Peas Stop

Morning All–this post is a heavy one for the morning, so I warn you to read with caution. 

Most people know the story of the Princess and The Pea–she proves she’s a princess because she can feel a pea underneath a bunch of mattresses.

Well this princess (which the new boy called me, jokingly I hope, via text the other day), is sick of peas digging in and annoying her day in and day out.  Oh and total side note, he still hasn’t asked to meet up face to face upon his return from his work trip…so yeah…just putting that out there.

What this “pea” is…well, for the longest time I wasn’t sure.  I thought it was fear, lack of gratitude, depression, frustration…but after seeing a few different media appearances and youtube videos by Brene Brown, author of a new book called Daring Greatly, I think what it can all be labeled as is shame.  (Side note: her book also talks about the importance of vulnerability, but truthfully…the vulnerability part might ruin me and I’m feeling pretty good right now, despite this whole shame pea sticking in my back).

Oh and hells to the yeah do I have that shame thing going for me big time.  It’s weird to finally have the way I have felt wrapped up in such a small, five letter word….especially after reading so many self-help books and going to counseling etc.  I know I’m not the only one dealing with this sort of thing…but holy crap, do I need to get a handle on it as I feel like it has stolen my life away from me.

I’m going to re-read this book again and do a proper post on this whole revelation, but I feel that this “shame pea” has dug into to me for too long…and as it came back this morning to rule the roost…I knew I finally had to work to deal with it full on and break this damn cycle of feeling great for a few fleeting moments and then feeling like shit.

To close this crazy, not even close to being complete post, I will just list a few of the shame things I have felt in the last day or so:

1. I feel shame that I have worked for years to get down to my ultimate goal weight of about 137-140 lbs and I still can’t get there because I keep sabotaging myself.

2. I feel shame that despite being smart and having a good education, I am not achieving and rocking everyone’s socks at my job, nor do I like my job.

3. I feel shame about the fact that I am alone…ie not in a relationship, married, on my way to having babies like everyone else in my life.

4. I feel shame about the fact that I want to completely disconnect from the people I love and my life in general because I don’t have my life “together” in the way that society deems appropriate.

5. I feel shame that the set up guy with still hasn’t made any real effort to ask to meet face to face and that I don’t have the minerals (sorry, had to quote my favourite movie Snatch here), to ask him out.

6. I feel shame about the fact that I still live at home but, also, that I enjoy it.

7. I feel shame in that, no matter what I do, it never feels like it’s enough, or good enough, so I just tap out and stop doing a lot of stuff….scrapbooking, photography, learning to make macarons, dating, running clubs, graphic design, guitar, etc.

8. I feel shame that I depend so much on the praise and recognition of others to feel good about myself.

9. I feel shame about the fact that I don’t have a relationship with my mother, that she is an alcoholic who chose booze over me and my family and that I don’t think I can ever forgive her for that.

10. I even feel shame that this blog isn’t what I hoped for it to be.  It’s not trending, it’s not getting flooded with views, it’s not filled with amazing photos of things I have made, outfits I wore or abs that chiseled. I’m an amateur and this blog project has a corner of my life desk but yet I think that it should look and feel like something that takes the whole desk.

Wow…that feels remarkably therapeutic.    The sad thing, however, is that, I probably have dozens upon dozens more to add.  Looking forward to sharing this adventure with you. Also, though I highly doubt that Brene would ever read my blog, but if she does–I just want to say thank you and give her the most massive e-hug possible.

Much Luv,

Leesah

Wondering what I got myself into

*sigh*

There is one really bad thing about being a people pleaser and being afraid to say no….that is when you end up saying yes to something that initially sounded like it could be ok and then you end up dreading it.

I’m in one of those situations now.

Remember how one of my random acts of kindness was about volunteering to help my buddy O lead his run club at running room tonight?  Yeah…well….unfortunately, so do I…and I’m wishing I didn’t say yes.

Why, well, it has nothing to do with my friend O.  I actually like running with him and he helped me get through my first marathon so he is truthfully all good in my books. It’s more of the fact that the temps are going to be hot and humid today, I am relatively out of shape and my knees are bugging me rather fiercely since I decided to get full on back into running and such.  Quite frankly I am afraid of sucking the joint out and the pain/discomfort I am likely to  might feel.  I’m also afraid of being judged by the other runners based on my speed, my body weight, etc.  I was judged before at the running room and it’s hard to remove that stigma.

But…since this is fear conquering month and well, my fear conquering has been more or less pushed aside, more or less, because of birthday week awesomeness…well..let’s be honest, two weeks of birthday awesomeness…I think it’s time to put on those big girl panties and just show up because, well, at the end of the day, I’m still out there and I’m running, which is more that a lot of people will be doing.

There are a few other fears that I have managed to overcome during these birthday downtimes…I managed to set up a router at home and now I have wi-fi!  I can’t believe it given my less then stellar tech skills.  I also managed to track my spending over the last few weeks–virtually every dollar from parking, to my hair appointments, to parking money…it’s all been tracked.  Why was I afraid you ask, well, simply put, it meant holding a mirror to my spending and being accountable–and sometimes that is a hard thing to overcome as it’s showing you your weaknesses (in my case, it’s been iced coffees) and mistakes (did I really need that lip liner–probably not as I tend to forget them and just grab lip glosses for the proverbial road).

I think what I like about the fear challenge is it allows you the chance to regain a bit of control…and since I’m a bit of a control freak about some things, I think that this allows me to be one about things that aren’t negative…if that makes sense.  It’s not me drastically trying to control outcomes…it’s more about my actions and reactions to things that I’m uncomfortable with and in the end, hopefully provide a growth opportunity of some sort.

So…on that note, tonight’s growth opportunity will be that I can run outside in god forsaken heat and I can run with the running room without worrying about what they think of me or my way of running as my way works for me and all that matters.  And yes, this will be my mantra throughout the 8kms we are running tonight.  After the fear fighting, I will be going out for a belated birthday celebration between me and O.  Can’t wait!

Much Luv,

Leesah