Month: January 2017

Dear Readers,

“Running late, be there in ten minutes”

“on my way”

“we still on for today?”

How many times have you sent this text message to someone you have plans with that day or night?

It’s not just social situations, people are late to meetings at work and even (gasp) job interviews because of this laissez-faire mentality.

Don’t get me wrong, when you have a legitimate reason to be late, definitely reach out and touch someone but the random blowing off of plans and devaluing time has got to stop.

Yes, we are all busy, I get that, and it takes a bit of going back and forth to even set up the time and that was hard enough to honor before adding kids into the mix. So, while not impossible, it gets harder which means it becomes even MORE important to not cancel unless absolutely necessary.

I can’t tell you how many times I walk into a restaurant and see people NOT TALKING but scrolling on their phones sitting at tables together. I really want to say something, anything to FORCE them to interact with another human being. We are becoming a nation of zombies that are addicted to the dopamine rush we get when we hear a “swoosh” “ding” or other “notification” and we get that “hit” off our pipe (oops, I mean phone). The worst part of this addiction is that it’s socially acceptable because everyone has it.

1. Do you wake up to a cell phone? Do you go to sleep with one?
2. Do you check your phone first or say good morning to your partner first?
3. Do you check facebook or email multiple times through the day?

Think about the last meeting you went to, did you talk to your coworker before it started? Or were you buried in your technology? I realize that sometimes you are vocationally bound to those things but not all the time. So I want to challenge you to look for ways to disconnect from the internet and connect to the world around you.

So here is the hard part, now that I have noticed this and pointed it out to you, what do you DO about it?

Well here is what I am doing. Three things-

1. If I make plans with someone, I am doing my best to keep them. When I get to the location of the plans, I am going to turn my phone OFF and BE THERE fully, completely and focused on the person I spent so much time trying to coordinate the time to be with and truly focus on them, looking at them, not my flipping phone.  .
2. I got an alarm clock, which is how I will wake up and no longer use my phone as an alarm which will cause me to not snooze, and to actually wake up and start my day minus the smartphone scrolling.  (This is hard, I love to snooze)
3. Have a social media break on weekends- Sunday is our family day and so that will also be social media break day. (we have a cell phone lock up for just this occasion)
4. Before a meeting starts at work, don’t be buried in my phone or laptop, look at the other people in the room, and CONNECT. That is how we USED to build relationships. It’s time to get back to that, before it’s too late and all we have is our machines and the warm dull glow to keep us company.

What can YOU do to “break the habit”?

Think About It.

Think about it….

Think About IT!…. now

Thank you for reading my post and being my follower, now, please put down your phone, or log off your computer and go do something that has nothing to do with a screen.

Dear Readers,

As I have long said, the words we use matter. No more so than now.

I returned to work after being on maternity leave AND it was great. Everyone is happy to have me back and the feeling is mutual.

I have to say, I fully expected to feel sad, AND I do because I don’t get to spend every waking minute with my baby girl. Important to note, I LOVE my JOB and as my boss is fond of saying, “Time away, gives one fresh eyes”.

There is a part of me that HESITATES in writing that, as “Shouldn’t I be bereft and inconsolable because I went back to work and no longer get to take care of my baby?”
“Shouldn’t I be unhappy that I can’t be her mom and nothing else?”

Well no, because living in the world of AND allows me to say-

“I love my child, I love her more than I thought it was possible to love someone, AND I love my job and am incredibly fulfilled by it.” That’s a pretty powerful thing to say if you think about it. One does not negate the other.

When you say, “but” you tend to negate the things that come before it and in so doing, limit yourself when it’s far more powerful to live in abundance.

It certainly helps my feeling that my husband is a stay at home dad which he is really good at by the way, AND I still miss being with her.

Case in point, I learned about an audition and instead of thinking “I don’t want to tell anyone else about it, because I don’t want to hurt my chances by alerting competition” my first thought was, let me tell a friend about it, because I also think she would be fantastic AND I am still planning to audition.

I am applying this same concept to food as we head into the New Year (for those who don’t  know.. my New Year is my birthday, January 19th -) so “I want a cookie, but I shouldn’t have it” becomes, “I want a cookie, AND I have a weight loss goal that is not supported by my eating the cookie. Let me be clear, this does not always mean I will resist the cookie, AND I have a far better chance of doing so by speaking intentionally about the act.

As an experiment, in the past week, I have done my best to say “AND” when I previously would say “BUT” – Try it. I dare you. You might be surprised at how much you use “but” when perhaps what you intend to express is “AND”

Think about it…

 

 

Dear Readers,

My mom has given this advice to me over the years and it has proven to be very wise not to mention simple to execute. Notice I said, simple not easy.

