Sitting in progress: Acknowledging how far I have come

  I may not be the only one that feels at times pressured with life. There is so much going on in our culture today. There is so much pressure to be the best, to be strong and to be perfect. Some people excel in these type of situations, some people deflect away from these situations and then there is the category where I fall under most of the time. I feel that I am a little bit of a clump or a mass that makes up the pie of life and it's situations. I thrive at times on the pressure I can put on myself, I excel to exude the excellence that I want to to portray to myself and especially others. But most of all what I have yet to really dive into is feeling the sense of being happy with myself. I am sure other can say they can relate to this.

In the past I have had the little voices come up in my head. This voice at times can be my voice of encouragement and at times it can also be the voice that could destroy me. For many years of my life the voice of destruction occurred. I had a ton of great things happening to my present self at the time. I was losing weight, running half marathons, growing in my own self and accomplishing so much. But that voice of doubt and destruction started to come up more than once for me. It could happen at the moments that were the least expected; after a hard workout, after I had tried something great, or even after I had achieved another goal, or set the bar high for myself and to my surprise surpassed my expectations.  That voice would whisper quietly in the back of my mind and confuse me. It would enter thoughts into my present self of "not being good enough", "being too slow", "not eating right", or "not pushing yourself hard enough". Those whispers then started to become louder and instead of ignoring those whispers and brushing them off I started to believe those thoughts, those lies and untrue stories.


  Until January of 2015. In January of 2015 I decided to stop letting those whispers continue to be the loud shouting in my life. Once I decided to become a better version of myself those whispers became softer, quieter and almost non existent. Those whispers of negativity and false statements started to become loud shouting and rejoicing of positive affirmations and change in my life. As of October 2015 I am really becoming this changed, enlightened and growing human being. I HAVE accomplished a ton in the last year and I will continue to learn, grow and do what is best for me and my present and aware self. I know I have the support, love and passion within myself and with others to become, learn and do my life in the best way possible.


 I sit here now after releasing long held lies and negative elements in my life. The road has not always been a smooth and clear one in the past year. But I will say I have come out of these past few months being able to sit in my progress and sit in my success. Sitting in these great accomplishments is the best thing I could have ever done for myself. I may not be done, I may not have really figured out my life and where I am going but I am continue to walk the journey through life, ignoring the negativity and staying on and trekking through the path to success.

Stepping away from social media and revealing my true self: Thoughts on my 1 month social media detox!

 As many of you know I have decided that for a month I will step away from social media. This gives me time to dive into what makes me so drawn to social media, how I am using it in my life and what is important vs. non important information for me to be digesting/take in via social media. I have been going strong for about two weeks now and I just wanted to share a few things that I have personally noticed within myself with the changes and differences I have already seen in being "out of the social media loop".

 The biggest thing I have noticed is that my present awareness has shifted. I am not constantly looking at my phone or just disconnecting from myself anymore. There have been times at home, on breaks at work, etc. that I will look at my phone and start looking at things on social media and somehow an hour will go by in what seems like an instant. Now with time it almost seems to be moving slower but for the better.

 I have really noticed that my awareness when I am around Ben, with friends, etc. is so much more grounded, rooted. I am not zoning out when Ben is talking to me anymore. Now it is almost like I am the one who has to pull him away from his phone and being distracted. I think it also makes me realize how much I was not paying attention to him. And that isn't fair to my wonderful husband who has so much to say and so much I can learn from! Now with social media and those items out of the way we are having some really wonderful conversations together and just enjoying be around each other more. It's not that we weren't doing this before but I wasn't focused on sometimes what Ben was saying or other people around me were saying. I am much more aware , focused and engaged without looking at Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, etc.

 I have also realized that I sometimes use social media as a way of disconnecting or not feeling emotions in a present moment. When I have felt anxious, mad or upset I at times would tend to just walk away and ignore those thoughts and feelings by distracting myself with social media. I have had a few instances come up with needing to deal with my emotions and being fully aware of those thoughts and feelings rather than just pushing them down and distracting myself with my phone and the apps I so frequently use. It was quite honestly hard, strange and a foreign feeling  at first. But the amazing thing was I was actually able to sit in those feelings and thoughts for once and really fully deal with the present issues at the time. I also dealt with the feelings/issues at hand and then was able to solve why I was feeling that way and move on from it and felt relief and fullness.


Some of these things that I have noticed seem to simple to me. But honestly I was not aware of them before because of the distraction/disconnect in my life with social media. It is not to say that I will never use Facebook or any other the other social media outlets again but for me personally I am now aware of some things that I definitely need to continue to work on for me to be a successful, aware and fulfilled person!

