Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
doing something.
So I seem to have committed myself to embarking on another adventure...
I seem to have said Yes to going back to work in Fiji.
I seem to have said that I would uproot my comfortable life here, and move to a country where I know almost no-one, where I don't connect with the culture, where I have no support networks, where my lifestyle is unacceptable, where I will have no babysitters or support with Indi, where she will be in a totally new and unfamiliar environment and have to get used to a new day care centre with unfamiliar looking kids, new nanny, new home...where I will be doing a new and highly responsible job, and coming home to an empty house, alone.
I seem to be feeling a not insubstantial level of anxiety about this.
The job offer in Fiji came at a time when I desperately needed a way out of the stuckness of my daily life. I was feeling trapped in a ground hog day, unable to resolve several critical issues in my life, feeling empty and numb inside and knowing I needed to find myself and my passion and my enthusiasm for life again. So I put it out there to the universe that I needed something, anything, that would get me out of my stuckness and into life again, something that would make me feel like I was living some kind of meaningful existance beyond raising my child and the day to day routines of an everyday life.
And the universe provided. Out of the blue an email arrived in my inbox offering me an opportunity too good to refuse. I was asked to return to the organisation I worked with before, the organisation that changed my life last time I was stuck, to the place where I found myself again last time, to the job that made me feel like I was making a difference in the world. But this time I was asked to return as the Director... to take over from my old boss and run the show.
This is the opportunity I needed. Exactly. This, I have learned, is how things happen in my life when I am on my path. Exactly the right thing happens at exactly the right time. I just need to have the courage to go with it. This is the way of my path... When I am not on my path everything seems hard and every way I go I come up against obstacles. When I am on my path - great things unroll before my eyes and everything falls neatly into place. I just need to have enough faith to put my foot forward and take the first step.
And so I knew I needed to say yes. It wasn't easy. I sat with indecision for months... fear of change battled with need for change. Fear of the loss of my comfortable life battled with the need to escape my comfortable life. The need to do something meaningful battled with my fear of being inadequate in trying to do something meaningful. The knowledge that this opportunity represented everything I had said I wanted to do at exactly this point of my life battled with the fear that I would actually have to DO the things I said I wanted to do...
And so I said Yes.
I felt the fear... and I stepped forward anyway.
And I am still feeling the fear.
I potter along in my comfortable life, living day to day, enjoying the moments... and then in a moment I remember... I remember that in a little over 6 months I will be gone. My daughter and I will get on an airplane and go to a foreign country and we will be alone. I will take on a new enormous responsibility. I will be alone in the evenings, with my sleeping child. I won't be here to see my friends babies grow into their first years. I won't be here to spend weekends with my family, watching Indi and her grandparents enjoy each other. I won't be here to hold my partner's hand.
And in those moments I think "holy crap what have I done?"... and my heart rises into the back of my throat and the world around me goes a little blurry... and often I simply choose to stop thinking about it, take a deep breath and focus on the present moment... and my breathing slows back down and the tears subside and I feel some semblance of normal again. But the anxiety stays there in the background, underneath, lurking, nibbling at my mind, chasing me in the quiet moments.
So I need to combat the anxiety - and to do this I need to stay connected with the reasons why I do want to do this. When I focus on everything that I am losing and the risks and unknown elements I lose faith in myself and in my path. If I am to continue to breath normally I need to keep reminding myself of what I wanted when I invited this opportunity into my life. I need to keep remembering that this is an opportunity not a sentence.
This is my chance to make a difference in the world. This is my chance to help people, to help a really valuable and important organisation to do really valuable and important work with people who really need it. This is actually not about me. It is not about my lifestyle or really my career (although it will help that too). It is not about comfort or friends or nice cafes. It is about something bigger. This is about being in the world in a way which makes the world a slightly better place. This is about living a meaningful life. This is about living from my heart (rather than my desires). If I wanted a comfortable life that was just about satisfying my wants, then I would stay here.... I would enjoy the cafes and the friends and the nights out when my parents babysit, and the nice days out in the nice parks with my daughter, and the good food in the supermarkets, and the wonderful pleasantness of it all.
