A Gift

I was gifted 4 hours yesterday. Four hours where I would have normally been otherwise engaged until such time as it was time to start cooking dinner. From 1:30 – 5:30 last night, I was FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! At around noon, the power lines outside of our office building came down in a huge ball of white flames. Arcing and firing and killing the power to our complex (ironic since we are a high voltage electrical service firm, LOL!). We all hung around chatting and wondering what was going to happen until around 1pm when I finally took it upon myself to go and talk to the utility line crew and ask what the ETA on restoration would be. “Several hours” was the answer…..and with that? FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So what does a high functioning woman such as myself DO with 4 whole hours of unspoken for time? The following list tore through my head (and yes, I did think I could get it all done if I just worked quick enough):

 

• Mow the lawn
• Weed the garden
• Clean the house
• Wash my bike
• Vacuum my car
• Go to the bookstore

 

Fortunately I had a solid 6 minute commute to come to my senses. No one knew I would be home. Just me. And my dog. And I would be no further behind than I was right at that moment if I did none of those things. And no one would ever know! So NOW what’s a woman to do? Whatever in the whole world I wanted (that took no more than 4 hours and didn’t cost any money).

The one thing that I have been missing a whole bunch lately is the time and sunshine to take my dog for a long and unhurried walk. I have a long route that I do as a treat from time to time and I have been itching to do for a couple of weeks now. A gorgeous and sunny bonus afternoon of secret time seemed like the perfect opportunity!

Since the point of the walk wasn’t to set any sort of speed record and I had as much time as I wanted, we set off at a nice moderate pace. No music, just sunshine and a breeze and my dog.

Our “destination” was Como Lake Park…a teensy little lake in tucked in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The actual path around the lake is not long, just a kilometer but it’s really pretty and you are right along the edge of the water.

On the way there I’d spotted something out of the corner of my eye that I’d never seen before and wanted to take a look at it on the way back.

A beautiful (and VERY tall) totem pole on the grounds of a rec centre and at the entrance to a public rose garden. Of course none of the roses were up yet but the totem pole was really cool to see. At the base of the totem pole was a time capsule…..I should have taken a picture of that, woops. In all, a really neat little stop along our way back home.

Our 7.70km walk (4.8 miles) took us about an hour and a quarter…which included lots of sniff-stops for Gracie and the photos along the way. It was so enjoyable and it completely recharged my spirit. Once home and showered off, I still had over 2 hours to spend alone….so I listened to my heart and went and laid on the couch. Yes. My heart told me to go watch television. I haven’t watched TV in almost 3 weeks except for the news in the morning. But on this day, this bonus day of secret time……me, the PVR, a juicy gala apple and a handful of nuts. Oh yes! As much as my spirit needed the sunny walk with my dog, it also needed to sit undisturbed on the couch and do nothing.

Today, my secret time is but a memory; wiped away with the start of a new day. But while the time itself might be gone, the small spark that landed here within me stayed lit….and I feel good today. Great even. Energized and positive and free. I will take that!

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My Passion Experiment – One Month Summary

A month ago I scratched a list onto a piece of paper of a bunch of things that I could do that would help to recharge me and keep me balanced and centered. Here’s the list. The items in blue were done at least once over the month and the items in green did not get done in March.

 

• Make bone broth
• Paint nails
• Wax legs (I had this done professionally…will NEVER go back to doing it myself!)
• Make salt scrub
• Make shampoo
• Do Coquitlam Crunch
• Exercise 3/week
• Go on an evening mid-week coffee date
• Do Sunday mall
• Go on road trip
• Get haircut
• Wax underarms
• Read before bed
• Enjoy couch time
• Make kombucha
• Go tanning

 

I did not make kombucha or bone broth although I did go so far as to buy jars for it…..but I decided against it due to cost at the moment. The cost of all those jars I would need add up! I did not make salt scrub because I totally forgot about that one. I did not hit the Coquitlam Crunch because, quite honestly, the weather has been so shitty that it wasn’t feasible. The nice days we did have, I rode my bicycle to work…climbing up the side of a mountain after that just seemed foolish!

