Hola readers!

Taking a new turn in the posting department to talk mental helath + exercise.

I've always considered myself healthy and decently fit. I could walk a mile or so at a time in the woods, did a fifteen minute workout about once a week, and ate organic/healthy when possible.
Yet when Covid-19 struck, I began to get bad anxiety again and not sleep. I felt myself very quickly backsliding into what had been a couple years ago, and that scared me almost more than the virus. I remembered the sleeply nights in high school and panic attacks and depressing emotions, and got more anxiety just thinking about returning.
A few days after I stopped working, I woke up with anxiety and darkness and said, "self, we're not doing this again." 
And I began kick boxing again, doing a twenty minute at home workout that I had done a few years ago but fell out of with the business of life. Than in between days off of my full body routine, I took two mile nature walks into the hills and mountains of my state park.
Sunshine is my happy place.
Feeling the hot rays on my bare shoulers and just standing there breathing in the mountain air = happiness for me. I'm such a hippie when it comes to nature, I'll be the first to admit. Dirt and bare feet and sun burns and sunsets and rises and river water and flowers and the breeze....





This reminded me something I found out a few years ago when fighting a very bad place mentally: Exercise is vital to good mental health. 

There is a long process and lots of baby steps to getting to the other side, and quite frankly "the other side" is a long time coming. But I realized how much I needed to actually get my body moving. I had fallen into a slump and it was time to climb out. I am twenty one years old and suddenly I realized how easy it is as a young adult to allow my body to fall into an unhleathy pattern.
For some people meditation and yoga is the answer to calming their soul or some dancing -- but I'm hard core kick boxing and some really long walks are what I need to release some pent-up energy and anxiety.

I remember when I first began boxing at home (no punching bag -- just me in front of the mirror trying to not look like an idiot). I imagined punching the darkness and anger and releasing everything I felt inside. I remember repeating, "you will not have me," until sweat dripped down my forehead and back.

I missed that feeling of freedom.
It was good to be back.

Yetserday I walked over three miles up some cliffs and on the other side I felt victory flow through me sticky sweet. For some maybe this would be a small accomplishment.
Baby steps.
I think we have this idea that we should look a certain way or that we should have it altogether in front of the mirror so we don't look the fool. But just getting out there and doing it, falling back into the routine of not letting my emotions take over me, was just what I needed these last couple of weeks.
And I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.