Frustrated Start

The only way I can start off today is with the word boo.  My coworker aka Squeaky Nuts (as when he chews, his teeth squeak and it drives me mad!) appears to have taken the keys to the lunch room with him, thus making it impossible for me to get access to the refrigerator to put away my lunch and snack smoothie to keep it all healthy and bacteria free. Grr. I hope the Squeakster doesn’t make this a habit as I don’t dig food poisoning or wasted food.

Yesterday sorta sucked too, but only because most of my day was all migrainey.  Yay for weather changes.  lol.  On the plus side, it allowed me to do a lot of thinking and it also allowed me to discover Dexter.  Yes, I wholly admit that I am late to the game on this one…but right now, I am about 2/3 of the way through season one and am enjoying it immensely.

But…back to that thinking thing.  The Fire Starter Sessions, one of the four books I am reading as a part of this whole Self-Discovery Challenge, is written by a Canadian (woo!) named Danielle LaPorte.  I’m only  1/4 of the way into the book, but it’s already got some fires started.  In the book she asks the reader “How do you want to feel?”

Whoa!  Is that a hallelujah chorus I hear?  I think it might be!

I spent most of my day, when I wasn’t doubled over in pain or distracted by Dexter, thinking about this.  She then goes on by saying, once you are clear on how you want to feel, your decision-making will get down to the heart of the matter–doing stuff to make you feel that way. 

The first of what I’m sure will be many parts of the answer to the question was about my body and ironically enough, it came to me while completing a 5 mile run yesterday–still not sure how that one managed to workout, but I will totally take it to the bank.

Lately I have seen a lot of bloggers talking about their issues with food, eating disorders, etc.  In fact, one of my bloggy friends Allison, was brave enough to come forward and talk about her struggle and how she plans on dealing with it in the last few posts on her blog–which I highly recommend you read.  It brought up a lot of old wounds, which is for the better, with this self-discovery exercise, and I look forward to healing them and hopefully help others, like Allison, too.

So, essentially, I want to feel at ease, at peace, when it comes to my body.  I have fought a war with my body for years….and I’m tired of it.  I want to lose 20-30 lbs.  I think 20 is possible…30, maybe not.  I want to do is healthfully and in a stress free way that doesn’t make me want to lose it because I had that extra cookie or missed a workout. 

I am going to do this, arguably, by mixing the old with new.  I am going to count calories, but I’m not going to be ultra low (I would eat only 1200 and then workout without replacing any of the calories, thus netting 600 calories most days…sometimes less).  I am also going to allow myself to indulge here and there in the hopes that I can teach myself to be satisfied with smaller treats and not going literally whole hog and overdoing it like I have done of late.  I am also going to throw in a bit of a paleo attitude by adding more healthy fats and protein to my diet as the satiation levels I experienced while on that diet were truly amazing.

I also want to change my inner monologue.  Those inner critics that I mentioned, well, I am really going to focus on telling them to STFU.  I mean, seriously, my body is pretty flipping amazing, which is something I never gave it credit for until I started reading Big Fat Lies Women Tell Themselves by Amy Ahlers.  I am also slowly but surely falling in love with her book, too.  In the Chapter entitled: Big Fat Lie #16: One of these days I’ll win the battle of the bulge,  she asks the reader to do an exercise where you have to stand in front of the mirror, naked, and list 10 things that you love about yourself, your body.

Granted, I was lying down in my bed doing this, rather than in front of a mirror nekkid, but, still, I was thinking about it and well, like I said, my body is pretty flipping spectaular…here is the list:

1. It has run 8…er, I think it’s 8 half marathons and one full marathon.  Hopefully I can add a triathlon to that list of feats.
2. My heart has been continuously beating for almost 32 years.  
3. I have somewhat uniquely coloured blue eyes.  They tend to get a lot of attention and I have always said something self  deprecating about them being freaky (one guy in grade 9 said they were and it stuck). I will no longer say that.  I got them from my grandpa’s as they both had/have blue eyes–the best gift they could’ve given me.
4. I have an ample rack–something that comes in handy at times (aside from running–very jealous of smaller ladies when running as they get to wear the pretty sports bras).
5. As a result of my time in cross fit, it is clear that I can build some pretty bangin muscle–can’t wait for this shoulder thing to heal so I can get back into cross fit.
6. I have great legs–or, well, everyone tells me that.  lol.  I think they are great because they have survived so many years of abuse and a few knee surgeriesand they still keep on keepin’ on.
7. I have small hips and butt–I embrace it in this world of badonkadonks and Sir Mix A Lot Odes.  It also makes me feel like I am a bit of an anomaly because of it.
8. My right eyebrow–yes, i know, just the right one you ask? well, yes.  i don’t wax or thread my eyebrows.  I twease them on my own.  My right eyebrow is always fantastic.  I aspire to get my left one in line asap…but I think my over tweasing in my teen years might make that one hard to do.
9. My teeth.  They are imperfectly perfect–not too white, not to chiclet, with a small space between my too front teeth and one slight snaggle tooth, it is a smile as unique as a snowflake.
10. My feet–I torture them during my training runs and designer heels.  Yet, like my legs, they still carry me onward and upward through my days and nights.