 

Overall I’m pretty pleased with how the “experiment” has been going. Admittedly last week wasn’t tops for me, I had (& continue to have) horrible seasonal allergies and have been wasted on allergy medication for three weeks now. Add some ongoing difficult family issues to getting some very bad news about a good friend’s health and the final week of March sort of sucked. I felt out of sorts and blue and a bit off my game. Ray and I were bickering a bit (which is, honestly, completely out of character for us) and I was also recovering from riding nearly 65 kilometers (40 miles) over 7 days. Many of those kilometers were uphill. My body was also recovering from falling off of my bike and onto the road and/or trail and/or curb more times than I would like to admit. That definitely took a toll on me mentally as well as physically. Made me seriously question my crazy idea of riding my bike as a method of commuting!

 

Anyway, I don’t want to paint all of March with the same brush because most of it was really good. We did a lot of eating at the table, we did some after dinner dog walking, we conserved our money, we only ate out twice in the month. My social media usage has gone WAY DOWN during my at home hours (that is a huge one for me!).

 

I’m going to continue My Passion Experiment in April with a focus again on self-respect and awareness. I would like to see April contain more bicycle commuting, more weekend gym rowing, more tanning, a haircut, painted nails, dedicated couch time, our Sunday mall date, a massage (this is booked!), coffee with a friend (this is booked too, right Tara?), a family dinner, a blood donor appt and maybe depending on the weather, a motorcycle ride. I especially want to practice turning negative thoughts and feelings over to positive and, eventually, having a positive (or at least neutrally optimistic) attitude as my default. I want the majority of the things that I do (if not all of them) to be things that are done with the intent of adding passion to my inner self and value to my life overall.

 

As I enter April, I do not have a goals list ready to “guide me” along the way. Maybe that’s a mistake and if it is, I’ll be the first to admit it. I mostly want to go through April happy, healthy and active. If I can pull that off then everything else will fall into place!

My Passion Experiment – Week Three Summary

Good Morning,

Today marks three weeks that I undertook to change my outlook and try to inject a spark back into my life. I had to read back on three weeks ago because I’m certainly feeling a lot better than I was then! Some of the main things that I’ve been trying to do are to be more present and to pay myself more respect. Those two things pretty much encompass all the other little things such as eating healthy foods, getting exercise, reducing social media/tech use, reducing spending, eating at the table, etc.

This past Friday I was boldly reminded that while I’m improving at both being present and being respectful, I still have a distance to go and a lot of “past habits” to unravel and remodel. I had initially decided to “scale in” my bike commuting, one day the first week, two days the next week and then either two again or maybe three the following week, depending on how I felt. Instead of respecting my plan and myself, I decided to jump right from one day per week (the first full commute) right into three times last week (and back to back no less). I did so while also battling a hefty dose of allergies and allergy medication. Monday was a good commute, Thursday was a reasonable commute and then on Friday morning before I’d even gotten dressed, I had a very loud voice in my head saying “You should not be riding today, your body is beat!”. And….of course…I ignored it. “Push through”, I told myself. “You’ll have the weekend to recover”, I said. So I hopped on my bike and made it to work where I sat all day knowing I was in for an ass kicking on the way home. But, once here via Pedals, the only way home is to…well….pedal. Long story short, I got halfway up the hill, stopped to take a break where the hill gets steeper and then crashed to the ground still clipped to the bike when I tried to get going again. My body was beat and my legs didn’t have enough left to give to get enough power to get my bicycle going on the steep incline. After (stupidly) declining help from a very kind man who offered to drive me and my bike to the top of the hill, I gave my head a shake and called the hubby’s son to come and get me. I baled halfway home. And instead of feeling bad about not finishing my commute, I felt sad and guilty that I didn’t listen that morning when my Self was hollering at me to leave the bike at home.

This weekend I made it up to my Self though, I went shopping with my mom and sister, made turkey soup with a bone broth base, closed my bedroom door and took a two hour nap (by mid-day on Saturday my body was begging to sleep…..that heavy sleep of recovery), got taken out for dinner by Ray, drank lots of water, took Gracie on a sunny 5km stroll, hit the mall for some tea, had a hot bath, did some foam rolling, ate veggies and eggs and homemade chicken chili. I’ve been craving carbs like absolute crazy since last Thursday and have been trying not to completely ignore it since it must be based in some sort of need, but have been trying to fulfill the urges with acceptable things like yams, mounds of veggies, apples & berries.

So that’s Week Three of My Passion Experiment. I got burned by not listening to a message that was coming through loud and clear. Duly noted and will continue to listen and work on being present and respecting myself.