Not letting the scale define you: Moving past the number and showing myself true success

Sometimes it is so easy to let the scale define myself and my progress. I have really been diving in head, nose, mind and body first to try and understand my thought process and the way I think about myself lately when I get on the scale. As I have slowly began to lose weight again I am noticing so much more because I have not put myself on the scale everyday. Rather than relying on that number to tell me how successful I am I have approached the scale and my relationship with it much differently this time around. Rather than relying on that number to base the value of my success and my achievements I have chosen to look at how I am feeling vs. whatever number that scale shows me on a daily basis. I have based my life around my own personal accountability and not letting that number get to me. Sure, when I weighed myself for my monthly check-in on Friday this may not have been the number I wanted to see. For once I am starting to be honest with myself and continue to push forward without just giving up. Sure there will be times in my life where I stumble and I fall a little. But the key to this is to get back up and start off from where you are. 

 Another thing I have found extremely useful with my weight loss is listing, having dialogue and writing my thoughts down about how I am feeling about that number. Whether or not I would like to admit it I know that I am not at the ideal number weight wise that I want to be continuing on in life and the future. But what has this number really taught me? What can I learn from what the scale has shown me on any given day? I feel like many times the scale is my worst nightmare, evilest friend and enemy. I do not enjoy getting on the scale and to be completely real with myself and whoever is reading this I sometimes get a little anxiety about it. It at times stresses me out to no end.

 What I have decided to do is rather than dictate my daily life, moments and future because of this number is to just BE. 

• Be the person who isn't quite at the weight they want to be but still gets out there everyday and moves. 

• Be the person who lifts some heavy shit, shows up and leaves the floor sweaty with  no excuses.

• Be the girl who gets there and stays there and is aware that life happens and to learn and grow from her own experiences.

• Be whatever I want to be. Don't apologize and be true to myself and my own passions. 

• Be loving and be passionate. Show kindness to whoever really needs it and to those who have shown you and continue to teach you great lessons in life.  

 So the scale isn't showing me what I ideally want to see for the rest of my life. Should I fret over my weight or just go ahead and get out there and kick ass in whatever way I want to?! I feel like this is something that I of course still struggle with constantly. But I am making a promise to myself to not rely on my weight as a barrier but to grow and learn and expand on so much more without worrying about that silly number!

 

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.” 
― Jim Morrison

Moving and being awesome: What this has taught me and is continuing to teach me

 Sometimes there are days that I wake up and I really literally don't want to move. It may be because I am tired, have too much on my mind, or just want to sleep in. All of these things that sometimes run across my mind I have come to find are my "blockers" or excuses that are possibly moving me away from continuing my success. You could even say that food, alcohol and certain social relationships were also blocking me from great success also.

 Since January 2015 I have committed myself to becoming better, to move more and in different ways than I ever thought of before. At first I wasn't sure if I could do it; starting over was going to be hard. But I have continued down a path of wanting and needing more, demanding more and feeling successful along the way. This weekend I participated in a fun and friendly competition called the Sweatcreate Games with my local gym Sweat360 and our gym affiliate for jujitsu Recreate Fitness in Portland. Talk about the most fun experience ever! Good friendly competition, lifting some heavy ish, playing some corn hole, a little tug o' war and followed by a sweet barbecue?! It was so fun and I don't think I've laughed more and played any harder in my life! All of these type of group events I would have shied away from 5 years ago before I came to Sweat360.

 An awesome person and fellow Sweat athlete Jenn broke down her day of how much she lifted during these various events. I went ahead and went back through to see what I could remember. Some of my highlights were the following:

Deadlifts: 135lbs x 60 reps = 8,100 lbs. total in a 5 minute time cap

Push Press: two 20 lb. kettle bells (40lbs) x 100 reps= 4,000 lbs. pressed in a 5 minute time cap

- 1 45 lb. kettle bell  and 1 60 lb. sand bag carried down and back of the front area of the gym during a times weight carrying challenge with our team of 6. We were all able to carry a ton of med balls, sand bags and bells in 56 seconds! :)


- Was able to complete two laps around the building, 21 -35 # kettle bell swings and 12 pull ups with some resistance band assistance in 3 minutes!


- Was able to help the fantastic team of 6 I was in be the overall winner of the games by team. (We didn't win against recreate overall as our gym but still I WILL TAKE IT!

 All of these things are awesome. What is really came down to for me personally was it wasn't about being the best person in the group, and it really wasn't about winning for me. The best thing I took out of being a part of this group and my team was SHOWING UP and DOING MY BEST.

 

Because of doing these things it had AMAZING OUTCOMES!

 SOOO much fun. I hope to be doing more fun events like this soon! Here are some of the awesome highlight photos from yesterday. Moving is such a fun and awesome thing. I am so happy I have decided to make this a part of my daily life, routine and moving forward. Things like these type of fun events continue to show me how far I have come and how far I truly can go and excel with my fitness.

Photos to prove how much fun we had on Saturday!

 

 

Rob da "cheerleader" for the day! This was during the challenge of carrying all those items collectively as a group down and back for time! Awesome coach and wonderfully fun times!

 

 

During my deadlifts! Love being in front of the barbell!

 

 

During tug of war! Yup that's right! We won our first round and lost the second but it was so much fun! An awesome way to test even more strength after tiring ourselves out with other various events!

 

 

Push Press: In 5 minutes I was able to get 100 reps with two 20 # kettle bells.

 

 

These people. Gym Family= The best people ever.