Life is a funny thing some times. For the last month or so I have been all over the place (in a non-literal way). My brain has been in a huge fog of thoughts that I haven't been able to pin down. Sometimes they feel clear and intelligent, but other times they are just messy and irrational. It's a strange feeling and I'm wondering if it's my body's way of giving me heck. It also causes me to wonder if this is something that so-called 'crazy' people go through before they have a major break down. Either way, I'm getting through it, one day at a time. I'm also hoping that writing will help condense the fog into some kind of intelligent clarity rain drops or something....
Here I am! Showing up! In full force.
I want to tell you about a challenge I have joined with a coach named Molly Phair. This is a 6 week challenge ("rock your body-holiday version") and it requires participants to track things like nutrition, exercise, and a variety of personal development activities. It's also a bit of a contest because you rack up points each week. I am actually a bit of a competitive person, so I began this challenge determined to get my points each week. In reality, eating only proteins and healthy carbs, 3 servings of vegetables, 2 servings of fruit, tons of water and not eating after 7pm (oh yeah, and only 2 treats and 1 free meal per week!) requires much more than a desire to win. Shocker, I know. But! I have actually done pretty well with this, not winning of course, but I'm working hard and feeling a difference. I'm so incredibly grateful for this challenge and how it has helped me to change my lifestyle--the way I think, eat, shop, cook, etc. Of course I still think a bakery is a huge part of my Heaven, but I have also fallen hard and fast in love with the variety of ways in which one can consume vegetables. I have learned how my body feels when it is running on good fuel instead of junk fuel. I have also quit drinking soda (down to about one per week maybe) and my water intake is 75+ ounces per day. Do I feel like my bladder has shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball on my regular trips to the bathroom? Maybe so, but I'm down about 7 pounds since I started, so I'm totally winning that game.
My point is that challenges make us stronger. In the last 2 years I have been hitting the gym pretty hard and attempting to eat healthy, but I haven't budged more than a few pounds, and I certainly have not gotten below my plateau weight. Only NOW, now that I have done something so challenging as changing my diet am I finally getting below my plateau weight and making more progress! Finally. Once I tried the hard thing. And I'm feeling amazing--a sense of accomplishment and dedication to myself and my body.
Some of the most difficult things in life can really suck the joy out of us if we let them. They can cause us to wonder what we were thinking or how on Earth the current situation could possibly be beneficial.
A few years ago I was in a rough spot, really struggling and trying to figure out why I was having such a hard time. Things looked bleak to me. I couldn't see a possible end to the crevasse that was my life. I thought I had done a good job planning and preparing and working up to that point. Why was I, all of a sudden, stuck?? I spent time every single day listening to a talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "An High Priest of Good Things to Come".
It was this talk, along with a couple others recommended by an institute teacher (at the Orem Institute of Religion) that taught me to stop thinking about "why" -- Why this? Why me? etc.-- and start focusing on "how"--How will I choose to look at this? How will I learn from this? How can I be a more faithful disciple of Christ because of this?
To this day I can still hear Elder Holland's voice speaking the words of that talk to me. Imagine my surprise and deep admiration and awe, when just one year later, I was married and in the very ward of my dear Apostle! I had the privilege of sitting beside him one day and he whispered over to me to "never stop smiling". I didn't get to know him or his sweet wife personally, but I didn't need to; his telling of their experiences taught me everything I needed to know.
The other day I was listening to Brooke Castillo, one of my life coaches. I'm not even sure which podcast it was, one from November-ish. It was about feelings and how important it is to experience a variety of feelings and emotions. There are actually some feelings that aren't useful, that don't serve us, and it's okay to get rid of those. However, that doesn't mean we should get rid of all of the uncomfortable or difficult feelings, but that we need to experience a good balance of emotions to really experience a full and wonderful life. This led me to think about the scriptures and how they are very clear in the teachings of how important the principle of opposition is in the big picture of eternity. The specific scripture is found in 2 Nephi 2:11 and states that "it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things. If not so,..righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad." Simply put, if you don't know what hot is you cannot know what cold is; if you don't know happiness you cannot know sorrow. We absolutely must know both sides of the coin.
Prior to writing this post I struggled to do so because I couldn't get the thought out of my mind that there are so many blogs in the world and so many people out there telling their story. What can I possibly say that is new or different or even helpful that someone else hasn't said??
I'm reminded now that that's not the goal. I don't have to be amazing or great or even original to be helpful. In fact, as my official life coach Jody Moore says, "I'm not for everyone" --everyone doesn't have to like me! And I can be totally cool with that. Isn't that great news?? (Actually, drawing on our principle of opposition, since I'm not for everyone, that means I am for someone!) Frankly, I will have succeeded if I have helped one person. Even if that one person is only Me.