Recently in a waiting room I read a magazine article about a girl who, at 25 years old, is living in Cambodia running an orphanage. She has given up a comfortable young life of clubs and bars and weekends away with friends... and of building a cushy career and wearing nice clothes and meeting boys... and she is looking after kids who really need her. And she has no intension of coming home. She is happy. And I was shocked. How could she really give up a fun life at home to sacrifice in that way for the kids? And then I was shocked at myself! How did I become someone who was shocked by that!? When I was her age I would have understood completely. I would have wanted to go myself. When I was younger than her I did go out in the world myself and want to do good. I really really wanted to do good in the world. I was passionate about compassion. I lived from my heart. And then over the years that passion faded... Somehow I started to care about good coffee and a nice lifestyle more than I cared about the poor of the world. Somehow I started to care about looking pretty and having a pretty house and eating pretty food and buying pretty toys for my daughter.
Somehow I lost my passion.
I don't meditate anymore.
I don't know how I feel anymore.
Its no wonder I feel numb - I don't connect with my heart anymore.
So this is my chance. This is my chance to go out in the world and find my heart again. This is my chance to put aside my attachment to my own comfortable little life and embrace the bigger picture. This decision to go is not about my lifestyle... it is about doing what is right, what is meaningful, what helps people, what makes a difference.
So I need to stop focusing on whether I will find nice friends or a nice house or a nice car. I need to stop worrying about whether I will have a nice lifestyle in Fiji...
And I need to focus on the fact that this is my opportunity to be the person I once believed I could be.
My favourite quote is :
I cannot do everything, but I can still do something.... and I will not refuse to do the something I can do. Helen Keller
This is about doing something.
I seem to have said Yes to going back to work in Fiji.
I seem to have said that I would uproot my comfortable life here, and move to a country where I know almost no-one, where I don't connect with the culture, where I have no support networks, where my lifestyle is unacceptable, where I will have no babysitters or support with Indi, where she will be in a totally new and unfamiliar environment and have to get used to a new day care centre with unfamiliar looking kids, new nanny, new home...where I will be doing a new and highly responsible job, and coming home to an empty house, alone.
I seem to be feeling a not insubstantial level of anxiety about this.
The job offer in Fiji came at a time when I desperately needed a way out of the stuckness of my daily life. I was feeling trapped in a ground hog day, unable to resolve several critical issues in my life, feeling empty and numb inside and knowing I needed to find myself and my passion and my enthusiasm for life again. So I put it out there to the universe that I needed something, anything, that would get me out of my stuckness and into life again, something that would make me feel like I was living some kind of meaningful existance beyond raising my child and the day to day routines of an everyday life.
And the universe provided. Out of the blue an email arrived in my inbox offering me an opportunity too good to refuse. I was asked to return to the organisation I worked with before, the organisation that changed my life last time I was stuck, to the place where I found myself again last time, to the job that made me feel like I was making a difference in the world. But this time I was asked to return as the Director... to take over from my old boss and run the show.
This is the opportunity I needed. Exactly. This, I have learned, is how things happen in my life when I am on my path. Exactly the right thing happens at exactly the right time. I just need to have the courage to go with it. This is the way of my path... When I am not on my path everything seems hard and every way I go I come up against obstacles. When I am on my path - great things unroll before my eyes and everything falls neatly into place. I just need to have enough faith to put my foot forward and take the first step.
And so I knew I needed to say yes. It wasn't easy. I sat with indecision for months... fear of change battled with need for change. Fear of the loss of my comfortable life battled with the need to escape my comfortable life. The need to do something meaningful battled with my fear of being inadequate in trying to do something meaningful. The knowledge that this opportunity represented everything I had said I wanted to do at exactly this point of my life battled with the fear that I would actually have to DO the things I said I wanted to do...And so I said Yes.
I felt the fear... and I stepped forward anyway.
And I am still feeling the fear.
I potter along in my comfortable life, living day to day, enjoying the moments... and then in a moment I remember... I remember that in a little over 6 months I will be gone. My daughter and I will get on an airplane and go to a foreign country and we will be alone. I will take on a new enormous responsibility. I will be alone in the evenings, with my sleeping child. I won't be here to see my friends babies grow into their first years. I won't be here to spend weekends with my family, watching Indi and her grandparents enjoy each other. I won't be here to hold my partner's hand.
And in those moments I think "holy crap what have I done?"... and my heart rises into the back of my throat and the world around me goes a little blurry... and often I simply choose to stop thinking about it, take a deep breath and focus on the present moment... and my breathing slows back down and the tears subside and I feel some semblance of normal again. But the anxiety stays there in the background, underneath, lurking, nibbling at my mind, chasing me in the quiet moments.
