Don't you think it's Time to... LEAN INTO THE LIFE YOU IMAGINE

Hey You! 

Living My Best Life--- August 2021
Trip to Cape Cod

Yes, YOU!!!

Do you feel like somewhere along the way you've given everything you have to everyone and everything, but YOU?

Do feel like you have lost who you are?

Like you don't even know who you are or what your place in the world is? 

What your purpose and passion are any more?

I know exactly how you feel. 

I understand the frustration, the feeling 'less than' and like you are just going through the motions...

Not really living, and barely feeling like you exist.

As a widow I experienced this loss of self, of purpose, of worth and value when my husband died. 

All that I was, and thought I would be, died with him.

I struggled to find my identity.

I was no longer a wife. My children were grown and starting to live their own lives so I wasn't needed to take care of them....

So I immersed myself in my work. I worked 2 jobs.

I ate little, and slept even less.

I carved out time for fun, but I felt like I was living someone else's life.

And then, I got Covid. As a nurse, working with people in their homes, we were never really sure where Covid may be hiding. Some patients were positive, but the ones who never got tested, or whose families were not being careful... well, it takes a mental and physical toll on you when you are trying to fight an unseen foe.

I have been left with long term Covid. Neurological and physical problems that NO ONE has any idea how to treat. 

This has meant that THE ONE THING that I was able to escape into... my work as a nurse... has been taken away, and with it the last bit of my identity.

So, I have been on a journey to rediscover ME.

To find myself, my reason for being, my place in the world, my PASSION.

And I have found it in the programs I designed to myself!

I have been taking some classes and workshops to become an Empowerment Mentor... and I am now offering my program,

Lean Into YOU!

To You, free of charge, because I believe it's time for YOU to start living the life you dream of living...

It's time to LEAN INTO THE LIFE YOU IMAGINE

So---

IF you answered YES to any of those questions above...

This challenge is for YOU! 

We will work together over 5 days to help you to rediscover who you are, who you want to be and why this is so important for you to keep showing up for YOU! 

Join Me Oct 4^th - 8^th at 12 noon EST

Each session will be about an hour.

And YES... there will be homework... but it will be the good kind!

I promise.

To register for the Lean Into YOU 5-day challenge

go to www.Colormeeverything.com

and follow the link directions at the top of the page.

Or click HERE and send me your name, contact info and what you want to gain from this challenge! 

What is Your Worth... You ARE WORTHY!

What is your worth?

Did you know that everyone has value? 

That every person on this earth has something that someone else needs...

No matter where we are in this life....

someone else has been there before...

someone else has experienced the same feelings, heart aches, ups and downs, triumphs and sorrows...

Someone else has wisdom to impart that they have learned along the way.'

These Life Lessons give us insight, and knowledge and wisdom that others need to hear.

These Life Lessons offer hope and clarity and help others to get through the tough times and to begin to dream again.

So... Do Not Ask Yourself What is Your Worth...

Instead.... Remind Your Self that YOU HAVE VALUE AND THAT YOU CAN HELP OTHERS FIND THEIR WORTH TOO! 

How Did I Get Here?

How Did I Get Here?

I wrote this about 3 weeks after my Covid infection. 

I wrote it down over several days...

It was so hard to read and to write, most days I could barley think coherently...

Some days I could not read , write or think at all.

All I could do was lay down and cry in pain...

I found this journal entry that I have no memory of writing.

I have short term memory issues now and am finding notes I wrote to myself, Facebook lives I recorded, that I cannot even remember doing. 

This is hard to see and acknowledge ...

the lost minutes, hours and days...

and to realize that I continue to have all of these symptoms, even 6 months later.

This is the journal I wrote to myself in early January...

January 2021-

I spent 5 weeks in the basement. I went in the week before Thanksgiving, and came out on Christmas day. I was finally night-fever free and I had finally tested negative.

