Self Help

I spend a lot of money on self-help... not just counseling/therapy ( I actually highly recommend that)  I mean that I will frantically delve into a new regimen when the mood takes me.  When this happens, I buy books, foods, shakes, vitamins, exercise equipment, and more books.

I guess this shows that I really do need help.  It’s not just on New Year’s Eve that I feel the pressing need to start anew.  No, I feel it every season, every month, every week, every single day.  I sense something is amiss in my life and I set up goals and objectives for myself. 

And some of this is not bad.  It’s good to take stock of where you have been and where you are going.  In fact, it was a super helpful trait in teaching because no one had to tell me twice to post my objectives, I would post and repost them obsessively.  

As I reflect I can think of several things I’ve felt the need to help myself achieve or attain:

1. Peace...just the ability to breath easy and worry less
2. Control...because everything seems wildly out of hand and it scares me.
3. Beauty...because I feel like I’m a mess and not a hot mess, an ugly, gross mess.  

Here are some ways I have tried to help myself attain these characteristics (none of which have panned out with the great success I hoped for): yoga, drinking cleansing teas, spinning classes, drinking coffee, pilates, drinking acai juice, marathoning,  drinking pure water, cooking, drinking tequila, reading, writing, being really pious (for example, confessing faults I might have but am not really sure... just in case they are keeping me from being at peace) and the list goes on and on.  

I have found one sure fire thing always works, I discovered it when I was six years old and so very scared.  Somehow I always seem to forget about it in the heat of the moment...prayer.  Talking to God Almighty.  I think it is because He is greater than me.   He is peace. He is in control.  He is love.  He doesn’t need help.  I need Him.  I’m not really sure how one takes hold of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being but when I pray, I ask him to show me.  

Do you need help?  What is your story, your way to cope?