Tag: healthylife

You are enough

MichelleR

I came into work one day to find those words written on a note, stuck by a friend to my computer stand. I had heard that phrase and seen it written in gorgeous fonts in Pinterest memes numerous times, but it quietly became my meditation. The catalyst that allowed it to root in my heart came from a deep knowing that she believed this, and in doing so, gave me permission to believe it too. I still catch myself wrestling with its truth as I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror or when a beautiful woman enters the same room.  But I doubt it less and less. Because another woman believed it about me first.

I don’t recall when I started ranking myself, it is not a thing I am proud of, but I used to do it a lot. I would compare myself to other women. It wasn’t about judging that particular women but rather feeling myself diminish because I believed she was more than me. Comparison seeps like a tea bag left in the cup, becoming stronger as it sits. And, while I believe that all humans have beauty, I depreciated my own.  I can play a great game of confidence, but inside my tender heart would think, “I wish I was ‘inset adjective of choice’ like her”.  This eventually led me to shying away from many female relationships to avoid those uncomfortable feelings in me. It also led to hundreds, if not thousands, of missed opportunities over the years to tell other women how incredible I thought they were. A tragedy.

Please don’t misunderstand. I do not hate myself.  I do not hate other women. I have had wonderful female friendships that have lasted decades. I had an incredible childhood with awesome friends.  But, I guess I can call it my Achilles heel, comparison to other females robbed me of joy, the joy of believing that I am enough. The joy of telling other women that I believe they are enough.

The journey to even write this entry has been a long one. It’s taken me a while to even fully understand what I was going through. But when I started using the phrase, “I am enough” as a meditation it allowed me to compare my life with my desires instead of my life to others. I started asking the question, “If I am enough, then why I treating my body so badly? If I am enough, why I am eating outside of hunger? If I am enough why aren’t I looking for ways to love and care for myself? It keeps going, but you get the picture.

I recently met a huge weight loss goal for myself that I didn’t think was possible at my age, or with my past track record with “diets”. I truly believe it was because I was ready. I wasn’t trying to loose weight for summer, knowing I would go back to eating like I always had, but because I was ready to believe that I was enough and worth the work needed to prove it. I was ready to become healthier. I was ready to work on multiple areas of my life to increase my life experience and joy. I was ready to be enough for myself.

The health aspect of my journey is a part of the full spiritual and personal transformation that I have been working through for a few years now. Here is the Cliffnotes version (because someday I’ll put that full story in a novel and try to actually make a living doing this writing thing):

  • About five years ago I had the realization that I was unhappy and angry despite a “good life”
  • I was given the gift of a healer in my life who started me on a path to find myself
  • I became open to hearing and then listening to my inner voice
  • I stepped out of my “safe place” and, with my partner beside me, completely changed course
  • I made a conscious effort to view all women in my life as gifts, treasures, and purposely placed
  • I sought to become happy from the inside out – instead of the self-deprecating humor I used as a shield
  • I realized my next and hardest work was to love myself so much that I would care about the one body I’ve been given in this life and to start treating it that way.

And this is where I am now. On an amazing journey to “optimal health and wellness”. I am in a place mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally that I didn’t not know I would ever find. Hell, I didn’t even know I was looking for it. But here I am and I believe I am enough. No, not just believe it, but I know it. And it feels amazing!

I feel stronger and mentally sharper. I feel joyful despite the world circumstances. I know it sounds sappy but I look back down that hill into that valley and I see how dark and sad and lost I was and all I want to do is yell, “Hey you down there! Do not give up! It’s worth the uphill climb!” And I want to tell everybody who’ll listen. And, if you are reading this and you need encouragement or a partner in the journey to wellness please reach out! We are stronger together and I will walk with you!

I also recognize that throughout my personal journey I would see people posting on social media about their weight loss and how much better they felt and I would want to reach right out and punch them in the middle of their stupid smiling faces. And I would grab my beer and 26th pizza roll, dip it in a ton of ranch, and swipe. But I also know that somewhere I believed it wasn’t possible for me. I believed health was never in my future and it made me sad. But, I think, I just hadn’t started believing I was enough.  I am going to tell you, you are. You are enough! YOU-ARE-ENOUGH!