So what’s up this week?

No biking for the week, my allergies are awful this morning, tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, Wednesday I have an appt after work, Thursday I’m busy after work and Friday we leave right after work on our road trip! I’m actually really alright with missing a week of bicycling, my legs are so stiff and sore! I think I pooched my scale in plan and need to take a breather. I’m going to hit the gym a couple days in the morning and work on rowing and some hill interval training and do some tanning. At the moment it’s not looking good for cycling next week either due to the weather, but I mustn’t forget, it’s still VERY early in the season!

In relating my Friday commute story to my co-workers this morning, my boss said to me “You should quit. You’ve fallen three times and that hill is not going away. Admit you’ve failed and forget about it.” I was stunned, jaw = dropped. I “failed”??? This is all a brand new endeavor for me, I expect some bumps and bruises and a learning curve. “Quit”?? Because it’s hard? Or because sometimes it hurts? Or because it’s not going perfectly? I told him that I would never “quit” something because it was too hard, but that I have revised my plan and will take the longer but slightly less steep route home for the next little while as I increase my biking muscles and my cardiac endurance. He said, “You just don’t know when to throw in the towel.” I have NEVER run across someone who would advise a person to quit when the going gets tough rather than dig deeper or revise the plan or find another way. I was completely shocked and neared tears this morning. Obviously we all have “failure voice” in our heads already that we have to quiet and convince not to sabotage us…..but to have someone actually say “Admit you’ve failed and quit”……completely out of my realm of experience! Especially since it’s only been two weeks!

Memories

I went tanning last night…..and burned my ass.  But that’s not really the point of this post.

I’m sure you’ve gotten “scent memories” whether it’s the smell of blooming lilacs that remind you of your gramma’s house or salty air that reminds you of summer vacations or the smell of cut trees that reminds you of Christmas?  Usually they’re “here and gone”, fleeting, those memories.  Last night though I had one go on for a couple of hours.  It was both wonderful and unnerving.  I bought new tanning lotion a couple of weeks ago and only got around to using it last night.  And, last night the standup tanners were occupied so I went into a lay-down bed.

The combination of that particular lotion and the laydown bed caused me to be instantly brought back to the first time I ever went tanning, 7 years ago, when I first started to uncover my true self from under the armour of fat and depression that I was living in.  I remembered being the person who making efforts that deserved celebrating with something blissful.  I remembered being the person who was falling in love (real, proper love) for the first time ever and I remember being scared & excited about it.  I remembered laying in that tanning bed 7 years ago wondering what my life would look like, wondering if I had the drive and determination to push on and see it through.  I remembered how, every day and especially when I was tanning, I was starting to really love my body for what it was right then and for what it was turning into.

I was reminded that evening when I was laying in my own bed afterwards, how for me, going tanning is one of those markers of being in a good place.  It’s a sign of having energy to spare and love for myself and that I’m doing the right things; the things that most respect me and where I am right then.  Maybe I’m not in the perfect body (the one I strive for, not the one I could never achieve) and maybe I’m carrying some extra weight right now….but for me tanning is a sign of ongoing success.  I don’t go tanning when I feel awful about myself, when I’m full of shame or depression.  I don’t go when I’ve been laying on the couch eating crap. It’s only something I do when all my ducks are in line….and the fact that I’m going now makes me really joyful.  It means that I’m starting to be successful in breaking new ground and in letting go of past hurts & resentments.  I’m forging brave new pathways and looking upon the future with a clear heart and mind.   It means that I am gaining back the passion for myself, the desire to care for myself because I am worth caring about.  I have some of that excitement again, the one I last felt 7 years ago; excitement in the everyday and curiosity surrounding the future.

I rode my bicycle to work this morning, here on the first day of spring.  It was 0C (32F) this morning and holy CRAP was it cold!  I had a frost beard when I got to work (all the teeny little peach fuzz hairs on my face had acquired tiny bits of condensation on the uphill and then it froze on the downhill!) and two hours later I still have a chill and am wrapped in three hoodies all zipped together to make a pseudo blanket, LOL!  Maybe a teeeeensy bit too cold for morning commuting….but should be SO nice on the way home tonight!

I have plans to bicycle commute tomorrow as well (that’ll make it three days this week!)…although I might consider wearing full length pants/leggings for the ride down in the AM….and then I think I’ll visit the gym on Saturday morning for some rowing and a steam, I never did get to steam last weekend.  I’m actually considering investing in a rowing machine for at home.  I would dearly LOVE to get 20 minutes of rowing in Every Day but I have a really hard time going to the gym just for 20 minutes….and I don’t really have time during the week while bicycle commuting/recovering, to get there for longer.  It’s around $1200 and is the same one they have at my gym (Concept 2, Model D).  I’m waffling about it and going to sit on the idea for a while and just wait…..the right answer will present itself, it always does.  If you have a rower at home, do you like it?  Do you think it’s worth the money and does it get used?  We also have a full weights set downstairs (plates, dumbells, lat machine, squat rack, ez bar & Olympic bar, yoga ball, balance plate, etc.) that is currently unused and I’m seriously debating adding the rower to the mix, cancelling my rather expensive gym membership and cleaning up and making proper use of the space and equipment.  Again though….I’ll just sit on that idea for now and see what happens.

Anyway, I’m off to try and find more hoodies to string together to add to my insulation since the air conditioner just kicked in and it’s only 19C (66F) in here.

Happy First Day of Spring!  (is it springy in your neck of the woods?  Or still cold and crappy?)

My Passion Experiment – Week Two Summary

Today marks two weeks into My Passion Experiment.  You can catch up with the project here, Day Two, Day Four and Day Seven if you like.  I’m feeling pretty good compared to a couple of weeks ago.  Here are the things I’ve noticed last week:

1. For me, becoming complacent or thinking I know what’s going to happen or how I’m going to feel robs me of the ability to actually experience each day.  This one is très difficile but incredibly important for me to prevent feeling like I’m trapped in my own routine! Getting up and going through the same motions day after day; shower, cook breakfast, make coffee, feed dog, eat/drink, wash up, watch news for 11 minutes, drive to work, make tea, find something to do until noon, eat lunch, find something to do until 430, drive home, walk dog, start dinner, eat, cleanup, bed between 8 & 8:30, read for 20 minutes, sleep.  Repeat.  Can you see how that would get depressing?  But what if each day could feel different?  I’m trying to do small things that change how each day feels in order to avoid monotony and cultivate some passion for The Everyday.  Playing tuggy with Gracie for 11 minutes in the morning instead of watching the news, turning Ray’s alarm off and waking him up with kisses and cuddles instead (I like that more than he does, LOL!).  Doing a lemon sugar facial/upper body scrub before getting in the shower once a week, taking Gracie on a longer walk after work instead of rushing home to start dinner, having an after work drink in the driveway on nicer days, of course, biking to work, turning on music in the morning instead of the television, having a water-only day, going tanning in the evening instead of couch-time, floor stretches during my lunch break when no one is around. Anything to make the day feel a bit different.

 

1. Passion grows on itself.  You put a little teensy seed down on a welcoming foundation, cover it up and then spend time cultivating it. You can’t see anything yet.  Nothing looks different….but you keep watering and you keep letting the sun’s warmth get to it.  You don’t lose faith.  And eventually a teensy little speck appears.  You rejoice that the little guy is alive and then you just keep doing what you were doing.  Watering, protecting, feeding and allowing it to grow. Some days it seems as if it’ll never get any bigger….and then poof, new leaves!  Everything that it is and everything that it will be comes from that first tiny seed and the faith that it would grow in time.

 

1. Letting the past go is still a work in process.  A couple of times this past week I’ve had to gently (and then not so gently) tell Ray that I don’t want to talk about the plant or what might be happening there and that I sure as hell (that was the not so gently part) do NOT want to go for a drive and see what’s going on over there.  Not.  I also bumped into a former customer last weekend whom I knew outside of work before I knew of them as the customer….so I completely forgot that we had both associations.  Until she started grilling me about what had happened and what was going on and how could she contact someone there now.  I was so blindsided and not expecting that discussion that I nearly fainted.  So this part is still a work in process.  Although it has been successful by some measure as well in that I have not used the past as an excuse to do or not do something.  It’s simply irrelevant now.  I’ve stopped using the word “anymore” (eg, I don’t get four weeks of vacation anymore) or the word “now” (eg. I work 8 – 4:30 now).  I did that because if I drop those two qualifiers, what’s left is just a true statement.  I don’t get 4 weeks of holidays and I do work 8-4:30.  “Anymore” and “now” are those little tentacles trying to hook onto the past and keep pieces of it in the present.  I also try to avoid starting sentences with “I used to” and instead I say “When I” because I feel like starting with “I used to” makes it too regretful sounding and saying “When I” is more positive and more of a statement of fact. (eg. “I used to have an amazing boss” vs “When I worked at ABC, my boss was amazing”).  Maybe this is all BS as far as “professionals” are concerned but I find it useful for myself in staying current and closing that door.