So I need to combat the anxiety - and to do this I need to stay connected with the reasons why I do want to do this. When I focus on everything that I am losing and the risks and unknown elements I lose faith in myself and in my path. If I am to continue to breath normally I need to keep reminding myself of what I wanted when I invited this opportunity into my life. I need to keep remembering that this is an opportunity not a sentence.
This is my chance to make a difference in the world. This is my chance to help people, to help a really valuable and important organisation to do really valuable and important work with people who really need it. This is actually not about me. It is not about my lifestyle or really my career (although it will help that too). It is not about comfort or friends or nice cafes. It is about something bigger. This is about being in the world in a way which makes the world a slightly better place. This is about living a meaningful life. This is about living from my heart (rather than my desires). If I wanted a comfortable life that was just about satisfying my wants, then I would stay here.... I would enjoy the cafes and the friends and the nights out when my parents babysit, and the nice days out in the nice parks with my daughter, and the good food in the supermarkets, and the wonderful pleasantness of it all.
Recently in a waiting room I read a magazine article about a girl who, at 25 years old, is living in Cambodia running an orphanage. She has given up a comfortable young life of clubs and bars and weekends away with friends... and of building a cushy career and wearing nice clothes and meeting boys... and she is looking after kids who really need her. And she has no intension of coming home. She is happy. And I was shocked. How could she really give up a fun life at home to sacrifice in that way for the kids? And then I was shocked at myself! How did I become someone who was shocked by that!? When I was her age I would have understood completely. I would have wanted to go myself. When I was younger than her I did go out in the world myself and want to do good. I really really wanted to do good in the world. I was passionate about compassion. I lived from my heart. And then over the years that passion faded... Somehow I started to care about good coffee and a nice lifestyle more than I cared about the poor of the world. Somehow I started to care about looking pretty and having a pretty house and eating pretty food and buying pretty toys for my daughter.
Somehow I lost my passion.
I don't meditate anymore.
I don't know how I feel anymore.
Its no wonder I feel numb - I don't connect with my heart anymore.
So this is my chance. This is my chance to go out in the world and find my heart again. This is my chance to put aside my attachment to my own comfortable little life and embrace the bigger picture. This decision to go is not about my lifestyle... it is about doing what is right, what is meaningful, what helps people, what makes a difference.
So I need to stop focusing on whether I will find nice friends or a nice house or a nice car. I need to stop worrying about whether I will have a nice lifestyle in Fiji...
And I need to focus on the fact that this is my opportunity to be the person I once believed I could be.
My favourite quote is :
I cannot do everything, but I can still do something.... and I will not refuse to do the something I can do. Helen Keller
This is about doing something.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Just for the kicks...
Week One again....
So its week one of the second round of my 12 week program....
And I am happy.
I am happy because despite the little voice in my head which says "cheesecake makes me happy!", actually being healthy and strong makes me happier...
I am happy because today I did the 1km walk/run part of the fitness test at the start of this round and I realised I can run... in the past I was puffing after less than a minute of running.... but this time I found myself bounding along happily. Its only my shin splints that prevent me from running more. My shins hurt... they still hurt... but thats something I just need to live with.
I am happy because I have already lost 1.5kg of the 2 kg that I put on in the break between the end of the last round and the start of this one. I must confess that I binged a wee bit... My mind played tricky tricks on me - telling me to stock up on the naughties while I could and that I would feel more motivated on the next round if I had "had my fill" of the bad stuff before I started.... silly mind! Although I am feeling pretty motivated so perhaps feeling sick from too much cake did help in some way.
I am happy because I did Zumba for the first time and this has been one of my goals for a really long time. I have been too nervous to go to a class because I thought I would be too unfit to keep up. This fear, combination with my natural lack of ability to follow the moves in classes, meant I keep looking at the timetables and being too embarrased to turn up. This week I did a lunch time express class... and I loved it! Sure I was often on the wrong leg, and I had to concentrate really hard to get my arms and legs doing different things at the same time, but once I started to get the hang of it my inner dancing demon came out and I loved it! I am hooked, I want more!
I am happy because I am now wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans.
I am happy because my ultimate weight loss goals are in sight and seem possible.