So on this, the third day of the new year, I say it to you, “Begin as you mean to continue”

This brand new year means lots of people will be making resolutions to get fit or lose weight or stop doing things or start doing things and that’s great. I submit to you that you may find more success without an “all or nothing” approach. For instance, I will read 12 books this year sounds super daunting till you break it down into a book a month, and drill down to even smaller bites of how many pages a day, etc. It’s really easy to get down on yourself too if you have a rough day and don’t quite make your goal, making it that much harder to pick up and start again the next day.  Beware the “all or nothing” approach.

Take me for instance, I reviewed my last few posts about the new years and the resolve I had to eat better and lose weight and each time I began with a fervent promise to myself that THIS time it WILL be different. Sadly, each time, It has resulted in being further afield of my goals as I ate that cookie or didn’t exercise that day.

I think the closest I have actually come was last year when I decided not to “diet” but rather to eat healthy for 30 days. Quite the loaded statement when you consider what that means. Eat healthy- does that mean don’t eat pastry? or does it mean just eat one? or half of one? Does that mean have toast but don’t put butter on it? Does that mean you eat one banana and you are cool but if you have two.. you aren’t being healthy? Well what I decided was that I would not eat pastry, starch or processed foods and no soft drinks, just water for 30 days. I didn’t have any trouble sticking to it because I wasn’t doing it to lose weight, I was doing it because I heard myself say over and over.. I wish I was in better shape AND not doing things I know to do in order to be what I say I want to be. On December 18, 2015 I decided I was DONE playing footsy with my weight problem and was going to take this stuff seriously. I posted on social media pictures of my food and the hashtag #healthyhabits #babysteps- I figure it worked so spectacularly on our finances, why not try it with my weight/eating etc? I am proud to say, it worked.. for 30 days I ate healthy and did NOT quit till I got to the 30th day. I was proud of myself and the most important thing about that time period was that I really didn’t feel deprived. It was a finite time (30 days) and I was working towards a goal.

We all KNOW the answer to this, right?  “eat right and exercise” but see the questions above.. The devil is in the details. I am no expert AND after about a year of observing my habits, I have come to the following conclusions. I feel better when I work out, AND there are times I struggle to find that motivation as well. I am capable of losing weight when I want to, I have willpower to resist (sometimes a pint of ice cream will be eaten in a week or two and sometimes it’s that same night) and everything in moderation seems to work best for me.

There are other times (say towards the end of my pregnancy) that I ate exactly what I wanted to eat and ate plenty of it, justifying that I was pregnant and could lose the weight later… well later is here now and I am sad to say when doing some post-baby clean up of my closet, I found I do not fit into some jeans that I wore easily in my early days of pregnancy, and while I realize that after having a baby, it’s likely there are some clothes I will never fit into again, since let’s face it, my entire body has changed, It’s a barometer for health and feeling good about myself so I was affected.

Since my daughter was born, I tend to think ahead and think about what we want to teach her about food being for fuel. I don’t want her to struggle like I have and still am so I have a big goal now that I am not sure how to accomplish AND I know I need to think about these things and figure them out for myself so I can teach her to have a better relationship with food than I do. I want to get in front of it so it’s not an issue for her, food it just food, not love or a replacement for affection or any of those toxic things it can sometimes mean for me.

I normally “share with the class” when I have it figured out, but a fellow blogger recently shared nakedly and honestly about her very real struggles with motherhood as she is “going through it” and it inspired me to share with you in hopes that we can help each other.

I DO not KNOW the answer AND I am on the hunt for it. I think there is power in sharing and shedding light on the subjects that are hard to talk about. This has been a problem for me for many years and I have tried a variety of diets (paleo/cabbage soup/atkins) nothing lasting and nothing truly satisfying.

I am opening myself to you, dear reader, in hopes that someone is going through this as well and one feels encouraged to discuss it, and two, maybe, just maybe, we won’t feel so all alone on this journey. Please reach out to me and tell me what you do to stay healthy and eat food for fuel. Begin as you mean to continue, I am doing that now by sharing how hard it is for me, I hope that it helps you reading this to realize you are not alone and we all struggle with something that it would likely help to talk about. Maybe for you it’s not weight or food but there is something you struggle with and that is okay. That means you are human. That means that I am human as well. I, by no means, have this figured out AND I am not even close to done trying.

This picture was taken on my first day back at the gym, it is a visual representation of my love for my body and the care I will take to show my daughter to love her body and have pride in taking her of her body as a habit, so I have to (say it with me) begin as I mean to continue… and exercise and eat right myself so she sees it as normal.

THINK ABOUT IT….