set in motion. I am now able to give back in a way that I've been wanting to but didn't know how to execute or facilitate. Now I have the right pieces of the puzzle. I have some amazing new people in my life to move these dreams forward with. I FINALLY have a way to tie some of the ends of my life together in a way that finally make it all seem right.

I have a purpose.

Some of the "how to get from here to there" will need research and refining ... and that's OK. That's what I do! That's how I serendipitously fell into this whole "Yoga for Scleroderma" endeavor anyway ...because I know how to research, modify and refine .. all on the fly to make things work. Whether its yoga or my life ... I just figure out how to make it work. And I have a great support system. I just need to learn to ask them for ideas and help.

Rock bottom ... just a launching pad to do what we do .... persevere and rock on!

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