Picture of Kim Strobel
Kim Strobel

March 12, 2020

You see this spot right here in this picture? This is the very back wall of the Tell City Walmart. Last week I made myself go back and touch it.

Why?

Because 25 years ago I was in the midst of darkness. I struggled with panic disorder and didn’t know if I’d ever be able to have a great life.

Because it was terrifying for me to do the simplest of things like to walk to my mailbox, drive 5 min to Walmart, go into Walmart, or even stay at home by myself.  To be honest, it was really hard to even just breathe and live in my world.

When I look back I know I suffered from some type of anxiety disorder my whole life. As a child I had a plan for if and when someone broke into our home and tried to kill my family. 

I had scary thoughts about losing my brothers who were outside playing or going to a theme park because someone might snatch them. I worried if my dad wasn’t home by 6:00 on the dot that he had died in a car accident. 

I had OCD tendencies…I genuinely believed things like, “If you don’t touch that wall in that one spot when you walk by something bad will happen.”

At age sixteen, I had what I now know was a panic attack. These attacks grew more frequently and began to take over my every waking thought. I obsessed over them. “Am I feeling funny? Do things look weird? Am I confused? How am I feeling?” 

By the time I was eighteen I was having panic attacks regularly without really knowing what they were. I dropped out of college because of my panic disorder. 

My anxiety and panic continued to worsen. It got to the point where almost every minute of every day felt like a nightmare. “Am I crazy? Am I losing my mind? What is wrong with me? Am I going to end up in a psychiatric hospital?”  My life felt like pure hell. 

Finally, five years later, I went to my doctor, told him what was going on and he told me what it was. I explained that it’s called panic disorder and he put me on Zoloft and recommended I see a therapist.

This changed my life. 

In therapy, I had to do all kinds of stuff to retrain my brain and re-learn that I’m safe. One of those crazy things she had me do was drive to Walmart (which felt like a crazy thing to do in itself), walk inside (are you kiddin’ me?), walk to the back of the store and touch the wall. Then I could leave. 

I thought I would die….if she gave me the choice between doing this or chopping both arms off, I would have said, “Take the arms!” But I did it.

On top of it all, I started my entire journey of having to work really hard on everything in my life. I had no confidence. I felt flawed and inadequate. I felt weak and ashamed. 

Even despite my feelings, I dove straight into the self help and personal development field. I worked my ass off. I did hard things. I got coached. I read everything I could get my hands on. And slowly, but surely I changed the inside of myself, which then started to re-arrange the outside of myself. 

I went back to college and ended up getting my Bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and my educational leadership degree. I went from making $8.00 an hour and wondering how I was going to support my son to stepping on a stage and making $8000.00 an hour.

I went from a shrinking violet to being a badass powerful woman who sometimes still struggles. My life is big and wonderful a lot of the time. It’s also hard at times and still a struggle. It can even be a bit of a shit show, to be honest with you. 

So why am I telling you this? Why did I feel compelled to go to Walmart and touch the back wall a couple of weeks ago?

Because even though I still have struggles and challenges as every human being does, I am different.

I am a very different person than that girl who didn’t believe in herself all those years ago. I no longer let what others think of me dominate my mind. I know and understand my authentic power and I stand proudly in it. I accept that I have vulnerabilities and pieces of me that will always need work. 

That’s why I touched that spot again. I wanted to remind myself of just how far I’ve come. How different I am. How I have changed and emerged and done the darn hard work on myself. 

And as I stood there touching that spot on the wall in that Walmart, I told myself, “Isn’t it interesting that I now teach women how to own their own authentic power, how to unleash their own bigness one daring day at a time?” Now I teach women exactly how to unleash their own bigness one daring day at a time.

So if you think you might be ready to change your own world, join my free Facebook group and have a listen to my podcast

I promise you will emerge a very different person.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn