Spend time taking care of yourself, its the best investment you can make!

Dear Readers,

I do a lot of talking about self-care to my coaching clients. The idea normally involves a bubble bath, a cheesy movie or a chocolate treat. Today I am talking about the self-care you can do for yourself that helps your health. Doing something that makes you FEEL good matters. I used to run until I hurt my back so for now I walk. Most recently, I walked 1.82 miles with my husband (proud of you honey!) and that felt good for lots of reasons but mostly because he walked with me and was proud of himself for doing so.

But back to taking care of yourself, so in my journey to feeling better, I tried doing a lot of things. First, I stopped exercising at all, which has the double whammy of not being good for you and making you feel bad (no good).

Second, I went to see a doctor who told me, “you are getting old this is normal” – All due respect to your medical training, doctor but I am 38 and not even close to done working on what I can and can NOT do with this body of mine, thank you. (annoying, and a more than a little condescending, so also not good)

Third, I went to a chiropractor who asked me what do you do all day? Do you sit? Do you stand? Do you stretch? What do you do for exercise? After a few minutes, he was able to tell what was wrong and how to go about fixing it. HALLELUJAH! Now, I don’t want to give the impression that it is a magic wand, and I am all better. Like anything else in life, it’s not that easy. The chiropractor told me that in a few weeks I could go back to walking (I have done so!!!) and in a few months I can go back to running (patience, Iago!) but the biggest thing he shared with me is that I am in CHARGE of stretching, standing and walking and incorporating more movement in my day (hold on, time to stretch) and the people who are the most successful with maintaining health are the ones that manage their own care. WHAT A CONCEPT! Seems simple right?

Wrong. We are creatures of habit, so I have had to break the habit of constantly sitting, and every 30 minutes a timer goes off so I remember to stretch. After a few weeks of doing this, I am happy to report, I almost don’t need the timer… my body is adapting and the lack of pain is helping to solidify the habit. You will note that I said, “almost” because it is not worth it to me to “forget” that stretch so crucial to keeping me aligned and out of pain.

If you are the type to need some science to back up the fact that its bad to sit all the time, here is an article or two for you to peruse.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/killer-chairs-how-desk-jobs-ruin-your-health/

http://www.fastcompany.com/3021985/work-smart/the-science-of-posture-why-sitting-up-straight-makes-you-happier-and-more-product

If you don’t sit at your job and this doesn’t apply to you, great! Likely you know someone who does and this could perhaps benefit them, and help them avoid the issues I experienced.

So back to you, dear reader, what do you do for self-care? What do you do to maintain your health mental and physical? What habits do you need to break? What habits do you need to build? What can you do TODAY to make your life better?

Think about it…….

Meet Yourself Where You Are

Dear Readers,

Last week I wrote about “abandoning the checklist”– Wow, is that easier said than done. It turns out, old habits die hard and what you resist persists.

As many of you know, I have been having back problems, well I recently made contact with a great chiropractor and I feel optimistic for the first time in months that I won’t need back surgery which was a looming prospect.

It has involved adjustments and a change in behavior for me. Every hour, ( I set a timer) I have to get up and stretch. (my job is very sedentary and involves lots of not getting up and moving. I do walk around from time to time, but nothing like this.

Not only do I feel better, I get the chance to support my people better because they see my face, I don’t have it stuck on my monitor all day.

I could beat myself about the head and shoulders for not doing this sooner but I have opted instead to “meet myself where I am”…. So what does that mean?

  1. I will walk when I exercise not run for a while.
  2. I will LET GO of having to do a 1/2 marathon this year.

What do you need to do to “meet” yourself right now? Are you pushing yourself too hard? Do you need to push yourself, is it time to make that decision you have been putting off? Or is it time to give yourself some grace, and make a decision to tackle it anew tomorrow?

Think About It….

One chapter begins as another ends…

I was casting about for some pithy way to start this post and hit upon this quote

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

Frank Herbert

I have several friends who are moving into the next phase of their life – going to graduate school, getting married, adopting kids, fostering kids and having kids and changing their career to name but a few.

