I felt like I was drowning. I remember sitting at a women's group having a vision of myself in the middle of the ocean drowning and I was all alone. This is how I used to feel just a little over a year ago before I found Calm the Chaos and my daughter, my oldest was having emotional meltdowns. Then the youngest was starting to have temper tantrums. She is very fierce and realizing that she doesn't have to do everything her leader sister wants her to do. So she's hitting, kicking and having typical 2yo meltdowns. But my oldest didn't do that. She cried, she whined, she acted like it was the end of the world, but she didn't get violent. So I was feeling overwhelmed, drained. I’d go through our long battles to get them to bed at night. At the end of the day, when I was so tired, I just wanted some alone time.

The first thing I learned in CTC was that I had to take time for myself. I now wake up at five o'clock every morning before my kids, so that I have a couple of hours to myself to take a shower, to exercise. Before CTC I showered once or twice a week but now I get up every morning and I have time to myself, time to read the Bible or just read something period and exercise, to listen to an audio book, to take a shower and plan out my day and just take care of myself. I do things that fill my own cup and that has been life changing.

When I went to track behaviors for my kids, I realized that I no longer had behaviors to track with my oldest because when I stayed calm, she stayed calm. By taking care of myself, I was able to stay calm in the moment. I was never able to do that before. Yes, I still have storms and yes, there are still issues in my life, but now I know key strategies to make it through those rough times.

This picture represents how I feel now. This is the boat,and these are the people, the CTC team, the community. And this is somebody literally helping me, pulling me out of the water, onto the boat to take me on a journey to where I want life to be. I am not alone any longer.This has been life changing for me. I can't even imagine where my life would have been without CTC.