Story - A small boat on the stormy ocean

When I look at my life for the past year and a half I can describe it as follows. I am on a little boat on the big ocean, enjoying myself.

The water is calm and the sun shines. And before I know it the wind came up. The waves started to get bigger. I begin to get uneasy and started to row to safety.

But then the wind became stronger and the clouds became darker. And I row with more strength. It started to rain. Later on heavy rain and hail and before I could get to safety I am in the middle of the storm.

The sea current got hold of me and pulled me towards a whirlpool. I still row with all my strength and I became weak. I lost the ability to focus and as I was on the outer edge of the whirlpool I am nearing the center fast.

All I could see is a big black hole busy sucking me in. At that time I was completely burnt out. I got hold of a rope and hanged on to it.

In my mind, I was thinking if I should cut the rope and let go of life or if I should shout out one more time for help. And I decided to reach out for help.

My storm was a lot of things happening one after the other. (Wind, rain, hail, waves, strong sea-current, and eventually the black hole of depression and burn-out). My husband lost his job. He tried his own venture but then COVID hit and we were in hard lockdown.

Then I tried to manage all the arrears bills and wrote letters to the creditors. Then I found out my daughter had been sexually molested and I, myself, got flashbacks from my own trauma in childhood

I could not get over my mom's passing that is now 10 years ago. My husband is having health problems which created more stress on the opportunity to get a job. We became dependent on family to support us financially.

I tried to make our budget work out and I tried to run the whole household on my own. I suddenly needed to give homeschooling for my kids during the lockdown and at the same time work from home.

I was on a total rollercoaster of emotions and depression. I cried most of the days. Eventually, I was booked off a month and worked with a psychologist for quite some time to get myself back on track and to get out of depression and recover from PTSD and burn-out

I then realized that it is only me that can make a decision to become better. I am normally a person that always has negative thoughts. And I realized that is my problem.

As soon as my negative thoughts take over, it becomes a downward spiral in the whirlpool of depression. So I thought to look for an app where I can journal. But the app must be password protected.

And then I found this Gratitude app. And I was sooooo surprised with all the features. I completed the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge.

I listen to affirmations on YouTube as well every night and that really changed my negative thoughts into positive ones.

I am so excited each day to see what quote, affirmation, motivation, and story are there for the day. I am definitely going to subscribe to this on an annual basis.