I hope that you can find something useful here. My journey isn't about how I have necessarily become anyone or anything, but about the most important part--how I get there, wherever there is. Becoming is a process and a constant action, it's not a fixed state. My journey is about moving forward and stumbling, leaping, plodding, or even falling flat on my face and there is opposition in every step. The learning happens when you decide what to do about the opposition.
What will you do?
Here I am! Showing up! In full force.
I want to tell you about a challenge I have joined with a coach named Molly Phair. This is a 6 week challenge ("rock your body-holiday version") and it requires participants to track things like nutrition, exercise, and a variety of personal development activities. It's also a bit of a contest because you rack up points each week. I am actually a bit of a competitive person, so I began this challenge determined to get my points each week. In reality, eating only proteins and healthy carbs, 3 servings of vegetables, 2 servings of fruit, tons of water and not eating after 7pm (oh yeah, and only 2 treats and 1 free meal per week!) requires much more than a desire to win. Shocker, I know. But! I have actually done pretty well with this, not winning of course, but I'm working hard and feeling a difference. I'm so incredibly grateful for this challenge and how it has helped me to change my lifestyle--the way I think, eat, shop, cook, etc. Of course I still think a bakery is a huge part of my Heaven, but I have also fallen hard and fast in love with the variety of ways in which one can consume vegetables. I have learned how my body feels when it is running on good fuel instead of junk fuel. I have also quit drinking soda (down to about one per week maybe) and my water intake is 75+ ounces per day. Do I feel like my bladder has shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball on my regular trips to the bathroom? Maybe so, but I'm down about 7 pounds since I started, so I'm totally winning that game.
My point is that challenges make us stronger. In the last 2 years I have been hitting the gym pretty hard and attempting to eat healthy, but I haven't budged more than a few pounds, and I certainly have not gotten below my plateau weight. Only NOW, now that I have done something so challenging as changing my diet am I finally getting below my plateau weight and making more progress! Finally. Once I tried the hard thing. And I'm feeling amazing--a sense of accomplishment and dedication to myself and my body.
Some of the most difficult things in life can really suck the joy out of us if we let them. They can cause us to wonder what we were thinking or how on Earth the current situation could possibly be beneficial.
A few years ago I was in a rough spot, really struggling and trying to figure out why I was having such a hard time. Things looked bleak to me. I couldn't see a possible end to the crevasse that was my life. I thought I had done a good job planning and preparing and working up to that point. Why was I, all of a sudden, stuck?? I spent time every single day listening to a talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "An High Priest of Good Things to Come".
It was this talk, along with a couple others recommended by an institute teacher (at the Orem Institute of Religion) that taught me to stop thinking about "why" -- Why this? Why me? etc.-- and start focusing on "how"--How will I choose to look at this? How will I learn from this? How can I be a more faithful disciple of Christ because of this?
To this day I can still hear Elder Holland's voice speaking the words of that talk to me. Imagine my surprise and deep admiration and awe, when just one year later, I was married and in the very ward of my dear Apostle! I had the privilege of sitting beside him one day and he whispered over to me to "never stop smiling". I didn't get to know him or his sweet wife personally, but I didn't need to; his telling of their experiences taught me everything I needed to know.
The other day I was listening to Brooke Castillo, one of my life coaches. I'm not even sure which podcast it was, one from November-ish. It was about feelings and how important it is to experience a variety of feelings and emotions. There are actually some feelings that aren't useful, that don't serve us, and it's okay to get rid of those. However, that doesn't mean we should get rid of all of the uncomfortable or difficult feelings, but that we need to experience a good balance of emotions to really experience a full and wonderful life. This led me to think about the scriptures and how they are very clear in the teachings of how important the principle of opposition is in the big picture of eternity. The specific scripture is found in 2 Nephi 2:11 and states that "it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things. If not so,..righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad." Simply put, if you don't know what hot is you cannot know what cold is; if you don't know happiness you cannot know sorrow. We absolutely must know both sides of the coin.
Prior to writing this post I struggled to do so because I couldn't get the thought out of my mind that there are so many blogs in the world and so many people out there telling their story. What can I possibly say that is new or different or even helpful that someone else hasn't said??
I'm reminded now that that's not the goal. I don't have to be amazing or great or even original to be helpful. In fact, as my official life coach Jody Moore says, "I'm not for everyone" --everyone doesn't have to like me! And I can be totally cool with that. Isn't that great news?? (Actually, drawing on our principle of opposition, since I'm not for everyone, that means I am for someone!) Frankly, I will have succeeded if I have helped one person. Even if that one person is only Me.
I hope that you can find something useful here. My journey isn't about how I have necessarily become anyone or anything, but about the most important part--how I get there, wherever there is. Becoming is a process and a constant action, it's not a fixed state. My journey is about moving forward and stumbling, leaping, plodding, or even falling flat on my face and there is opposition in every step. The learning happens when you decide what to do about the opposition.
What will you do?
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