The symptoms came on every day for nearly 4 weeks. The headache, loud humming in my head and nausea started first. Then came the vomiting and diarrhea. Next, all over body pain, the most concentrated in my lower back and hips and down my thighs. It felt like the bones were being burned and crushed at the same time. The mental confusion and inability to think and read and write started and is ever present still. I would sleep for 20 hours a day for days at a time, then be awake 20 hours a day for days on end. The symptoms continued to add on with the night sweats starting about day 7. Somewhere along the way the left eye began to lose vision clarity and have a haze at the peripheral vision. I also was having severe chest pain and it felt like every heart beat my heart was being stabbed. My 02 levels would drop to 90 but my heart would race to 130s to keep the oxygen level up. My body was compensating. I could not walk across the room without severe dizziness and heart pounding, shortness of breath. Talking and walking was a chore. My breathing was labored at rest. My fingers, toes, and left side of my face are numb. And all the symptoms would come and go, no rhyme or reason, every day, throughout the day, with no end in sight.

I cannot manage from day to day with any real routine. Sometimes I am feeling good when I wake. The headache level is good at 5 but as the morning goes the dizziness or balance issue worsens. I cannot drive unless it is a no dizzy day. I get maybe 2 or 3 a week. I will go to the store for an hour or 3, just wandering around to get some exercise and take advantage of being out of the house. But when I get home, I crash in exhaustion and find that I just cannot function.

Driving takes a lot of concentration because of all of the stimuli. I can't handle too much noise, light, activity around me or I just can't focus. This makes doing things very hard at times. And is exhausting mentally and emotionally.

If I cannot work as a nurse, cannot drive with any regular schedule, cannot read and comprehend and think clearly on a regular schedule , then what will I do, how will I take care of me and make money?

I really want to start a podcast taking about the trials of widowhood, depression, COVID. And I want to start an online community for women who have experienced life altering events,  people like me, to be able to speak to each other in a safe place and find help and support and advice and wisdom from each other.

I am doing my facebook lives as The Crazy Covid Lady in the basement. I Started them Dec 19^th after 4 weeks in the basement.

I want to help people and my podcast, Beautifully Broken with Dawn- Learning to Let Your Colors Shine, is my way of trying to do that.

I have to stop writing because my head hurts so badly and my left eye vision is fading out. Like when a candle flickers then goes out, only it doesn't go out completely, it just stays faded. I know, weird.

It's all weird.

It's all too much sometimes.

But... I will be OK...

Eventually, because what other choice do I have?

One Small Step... That's All It Takes

 

One small step---

 I began journaling today after a few days of mental and physical exhaustion. 

The post covid syndrome sucks the life energy out of me with the least bit of exertion some days; 

my mental clarity and ability to think, speak coherently, focus and remember simple tasks comes and goes without rhyme nor reason. 

Original photoart by DawnRanae 2022

Today I decided to journal about that one small step.

The one that I took to come out of 5 weeks of isolation in the basement, the one that led me to It's Your Turn, the one that compelled me to join Made To Do This.... 

And the hundreds, thousands, millions of small steps I have taken along this life journey to get to this place I am now in.

 A place where my call to serve remains, but my ability to continue as a nurse is very likely not realistic. 

Because I contracted coronavirus from a patient. 

Because coronavirus infected my heart and brain. 

But I have persevered and overcome many hard times. 

I have been a teen Mom, a statistical anomaly graduating from high school in the top 5% of my class and graduating from nursing school at the same time,  a victim of domestic violence... 

And then, my wonderful husband, my lifelong best friend and the one who always lifted me up and gave me confidence to believe in myself...

Was diagnosed with cancer, and died. 

Leaving me with no money and a home I could no longer afford, 3 kids in college with tuition I could not pay. 

But the worst part was, my ability to dream had died too.

If I can overcome all of that...

I can overcome any deficits coronavirus has left me with...

I can achieve my goals... 

I can dream again... 

All it takes is that one small step. 

This blog is that One Small Step today.