Creating a vision for your year is like creating a roadmap. If you’re feeling anxious, unsettled, dysregulated, or discombobulated, your roadmap might lead you into a ditch or down a dirt path into nowhere. Perhaps this had been your experience and why you’re not living the best version of your life (yet).

Anxiety surges through the nervous system. Then you begin to feel symptoms you might not have realized could be attributed to anxiety; an increased heart rate, the breath speeds up or may become more shallow, you may feel stomach pain or nausea, or headaches. Then the mind joins the party and dives into a downward spiral of the past or future.

This was my lesson: toxic, stressful relationships in my life set off my autoimmune disease and caused me to get sick. I was not strong enough yet to say goodbye to him, and so I chose to remain weak and in pain. I chose physical and emotional suffering over solitude. It was my pattern, and I was conscious of it but I did not have the fortitude to break it.