Wow, 2022 was a doozy!

They say the The top five most stressful life events include:

• Death of a loved one
• Divorce
• Moving
• Major illness or injury
• Job change

And I had 4 of those! Looking back it was intense and yet very memorable. You know you’ve got those years that you refer to in your mind…the year you graduated, a big love came into your life, loss of a parent, a pandemic shook the world. This is one of those years for me. 2022!

Cosmo, my companion, sidekick and best overall dog buddy said his last goodbye this fall after almost 17 years together. Words can’t really describe the space he’s left!

I was asked to move out of my rental of 9 years so they could remodel and raise the rent. Searching for a new place was horrendous and downsizing was exhausting! I somehow made the move as difficult as possible with a month in between where we were in a temporary place and all of our storage was in my massage office and cars.

And Perimenopause kicked my butt the first part of the year with hot flashes, mood swings, crazy changes and frozen shoulder the last part of the year. While it may not seem like a major illness, perimenopause felt major to me. My weight sky-rocketed, my moods plummeted and lastly my shoulder freezing made me wonder if I’d be able to keep massaging. Eeks! Talk about stress!

My job’s partly changed since I’ve been dedicating more of my time and passion to hypnotherapy and RTT. Changing or adding jobs has been exciting. I love learning! Looking back over 2022, I see that throughout all of the above changes I’ve been learning and studying over 15 hours per week on top of everything else.

Stressful? Yess! Luckily I’ve learned some great tools for stress over the years.

• Breathwork/Qigong - simple and yet powerful.
  
  

• RTT/hypnotherapy - I had a session the day after Cosmo passed to help with the grief. I had a session for speeding up menopause that was incredible. I haven’t done it yet for the frozen shoulder, but it’s on the books.
  
  
• Rest - With all of the stressful changes, I knew that sleep was going to help me through it. You need good sleep. I wear my apple watch and track how my sleep is every night and make adjustments as needed. (we did go through a 3-mattress-change that disrupted over a month of good sleep!)
  
  
• Exercise - Walks in the new neighborhood, hikes and pilates have been really helpful to reduce stress.
     
• Massage - I practice what I preach. Massage is great on so many levels, physical, emotional and mental. Getting a massage every week or every other week is part of my self-care and it’s been a life-saver this year.
  
  
• Feeling - Feeling those feelings and talking about them is super important. Good friends, a loving partner or a trusted journal…get it out and let it go. No stuffing down or denying the feelings.
  
  
• Learning to ask for and get help - Finally, realizing that there are no extra bonus points or stars for doing everything alone and the hardest way. Asking for help, hiring help, and not having to be a superwoman has been an important key in thriving during this stressful year.

How about you? How’s 2022 been for you?

Looking back over 2022, it has been a doozy! With RTT, good friends, a loving partner and self-care practices in place…it didn’t knock me over. It rocked the boat, but definitely didn’t capsize it! In fact, it feels like my boat was upgraded to a small ship.