So that’s the summary of Week Two.  Week Three should be more of the same, and instead of dreading the next 5 days of life, I’m going to be excited about it and try to wake up every day looking forward to what may come.

In other news, I rode my bicycle to work today and have revised my “scaling in” plan.  Since today is only Monday and Thursday & Friday are supposed to be nice days this week, I don’t see any real reason why I can’t ride on both those days as well, especially since the weekend is right there for recovery afterwards.  I’ll judge how I feel after riding on Thursday but this morning felt great even though I did 30 minutes of hill training on the indoor trainer on Saturday.  Bicycling is such a low impact activity that I don’t feel I have to recover my joints, ligaments, tendons after every ride; so far I haven’t been in any pain or discomfort.  I feel fantastic when I’m done and I look forward to the next outing so I’m going to keep letting my body run the show.  Going out in the morning and smelling that damp air and breathing hard; I know it’s where I’m supposed to be right now and I love it.

In Practice

Just over a week ago I wrote a list of things that I could do that were solely for the purpose of showering myself with self-respect and care.  Things as big as going on a road trip (booked!) to as small as reading for 20 minutes before lights out.  Things like making a salt scrub or going on an evening coffee date.  Going tanning, attending the gym, getting a haircut, waxing my underarms, making my own kombucha & bone broth, filing my nails, waxing my legs, making my own shampoo, spending one evening a week laying on the couch, doing the Coquitlam Crunch.  I wrote the list on a scrap of paper and then stuffed it into my date book.  I haven’t looked at the list since then but it seems that simply writing it down was enough to bear fruit.

I have felt an attitude shift in the last week….nearly imperceptible but definitely there.  That spirit of keeping my commitments to myself and of doing things because I FEEL good after, it seems to be making a difference.  An excellent example of this has been my inner voice.  I’d decided earlier in the week that I would go to the gym on Sunday morning and when Sunday morning arrived it was nearly impossible to leave my cozy bed at 8:30 in the morning and get in my car to go and work hard.  But….my inner voice said to me, plain as day “You made the commitment, anything less than going is disrespectful.”  When there I did some interval training on the bike (thought I’d best get my bike legs going…more on this later) and then went rowing. My goal was 3,000 meters.  Normally I stop at each 1,000 meters for a rest but I didn’t feel that I needed to.  When I got to 2,000 I decided to push on to the end without stopping.  With around 750 meters to go my determination started to falter.  And then my inner voice kicked in.  It told me to picture rowing on water, picture the sun on my face and the gorgeous view, the oars in my hands (which is a bit strange since I’ve never rowed anywhere but a Concept2 in the gym).  Think of how proud I would feel when I made it to 3,000.  To remember how good my body feels when it’s fit and healthy.  I had me think of earning my breakfast and how good it would taste.  And that inner chat was on repeat.   Not once did it say a negative word.  It didn’t tell me I was fat so I deserved to suffer through the workout.  It didn’t tell me to think of losing weight.  It didn’t tell me that I was being punished for the bacon I ate the day before.  It just kept refreshing a beautiful summer water scene in my mind and the air from the flywheel was a summer breeze on my face as I glided across the water.  It kept reminding me that I was capable and to just get it done and I did.

It hasn’t been all “gym” successes though.  There’s been an early morning walk through the park with a coffee, there was an evening coffee date on a night when I was feeling bummed out, there’s been gorgeous fresh fruit and eggs for snacks, there’s been a nice glass of wine in the fading warmth of a nice day.

Obviously it’s not all sunshine and kitten kisses, some days it’s just downright hard to maintain an attitude of “on purpose” and to do the things that are right, but overall I’m starting to feel a bit brighter.

On a fun but also terrifying note,  I test rode my bicycle to work this past weekend.  My honest assessment will follow some pertinent points:

A)     I had attended the gym and did bike intervals and rowing that morning

B)     I had a large breakfast at 11am and a hard-boiled egg and some fruit around 2pm

C)     I gave myself a very false sense of confidence due to having the incorrect route in my head

So my assessment?  It was SO HARD….and it’s going to get SO MUCH HARDER!  The route to work is mostly downhill, it was 8.25km and it took me around 27 minutes.  There were a couple of hills in the route there that I had forgotten about and which sapped my confidence right off the start.  However, I made it to work safely and feel that I should be able to do that on a workday morning.  Ray met me down at my office in his truck in order to make sure I had backup if anything went wrong.  After a quick water stop and a banana, I hopped back on my bike and headed for home.  Bearing in mind that it was nearly 6pm, I knew that I wasn’t going to bike all the way home, I just wanted to get the “traffic-y” part out of the way so I knew my route.  I was SO glad that Ray and his truck were there because I was completely spent about a quarter of the way back home.  After arriving home I downloaded my ride and took a look at it and am by turns, really stoked and really nervous!

This is a map of the elevation of my ride to work…..and I’ve marked with two little arrows the “hills” I was referring to.  They are mere blips.  Now picture this graph in the reverse because that is the way home!  The only thing keeping me from selling my bicycle and never even considering this wacky “bicycle commuter” thing again, is the fact that I have actually done it before.  I successfully rode up this hill on that same bicycle about 3 years ago.  And I KNOW that it didn’t take me more than an hour.  So….I’m not in as excellent shape as I was back then……but I sure will be by the time summer rolls around!  My plan is to ride one day this week (Wednesday), two days next week and then three days each week thereafter….weather permitting, of course.  And, as a pre-success reward for myself, I bought new huge saddlebags (for my lunch and change of clothes), a new rear taillight and new riding gloves. I’m really excited to get this started!

I think that’s about all for me…..I’ve been putting My Passion Experiment into practice in tangible, measurable ways…and while I’m not actually measuring it, I can feel it starting to build and I’m so glad for that.

My Passion Experiment – Day 7

Today marks the end of the first week of My Passion Experiment.  You can read more about it in these posts:

My Passion Experiment

My Passion Experiment – Day 2

My Passion Experiment – Day 4

 

I’d said in one of the previous posts that I don’t feel like it is beneficial to “assess” whether or not it’s working but I thought I could share my observations thus far. (haha, the formatting is all buggered on this so apparently all my observations are number ONE!)

 

1.  Being “in the moment” takes practice.  I am used to flitting around (mentally and physically) and doing one thing while thinking about the next two or three tasks or trying to pull off three or four tasks at once.  I’m guilty of listening with half an ear when someone is talking to me and in having a conversation with someone without actually being engaged with them.  I’m guilty of walking my dog and texting and checking my phone.  I’m guilty of sitting down to watch a movie or a hockey game or a show with my husband and spending half the time reading blogs on my iPad. This past week I have made a concerted effort to focus on ONE thing at a time.  I have purposely left my phone downstairs and/or heard a text/tweet come through and made a point not to look at it until the next day.  Man alive, that part felt HUGELY empowering, not being a slave to a beeping, chirping, buzzing piece of glass and metal.  🙂  I noticed one night when we were having dinner, I was finished eating first and was ready to get up, clean up, get going.  I had to remind myself to just sit….and engage and chat.  Funny how we get used to blazing through things instead of stopping and enjoying them for what they are.

 

1.  I’ve noticed that I don’t feel like I need as much “couch-time” when I’ve done things that are good for me (ie, waxing my legs, filing my nails, hitting the gym, tanning, reading in bed, going to bed on time).  For whatever reason, when I’m not expending time and energy on myself, my “need” for lengthy downtime is greater than when I am spending time on/with myself.  I suspect that it’s the old “quality over quantity”.  When I’m doing quality things for myself, they blow quantity out of the water. And in reverse, if I’m not doing the quality things, I’m trying to fill that “me time” reservoir with something that has a much lower value and it takes a lot more of it.  Make sense?

 

1.  I’ve been following along with a “Love Your Body Challenge” that a dear friend turned me onto.  Every day you’re given a new mantra with a blank to fill in as it relates to you.  Then you repeat it 10 times, do the assigned “action item” while repeating it 10 times and then repeat 10 more times before you go to bed.  I’m not really a “mantra repeating” sort. Seriously…not for me.  But I’ve been writing down my mantra each day, reading it back to myself at various intervals (and reading back the ones from the previous days), doing the action items and really putting thought into what these mantras are supposed to mean.  Aside from developing more appreciation for ALL the aspects of me, it’s made me remember that there is no One Right Way.  I’m not a mantra-repeater.  No problem.  I’m not a runner anymore.  That’s alright.  Realizing that there are as many ways to achieve success as there are unique people in the world has been vastly freeing.

 

1. In an experiment inside my Experiment, I’ve also stopped giving out huge amounts of detail to Ray in regards to what I do in my alone time.  Not because I want to keep things from him but because I feel like I need to be able to celebrate myself without needing any validation from outside of myself.  It’s not hugely important things, just…..a few teeny things that I want for my own which do not impact our relationship in any form.  We are so close and we spend 90% of our at home time within sight of each other and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  But during this time of finding myself and my passion again, it’s been important to do some things because I need them, and they seem to have more value in the absence of explanation or discussion.  Does that even make sense?

 

1. And finally, I am deep in the process of letting go of the past.  That’s all I’m going to say on this right now, it’s an interesting process and one that is taking a lot of my mental energy right now.  I don’t exactly have an awesome skillset surrounding letting things go and releasing my grip on certain things is scary and does not come easily.  But….to learn and grow and move forward you cannot be chained to a huge brick from the past and even a pebble from the past in your moving-ahead-shoe is irritating and inhibits forward motion.  This is a work in progress…like the rest of this Experiment.

I’m very grateful that I have this blog because it certainly helps me to flesh things out in my mind.  But also because of the amazing people that come here to read it, people that comment and link to their own blogs and stories and lives.  It’s really an amazing community and I’m so grateful for it!

My Passion Experiment – Day 4

I sincerely thank everyone that has come to read about this project and especially those who have taken the time to comment, very much appreciated!  I’m on Day 4 of trying to live “on purpose” and of trying to nurture my inner passionate spirit back to life.  I’m not so foolish as to make any determination at this stage as to whether or not it’s “working”.  While normally I would assess and evaluate anything I’m doing, especially new things, in this case I feel that it’s in my best interest to simply keep moving forward.  To look at each new day as a blank canvas on which to paint my colors and each passed day as a finished painting, whatever it might look like.

Over the last couple of days, in choosing to “do it with passion or not at all”, a couple of other words keep popping up in my head.  Respect and disrespect.  In order to bring them into the light and find out what my heart was trying to tell me, I wrote a list of what I feel is respectful (of myself and others) and what I feel is disrespectful (again, of myself and others).

DISRESPECT

• Sleeping in, no gym
• Over-eating, eating when not hungry
• Staying up late (this does not respect my personal sleep needs)
• Using social media during quiet or couple’s time
• Eating foods which are poison to my body and mind (chocolate, grains)

RESPECT

• Keeping personal commitments (gym, dog walking)
• Wiping counters & tidying up at the end of the day and before leaving the house
• Leaving my phone off/away when at home for the evening
• Speaking in a gentle and kind voice (to myself and others)
• Greeting people at the front door to our home
• Taking time to myself without guilt

Here on Day Four of this Experiment, I’ve been back to the gym a couple of times and it’s felt good.  But different.  The first morning I went back I had my lifting grids and I was ready to hop on the treadmill and bang out a 20 minute run and then row for 3000 meters and then get back into my lifting schedule.  And…I hopped onto the treadmill……and just stood there.  41 days had passed since I’d been on a treadmill.  Before that, 6 months had passed without consistent exercise.  And in these 6-8 months previously, I treadmill sprinted…and ended up with inflamed Achilles tendons.  I lifted the heavy weights that my charts said I could do….and hurt my bad shoulder about 4 times.  I stopped and healed and started and injured and stopped a half a dozen times.  Sometimes I didn’t bother even stopping, just kept going…and ended up couched for 7 days in February.

I couldn’t press the speed button that morning.  I just kept thinking how incredibly disrespectful it would be to myself, my body and my emotional and physical health, to walk in off the street and jam myself right back where I was a year ago (or more).  So I walked.  At a wicked incline. And I sweated buckets and felt it in every muscle below my waist.  But…no pain.  No sore knees, no inflamed Achilles, no lower back pain.   After that was over I did some rowing and then it was time to head to the weights.  And again, I was stopped.  What do I do?  I scale it back, slow it down, take it easy and work my way back.  Back to where I was?  Or maybe to somewhere completely new.  Slowly and steadily.  Carefully and “on purpose”.  I left the gym feeling like not only had I gone to the gym which is very important for my “passion growing” but that I also respected myself and where I am right now.  I respected the body that has carried me through some really hard times, I respected my emotional and mental health by being real and honest and true.  Have I felt stronger, physically?  Of course.  But I felt more connected to myself than I have in a very long time and that was the strongest feeling of them all!

My Passion Experiment – Day 2

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that my spark had gone out and that I need to relight my fire.  It got me to wondering, outside of full-fledged clinical depression of course, if a person could turn the tide of their life and reignite their passion for their living simply by starting to place emphasis on the things that are core to them.  Could small, seemingly inconsequential little nothings add up to a renewed vigor?  Could music and exercise and nail painting and tea drinking and candle lighting and quiet time and dog snuggling and prolonged hugging really turn things around?

Being that I’m currently in a position of easily talking myself out of doing anything that is not absolutely essential to my existence (cooking/eating paleo has remained throughout although the joy is lacking) I didn’t want to make a schedule or a calendar and declare that I had to do certain things to make myself feel better.  I simply want to try and inject passion into the things that are me, every day.  My passion.  My love.  My drive.

And so begins My Passion Experiment.  So what are the “rules”?  haha….if you know me at all you know that I love rules…I thrive with rules.

The rules are pretty basic:

1. Do not drift.
2. Do not languish.
3. Do not settle.
4. Do the things that make you happy.
5. Do the things that make you feel pretty.
6. Do the things that bring relaxation to your whole body.
7. Do the things that bring the good endorphins.
8. Do the things that make you respect yourself when you lay your head on the pillow at night.
9. While “do”ing, experience the moment, embrace the activity, whatever it is.
10. Immerse yourself into right now.
11. Discard loud.
12. Banish negative.  (including the shit you say to yourself)
13. Dismiss harsh.

That’s it.  That’s My Passion Experiment. There is no finish line, no measurement of success, no prize at the end.  Just a way to get through the darkness that life has a way of circling around.  A way to embrace the simplicity of every day.  A way to place real emphasis on what I value.

I’d love to hear how you keep the passion in your every day.  How you turn darkness back into light.  How you shutter out gray and black.  How you nurture your true self when time, energy and passion is lacking.

My Passion Experiment

I read this in my morning web-rounds today and haven’t been able to get it off my mind.  “Do it with passion….”.  It doesn’t say what “it” is.  “It” in my life right now is….everything.  I feel like I’ve lost my passion for everything; cooking, dog-care, sex, exercise, health research, self-care, reading, cleaning.  Everything that I value…..sucked into a vortex of passionless apathy.

What does a person do about that?  How do you turn the tide?  How do you spin your world all the way in another direction?  Having my goals lists is great….but if you simply don’t do them, they languish and weeks go by (right, February, I’m aware).

I hate this weather, I absolutely hate it. I’m tired of being cold all the time, I’m tired of the dark and the rain and the snow, I hate that I work until 4:30 in the afternoon, I’m so fucking bored I want to put my head through the wall, I’m sad that I have no vacation to speak of this year.  Ya.  That.  All of it and then some.

I need to breathe life into myself and shake myself out of my monotony.  I need to throw myself at my husband when he comes through the door and kiss and hug him until I am all hugged out.  I need to paint my nails and wax my legs and drink water.  I need to have sex and lay naked in a heap of soft blankets and pillows. I need to earn couch time with the sacrifice of other time.  I need to make invigorating shampoo for my scalp and salt scrub for my skin and lather and scrub them both until they’re tingly.  I need to lay on the floor and let my dog snuffle me in the head and stand on my back while I laugh.  I need to go to the gym and celebrate my body with sweat and effort. I need to force myself to be aware of the moment.

So when you’re mired in gray and fog and dreary cold rain, how do you start the things that light you up? Seriously, I’m asking.  How do you start the things that will light your fire again? The things you too easily talk yourself out of.  

I feel like, once again, I’m on a precipice.  Fix it now or this is your forever.  So I’m going to “Do it with passion or don’t do it at all”.  “It” being everything.  I’m going to forcefully inject passion back into my life in every way and cross my fingers that I don’t run out of energy before the flame catches again.