I want to share some notes from my journal, which is very personal. I hope it resonates with those who need it. I hope it inspires those who need it. I hope the universe returns it to me used so I know that it, like everything, served a purpose in the journey.

4/3/2018 – Yesterday was my first day officially at “C…” and I feel embraced, welcomed, and needed into the tribe. These women all seem to love and accept me…Already I see how I can be better as a woman – to really start loving and uplifting other women in my life. Already I see the woman I want to become – more love.

9/15/2018 – …My desire/denials: Morality (Queen of Clouds/Mind) Break through the cage of conditioning to reach the truth of my own heart. To see life as it really is. Awareness as the root of morality. …Do not look outward for what it real – look within. Drop my opinionated mind and move inside. Relax in the deepest truth. Doubt is a blessing.

2/21/2019 – …I am to let all of the past and future worries fall away. Observe what is happening now and what the universe is doing…accept the place I have put myself in (leaving CA, new job with police, all of it) and become one with myself – not lonely – but I am enough – just like this…I am simply the reflection in a pool of consciousness…Finally, the child emerges innocent and spontaneous and true to his own being. A time of growth and change.

5/6/2019 – …about my weight and health and immediately I see the long uphill journey of the mountain. The top is obscured from my view. I cannot see the top or where it is. I looks like such a long way and I feel I can’t do it. It’s too high, too hard, too far – there is no way I can do this. I see I am alone, only I can go on this uphill journey and no one will give me a ride or a short cut because there are none. But, isn’t the view always worth the hike? I don’t know but at the top is the sun and it’s brighter at the top than it is at the bottom…I see myself healthy. I see a thinner happier Michelle – I want that me…It’s not a race, I don’t have to hurry, I just have to take a step every day and not turn around.

7/27/2019 – I see and know inside me this spiritual awakening is calling me, a great force…transporting me to myself…taking responsibility for who I am and to live my truth.

(There is a gap when I started my new promotion at the department and then in January of 2020 started a 21 day mediation on manifesting and abundance. This is also where I reconnected with my health coach and old friend).

2/15/2020 – Meditative thoughts from the book, “Women Who Run With the Wolves”. I am of extravagant body – made round like the earth herself. My body is a vessel made to carry so much…To live preoccupied by my appearance in this way – scales, measures, counting, consumed with thoughts of food, my wild nature would never advocated for the torture of my body…take back my body – change my attitude towards myself and celebrate the joy of my natural body. Don’t wait, don’t hold back, take back my real life.

2/19/20 – I signed up to start a weight loss journey program with my coach Jessica and I am nervous…I hope that by journaling I can get to the root of my obsession and addiction to food so I can no longer be enslaved by food but restore my body as a spiritual temple and place to commune with God and nature…Can I see quality time with others as not about eating?

3/24/20 – It’s been almost a month that I have been on my plan and I have to say I feel good.  – Where do I see myself in a year, five years? A year from now I will still be doing great on the plan, now helping people at the same time. I plan to be blogging and working on my personal spiritual journey…Within 5 years I see myself hosting and preparing retreats in Arizona/Sedona area for women with health and self-care at the core.

4/23/20 – 18.6 pounds down today! “I patiently allow my body to heal and transform with ease”. I need to remember that I took decades to bring my body to this unhealthy state. I cannot expect that in a few weeks I will completely fix it: both physically and mentally. I am transforming the way I eat; the way I cope; how I feel about food; its purpose in my life. That takes time…I start my day with yoga and journaling…all of it sets me in the mindset that today is a gift.

5/12/20 – Down 23.6 pounds! …I feel I need to focus on tuning out my own negative thoughts about myself. While I have made progress and steps, this is something I battle with even this morning in yoga, and when I step on the scale. I need to be kind and so proud of the progress I’ve made since March 1st on this journey! 3 months into healing from so much misuse of my God given body and life. This is exactly what I would tell my past self, besides start now, the first thing I had to do was to love myself enough to care about what happens to me. I loved others but not myself. Spiritually – it took me a long time to accept myself as I am – then I started to love myself as I am – then I cared enough about myself to care for me/my body. So, I would tell younger Michelle to look inside for love and acceptance from myself first.