These are all exciting things to happen but do not come without a level of stress- I learned in college all about “eustress” which is defined here-

  1. Eustress is a term coined by endocrinologist Hans Selye. The wordeustress consists of two parts. The prefix eu- derives from the Greek word meaning either “well” or “good.” When attached to the word stress, it literally means “good stress”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I don’t know about you but I don’t generally think of stress as associated with good things but isn’t that the ultimate in reframing a situation? I am a big fan of that phrase and practice because let’s face it there are lots of situations in life that are not as we wish them to be, so in reframing you can paint it with the brush you like instead of the brush you have. For instance, I can look at today like, man I am tired and don’t want to go work out today, or as my good friend Jessica says, I have the “opportunity” to be tired because I am busy living a life I love and I have the “opportunity” to work out because my body is a working, breathing instrument that I am blessed to have working for me.                                                                           

Is that a little “being pollyanna” or viewing the world in “rose-colored glasses” YOU BET.. and most of the time it’s how I choose to view my life. Mark me, this does not exclude hard circumstances and real-life difficulty, but there are real opportunities every day to look for the happy rather than the annoying aspect of a given situation.

For example, I could look at my friend going to graduate school and moving away from Austin to become a professor as very sad and focus on the fact that he is moving away.

Yes, there is a level of sadness that goes with it, but I choose to focus on all the students he is going to impact and help live more enriched lives and the things they have yet to experience in his as yet unfilled classroom. This also gives way to the opportunity to stay in touch whether that is by email or even (gasp) a paper and pen letter.

Perhaps we could all stand to have a change like that. What chapter do you need to bring to an end to get YOU to your NEXT chapter?

Think about it…

“My mom makes the greatest cakeballs!”

My cake balls are important. I don’t make them often, and especially now that we are doing paleo 95.4% (yep I did the math) of the time cake balls are usually not on the menu. So it is special when I make them and my husband is always telling me how good they are. I love that man.

This is what I hope my kid will say one day because I will make cakeballs and he or she will bring them to school for the bake sale or some other such moment. For now, I can make them for my nieces and nephews when they ask and that makes me smile. I hope they will ask (but in case they don’t) I will post it here–

Future Son or Daughter:”How did you learn to make such great cake balls, Mom?”

I will smile wistfully and say, “Your Aunt Alexandra taught me”

I may or may not choose to tell them that I didn’t know how to cook until I turned 32 and this was the start of that….  (will depend on my mood) You can’t really plan these things.. but I digress.. back to the present day–

I made some for my team today and I could feel a real lift in the general “mood” of the day.. I mean who doesn’t like cake.. which got me thinking……

If I feel that good about making something for my team, how much better is it going to be to do it for my own flesh and blood? So this is sort of a nod to the future me, no, I am not pregnant, thanks for asking! but I did send a copy of this post to http://futureme.org/ (which lets you send an email to your future self one month or many years into the future which I think is awesome..) Think how vastly changed your perspective changes in just one year, and then five and so on… How valuable will that email be ? I think that it is very easy to get short-sighted and just focus on what things look like RIGHT NOW and get tunnel vision but if you look carefully and shift that kaleidoscope a little, you get a different view and sometimes that makes all the difference.

Think about it…

A Black Friday Christmas present for me….

A Black Friday Christmas present for me....

I made my final payment to my last credit card ever today. I find it ironic that while millions of shoppers all over the world were sliding the plastic through machines to increase their debt, we actually finished paying off a credit card today.

See this picture? It represents a very happy lady. A year ago, my husband and I made a commitment to get out of debt and budget and work together to meet our financial goals. We are not done yet, but today we took a very big step towards that goal.
I am very excited and impatient to get there.

But as with so many other things, it is always important to take stock and pat yourself on the back when you do something good. That’s what this picture is about. My husband dislikes that I take pictures all the time but I have tried to explain to him that its important to record things. I will admit I do go overboard from time to time but I think that I am learning more balance. I truly try to take pictures with my heart about half the time and then with a camera the rest. But I knew this moment had to be captured!

So this is the Black Friday present I gave to us. We are now credit card debt-free. Typing that is pretty exciting and it gets even more exciting when I think of all the changes we have walked together through. Getting on the same page about our money has really helped us to see how many things we can do with less. Giving up cable, (we don’t miss it and netflix is a great option) we read more books. Not going out to eat every night, my cooking skills are getting better. So I wanted to take a moment and pat us on the back for that which we have done to keep us on track to goal. Affirmation is a big part of what keeps me going! So a big Buccaneer cheer for the Hastons!!!