Weekend Rewind - My Advice to Me, Or You... if You Are LIKE Me | Life Love and Hiccups: Weekend Rewind - My Advice to Me, Or You... if You Are LIKE Me
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Friday 19 December 2014

Weekend Rewind - My Advice to Me, Or You... if You Are LIKE Me

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I am well known in my family for catastrophising things.

It's fair to say I am a bit of a drama queen and I tend to jump to the worst possible conclusion and imagine the worst possible scenario. You know, all doom and gloom, end of the world yada yada yada.

If I can't get hold of my husband on the phone during the day, its because he has been badly injured or worse in a car crash.

If my kids are late home, its because a tree has fallen on one of them or they have been cleaned up by a bus and are lying in a hospital with broken legs and no teeth and no one knows who they are.

If I hear an ambulance or sirens close by - it could be for one of my own and so I do a quick phone around to my Mum and Dad, my hubby etc and make sure everyone is OK and if I am not at home I call home and see if the answering machine works because if it is working then my house can't be on fire and all is well.

Yes I know I know... I'm totally neurotic.

An incorrigible worrier.

I have an unhealthy fear of 'What if?'.

I'm a complete stress head.

The end.

OK not quite. I'm not quite done with revealing myself for the utter weirdo that I am...

You see, the two things I was most worried about before going overseas to Dubai without my family, was that something would happen to me whilst I was gone and that my kids would be left without their mum and my hubby without a wife.

I even contemplated writing them a 'just in case' letter so that they would have something special to remember me by if something did happen.

Oh man I am cringing at myself as I write this and can't believe I really am telling you this. But, I do know I am not the only one who feels this way sometimes and I have to tell you that I for one feel better about the fact that I am not the only one who is prone to excessive worry about this kind of stuff.

The only thing I worried about more than something happening to me - was something happening to one of them whilst I was away. I worried that I would be on the other side of the world and then I would have to get on a plane to come home and I would be all hysterical like and have to endure a 14 hour flight home with no control over any situation and I would be crying and a total mess and security would try and stop me from flying because I wouldn't make any sense to anyone and ...... breathe.

I think you probably get the idea right?

Fortunately, nothing happened whilst I was away, but within days of getting back, my beautiful Dad was rushed to hospital with a super bug and septicaemia, and the siege happened in Sydney, and then those poor kids in Pakistan and Cairns this morning and all I kept thinking is THANK GOD none of that happened whilst I was away because I would have been beside myself and desperate to get home to my family.

Thankfully my Dad is doing OK and we will have him home for Christmas with us. My husband and boys are safe and well and I am home without being infected by Ebola or some way out there condition.

But the events of this past week have made me realise, that things do happen, and sometimes we cannot control them and whether we are there or not really makes no difference at all.

Life sometimes presents us with the most cruel and unimaginable situations and tragedies do occur every day. But we cannot live our life worrying every minute of every day for the 'what ifs'.

I can't live like that, and I am not setting a healthy example for my kids by living that way either.

So if you are a worrier like me, then my advice is this... let's hug our kids, tell our partners we love them and go and see our family if we are fortunate enough to be able to do so. Let's NOT take unnecessary risks or put ourselves in danger, but let's NOT deny ourselves the opportunity to grab life with both hands and feast on it like it is the most delicious late night kebab you have ever laid eyes on.

Let's NOT waste our precious lives worrying about getting sick, getting injured, getting old or what could go wrong for us or those we love. Life is for living and we owe it to those who are no longer with us to live every day and enjoy it for all of its gloriously wonderful and (yes) sometime scary beauty.

That's what I intend to do from here on in anyway.

I WILL be the change.

Have you ever been paralyzed by those 'what if' thoughts?
Are you a drama queen too or do you have an enviable 'go with it' attitude to life? If so what is your secret to getting it?


Link up your favourite post from the past week and then if you get a chance, pop around and say hello to some of the other lovely linkers. The Weekend Rewind blog hopping party starts every Friday night at 8pm and links will close on Sunday night at midnight. Link up here or over on Bron's blog (Heartfelt Living)Sonia's blog (Sonia Styling) or Kelly's at A Life Less Frantic.  It does not matter where you link as your link will show up in all 4 places.

Weekend Rewind is taking a little break over Christmas and will back on 16/01/15