7/3/20 – What year, decade is this? Time is a blur…everything feels so out of control – except me – I feel on track with my weight loss/health journey. I am doing yoga every day and I love it! I need it. I cannot imagine a day without yoga (Yoga with Adrienne) now. Only ounces away from my goal…So much to be grateful and thankful for…Loving myself is enough…

Consider this my sticky note on your computer stand:

12. Pinterest Health Challenges

MichelleR

The follower or two I might have for this blog will have realized by now that I am just a tad “behind” on my Pinterest Challenges and blergs. The bulk of you will not doubt be thinking, oh, yeah, I sort of remember her doing something like that. And in this bizarre time of quarantine I sort of skipped ahead to this week to write about what no doubt many of us are thinking of: our health and wellbeing. I am not trying to be trite in the slightest, I think now more than at the beginning of the year when I started this challenge, my own health, and that of my family’s, is at the forefront of my thoughts.

My health issues have been ongoing for some time and while I am grateful I do not have disease to the level that many people do, I am still considered unhealthy. My weight, an issue for decades, has always been a challenge. But beyond my weight I just felt awful, sort of all the time. Between lethargy, stress, headaches, pains, skin issues like eczema and never feeling rested I just feel like existed. I wasn’t living. I always felt uncomfortable in my body (if that makes sense at all). I didn’t like the way I looked in the mirror, in clothes, and there were times when I was thinking – who is this lady I’m stuck inside of?

Compound that with my family’s history of heart disease and cholesterol, my mother’s diagnosis with early onset Alzheimer’s in her early 60’s and my younger brother’s near heart attack and stint just 2 years ago, I could see the writing on the wall. Something needed to change in my life. I struggled all last year on Noom, because I already understand the psychology of why I overeat and don’t exercise but the bottom line is I didn’t have a permanent plan to change my life for the long term. I wanted a quick fix.

I even alluded to all this in this very Pinterest Blog Challenge at the start of the year and had set aside several weeks (and more) to Pins that involved fitness, diets and lemon water “miracle flat belly” drinks. All just a continued desire to change without the actual plan.

About a month ago I reach out to my dear friend Jessica who had been looking particularly happy in recent months. She had lost weight but more than that she was happy, energetic and engaged with her life. I wanted to feel that way too. She told me about a program she had started where the focus was on gaining optimal health in every aspect of your life. That weight loss was a part of that, but the big picture was to take small steps in areas like sleep, hydration, stress, food intake, movement and meditation (or self-reflection if you prefer the term). These small steps, over time, would become daily habits that would take me to where I would have wellbeing in all the areas of my life. While I was hesitant, I was also desperate and I loved that it was more of a strategic plan than a weight loss program.

I started the program 3 weeks ago and just completed week three. While I have lost 12 pounds so far that is nothing compared to the energy, clarity and focus I have found again. Even amid this pandemic and self-quarantine I have to say that I feel better these last 3 weeks than I have felt in years. I am sleeping better, and my skin has cleared up so much that I do not use my rash cream at all anymore. I wake up rested, not tired or groggy. Despite the world’s chaos, I just feel, well, happier.

So, all this to say that I will not be posting ANY more Pinterest diet or quick fix lemon water challenges. I have finally found what works for me and I cannot wait to continue the path to optimum health for myself and stay there for the rest of my life. And while we watch in grief the stories of people with underlying health issues being most susceptible to this virus I am grateful that I am trying now to make my life as healthy as I can. I wish everyone out there good health, safety from this virus, and a long life filled with wellness!

Crazy side note #1: For those that have known me a long time, get this, I LOVE broccoli and eat a huge salad every day now. I CRAVE foods like Salmon, shrimp, sprouts, vegetables, lean pork loin and grilled chicken breast. I haven’t had fast food, alcohol, chips, or pizza in 3 weeks, and I don’t miss it all. I have no idea where the “old” Michelle is right now, but this Michelle is not hungry and not constantly thinking about her next meal. Good riddance!

Crazy side note #2: I know this may sound like a sales pitch – it isn’t. But, I am happy to share what I am doing if you want to PM me through text or Facebook though. I will probably even create a page for health on this blog at some point in the future for those who want to follow or join me!

Disclaimer

This blogger acknowledges that she knows little to nothing of Arizona, its people or its history. She is however, excited to learn as much as she can. This blog is just her “notes from the journey” on making an epic life changing move. If I get something wrong, meh – get used to it. Blerg.