How do you feel about changes you can't control?

The feeling of the things I cannot control a lot of the times takes me to a place of anxiety. Now, anxiety can be clinically diagnosed more often than not but personally I have to take that responsibility to reverse it to peace. Everything in life thrown at us will come back to this question; especially now more than ever with how upside down the world has become. Over time and with the help of God, family, and community I have learned and continue to learn how to balance life and surrender those very things I cannot control. I can only control how I respond to things that’s if whether to do something about an issue and to know when to step back. Balance is one of the hardest assets to acquire but it keeps me sane, put, and able to live my life and not be bound to anxiety. Anxiety is an ugly thing, it goes hand in hand with depression, and depression ends up being a rabbit hole that is dangerous and very hard to get out of. I have been there, and looking back on when the dark place started, I use it as a tool or key to recognize when to stop it and those feelings when I am feeling them.

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Share your experience over the last year and at least one big takeaway that has had a positive impact on you or your perspective?

One big takeaway that has had a great impact on me is to never give up and to live my life being thankful for it each day. We are not promised tomorrow and living today is very important and I owe it to myself and my family. Being truly thankful for each day came to my attention from a humbling perspective. Not only last year has humbled me but just different seasons in my life where it got very real and very raw. I believe and take it that those other seasons that were so hard in my life have trained me to deal with this last year.

Uncertainty was a word that I was already familiar with and lived with for a while. I had my moments even days and weeks of fear. I work in healthcare and I remember the first emails of alert that we had to be prepared to use hallways and hospital classrooms for sick patients, it really frightened me. I honestly thought we were all going to die, I guess watching that movie Contagion really did its job picturing that outcome. Even though a few events in that movie were real from the last SARS epidemic, I imagined that to happen all over the world. But I never saw patients in the hallways how they said, lots of surgeries were canceled for months I had to use covid paid time off for losing so many work hours, even partial unemployment as a healthcare worker. They now call it the fourth surge in the hospital but that’s because ICU has been full. For being such a big hospital, ICU is one of the smallest departments we have, it was evident for it to get full so quickly and instead of complaining about a virus that is almost impossible to eradicate, our hospital built a brand new building for cancer patients that are outpatient and medical offices.

I have realized how much healthcare needs a lot of help starting with keeping patients healthy and not having companies just bribe vaccines for free donuts and hamburgers. Vaccines should be as important as educating people about overall health. Immunity cannot just be solemnly a drug but intertwines with how we eat and how much we exercise and controlling the levels of anxiety. When my family and I had covid last year, we leaned the outcome of not letting it take us out was to keep pushing forward no matter how weak and vulnerable we felt. We had a family member in ICU and health care providers did not give us the best news and we knew we had to support him and speak life giving words and prayers. He, on the other hand realized he had to fight internally too. For two weeks each day his oxygen kept getting better and plans to intubate were off the table from then. The thing is, he was pretty unhealthy prior to this event and never paid any mind to caring for his health until this incident. He had to learn the hard way that this is not a time to ignore our bodies and our health. We all learned the impact of supporting one another and not be isolated in such crucial times. He said God and his family is what kept him alive and getting better. He has been completely healed since. I’ve heard many stories with the opposite results. Sadly, not all but most gave up or their family gave up because they lost hope; the circumstance looked too big. Being that sick alters your hope and puts your mental health in such a vulnerable state. Until now I haven’t seen much change in these areas in healthcare.

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How have you coped during these last few months and what are some healthy things you do to help you get through tough days?

During these last few months I almost had a meltdown because of the stress I had taken it lightly, let my guard down and consumed me. After I prayed about it strictly setting myself off the news, off social media, away from debates with people, even caffein, I was finally able to think clear again. It was like getting rid of a habit cold turkey; very uncomfortable. It was right before school started and changed my work schedule to all weekends, had registered for 16 units, my family in Arizona was sick, dealing with some mandates at work, it was a lot. I also didn’t realize the impact of the change from a year of zoom classes to coming on campus for the first time not knowing where anything was and being around so many strangers all at once. It’s amazing how we were created to adapt to new environments though, and in person interaction is such a blessing. Therefore, tune out the negative and speak positive.