What is your top ten?  How do you want to feel?  What will you have to do to feel that way?

Much luv,

Leesah

Discover, Believe, Garcia-Part 2

Good morning all!

Happy Sunday!  I just finished a baking project–mojito cheesecake pops–I think I have mentioned them about 9 different times, yet, still I can’t stop mentioning it.  I think this may be the only time cheesecake should be allowed at breakfast…and well…rest assured, they are DELICIOUS.  I highly recommend you try making them.  If i remember, I will take a quick photo before I drop them off at my aunt’s house.  So. DELISH!

So I am going to touch base, again, on this whole self-love exercise for the help of myself and others.  My two Friday posts talked about the exercises I did, called the Restructuring Wheel, and the results for my trip though said wheel.  If you don’t feel like tracking back–here were the outcomes–or at least the ones I would like to change or that I found upsetting:

• looking for external validation and activities to make me happy–praise, good grades, recognition that I lost weight, shopping, traveling, etc.
• in fear of making mistakes, not living up to expectations, making people angry, disappointed or upset to the point where they leave me
• putting more value on the needs/desires of others than my own–ie do what you need to do to make others happy, even if it makes you unhappy
• hiding my feelings for as they may make someone else upset and it’s not worth doing that.
• pretending that the things I was doing (be it school, work, etc) was what I wanted to do, instead of fulfilling the expectations of other people who mattered in my life
• in fear of becoming my crazy mother and that I am broken and need to desperately hide all the things that are “wrong” with me so people won’t know and just see the façade.

Now the next steps in this exercises is to do some “discovery and decision making” regarding the results of your wheel.  You need to look at those images, opinions, attitudes and beliefs–look at how they drive your actions positively? Negatively?  How do they prevent you from loving yourself and putting happiness first?  How do they offer support in loving yourself and making happiness a priority?  How do they cause you to avoid certain actions that would help you love yourself more?

Eek…pretty touch questions no?  I guess I can see where the way I have lived my life has definitely had some positive and some negative impacts on my actions.  It was positive in that it drove me to achieve and do my best at all times…which also stressed me out to no end.  I routinely keep my emotions in check for the longest time, unless it is a positive emotion–which I tended to really feel as I guess I was compensating for the “always happy feeling,” if that makes sense.  The words letting go and losing a bit of control are not part of my lifestyle.  I keep things together so people couldn’t see the broken pieces that were underneath the façade.  The benefit of this was that I became overly reliable and helpful to a fault, where it was impacting me negatively.  As years went on, it got harder to keep up that façade of happy-go-lucky, love to help, always smiling.  I was never allowed to be sad or upset.

I remember one specific example when my parents split up about 8 years ago to the day.  Granted, I was older–(23), but it still was very upsetting because now, well, I couldn’t have the façade of a great home life, as it wasn’t…and now my dirty little secret was known to EVERYONE.  My parents had told me 3 days after I had returned from a life changing Contiki Tour of Europe.  I felt exhilarated and ready to tackle grad school in the fall…and then the bomb was dropped.  My parents were splitting and people kept saying to me, that’s a shame, but hey, don’t be glum, you got to go to Europe…..umm..WTF?  A trip to Europe negates any sadness over your family being broken apart?

So how did this prevent me from loving myself…well, I was too busy keeping up that façade, too busy worrying about making everyone else happy and doing what everyone else wanted me to do.  Faking it til I made it didn’t happen in this case.  Perhaps I got too good at faking it…or perhaps not enough–I’m not too sure.  All I know is that those behaviours prevented me from loving myself and being happy because I wasn’t being me.  I was being a version of me that adapted to whomever I was with–how can you know yourself, nevermind loving yourself when you don’t know who you are?  Happiness isn’t even a possibility in that case, as, well, how can you build the life of a happy person if you don’t know the person.

As for the last of that group of questions, well, it has made me avoid a lot of things in my life.  I have avoided moving out.  I have avoided saving up money for a down-payment until the 18 months or so of my life.  It’s prevented me from living out a crazy, careless youth of parties and fun because I had to be the responsible one, the mother hen.  It prevented me from every learning to flirt or invite interest from guys because I was afraid I was being perceived as slutty, that I would attract a guy my family (specifically my dad) and friends didn’t like.  It prevented me from doing the things I wanted to do like travel the world and/or live abroad for a year, take a year off from school to figure out exactly what I needed to do to feel like I was being me.  Instead, I spent money and ate.  I went on trips, though not the amazing year abroad/back packing style trips that I would’ve liked to have done…I ate my feelings, then that turned into exercising my feelings,starving my feelings, bingeing my feelings, purging my feelings.  I also shopped my feelings…especially after losing a ton of weight and nothing had changed inside.  It all left me feeling inadequate in my life, like I was missing something special that would make my life grand, make guys like me, make me like me.  I just didn’t feel like enough.
The next step of this restructuring wheel process is called Decision.  You need to decide which images, opinions, attitudes and beliefs you want to keep, which you’d like to let go of and…this is the kicker–how you can transform your limiting beliefs into expansive possibilities? (eek…expansive?  that is a big word…)  Arylo suggests that you can do this by rewriting the thoughts that no longer serve you into new positive statements that support a life of love and happiness and make a list of what other actions you can take to move forward and then commit to living by them.

Granted, I haven’t talked much about the most positive parts of this process, mostly because, well, they aren’t the problems.  If I had to pick a few to share with you and well, for the case of this exercise, keep, then they are the fact that I care deeply about people and love the people in my life.  That is something that I wouldn’t want to lose in this process.  I want to love them and love myself too and I think, well, I know that it can be possible to do both.  I also like the fact that I am reliable, I can achieve and I can help people.  I just need to do those in times when I want to because it will work for me, make me happy, not out of obligation, where I resent it in the end.

The negatives, well, the negatives are the things I have listed.  I am going to try to re-write the thoughts in a more positive way…(in italics after the initial thought) wish me luck. lol.

• looking for external validation and activities to make me happy–praise, good grades, recognition that I lost weight, shopping, traveling, etc.   I will look inside and listen to my self, intuition, and not care about the thoughts of others.
• in fear of making mistakes, not living up to expectations, making people angry, disappointed or upset to the point where they leave me. I will welcome mistakes, missed goals as an everyday and enriching part of life that will only help me to grow into a better, stronger version of myself.
• putting more value on the needs/desires of others than my own–ie do what you need to do to make others happy, even if it makes you unhappy.  I will focus on doing the things I that feel right for me to do and not worry if others don’t approve.  I will not intentionally hurt the people I love, but I won’t ignore my joyful pursuits any longer.
• hiding my feelings for as they may make someone else upset and it’s not worth doing that. I will no longer hide my feelings.  If I feel sad, then I embrace the sad.  If I feel angry, then I embrace the anger.  If I feel happy, then I embrace the happy.  After years of hiding these things, I have learned that they don’t go away, they just bubble up and burst like a volcano on some random day and time and it derails you.
• pretending that the things I was doing (be it school, work, etc) was what I wanted to do, instead of fulfilling the expectations of other people who mattered in my life.  I will purse my dreams.  Be it the job, a triathlon, owning a home.  I will do them all because I want to and I will carry out each on my own time frames.
• in fear of becoming my crazy mother and that I am broken and need to desperately hide all the things that are “wrong” with me so people won’t know and just see the façade. I am not broken.  I am me.  I have flaws like everyone else, and i have “good” in me.  I have the capacity to grow and change things about myself that I am uncomfortable with that will help me build a happy life and, most importantly, a happy Leesah.

Wow.  That was oddly cathartic.  I actually feel as though my shoulders feel a bit lighter.  I have never had such a positive physical reaction to self discovery before–usually it makes me cry. lol.  I hope that this all brought some levity to your days as well.

Anyway, I have a lunch date with my cousin K and my hair is atrocious. lol.  Must get presentable, asap.
Much Luv,

Leesah