I am happy because I am proud of myself.
And I am happy.
I am happy because despite the little voice in my head which says "cheesecake makes me happy!", actually being healthy and strong makes me happier...
I am happy because today I did the 1km walk/run part of the fitness test at the start of this round and I realised I can run... in the past I was puffing after less than a minute of running.... but this time I found myself bounding along happily. Its only my shin splints that prevent me from running more. My shins hurt... they still hurt... but thats something I just need to live with.
I am happy because I have already lost 1.5kg of the 2 kg that I put on in the break between the end of the last round and the start of this one. I must confess that I binged a wee bit... My mind played tricky tricks on me - telling me to stock up on the naughties while I could and that I would feel more motivated on the next round if I had "had my fill" of the bad stuff before I started.... silly mind! Although I am feeling pretty motivated so perhaps feeling sick from too much cake did help in some way.
I am happy because I did Zumba for the first time and this has been one of my goals for a really long time. I have been too nervous to go to a class because I thought I would be too unfit to keep up. This fear, combination with my natural lack of ability to follow the moves in classes, meant I keep looking at the timetables and being too embarrased to turn up. This week I did a lunch time express class... and I loved it! Sure I was often on the wrong leg, and I had to concentrate really hard to get my arms and legs doing different things at the same time, but once I started to get the hang of it my inner dancing demon came out and I loved it! I am hooked, I want more!
I am happy because I am now wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans.
I am happy because my ultimate weight loss goals are in sight and seem possible.
I am happy because I am proud of myself.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
12wbt Round 2
So I am writing my commitment to the next round of the 12wbt program. I am starting again, another 12 weeks. Once again I find myself already plagued by self doubt. Will I give up after a couple of weeks? Will I start cheating and let it all unravel? Will I let life get in the way of my goals?
I'm trying to find my inner self will. This is my commitment statement.
My commitment is to myself. I will find my focus, and I will hold on tight to it. I will be consistent because I will put my own needs before keeping others happy. Being on this program is not always convenient for other people. I can't go out for sunday breakfast, or dinner. I can't join in with the celebration cake or drinks. I can't fit in with other people's plans. I can't be convenient. This is a huge change for me... I am accustomed to not rocking the boat.
My commitment is therefore to put myself first, my health first, my self esteme first. I loved the last round of this program, and for the first 9 weeks I did really well.... and then I sabotaged. I lost focus. I started putting other people's convenience first, people pleasing and not really believing that I could be the slim attractive successful woman I once was. I stopped putting myself first because I stopped believing that I deserved it.
My commitment is therefore to believe I can be the woman I want to be, that I can do it, that I can live my dreams.
No self limiting, no self sabotage.
I'm trying to find my inner self will. This is my commitment statement.
My commitment is to myself. I will find my focus, and I will hold on tight to it. I will be consistent because I will put my own needs before keeping others happy. Being on this program is not always convenient for other people. I can't go out for sunday breakfast, or dinner. I can't join in with the celebration cake or drinks. I can't fit in with other people's plans. I can't be convenient. This is a huge change for me... I am accustomed to not rocking the boat.
My commitment is therefore to put myself first, my health first, my self esteme first. I loved the last round of this program, and for the first 9 weeks I did really well.... and then I sabotaged. I lost focus. I started putting other people's convenience first, people pleasing and not really believing that I could be the slim attractive successful woman I once was. I stopped putting myself first because I stopped believing that I deserved it.
My commitment is therefore to believe I can be the woman I want to be, that I can do it, that I can live my dreams.
No self limiting, no self sabotage.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Mmhmmm
Owie!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Blaaaa
So I am on a two week break between 12wbt rounds... And have given myself permission to eat at will and satisfy any lingering cravings before I start another 12 weeks of committed focus. I also gave myself permission to take off the regular exercise focus and let other things in life come first... Blaaaa and bluck. I feel yuck. Although my eating has been what I would once have called normal... I feel bloated and toxic. I miss clean eating! I miss exercise!
Sheesh...
Sheesh...
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, May 2, 2011
A slippery slope
So its week 11 of my 12 week weight loss challenge. I feel both proud and disappointed. I have lost an incredible 8kg... which feels so wonderful and I am so incredibly pleased with myself. I put on clothes, and they fit. I dress once, without having to change 4 times to find something that doesn't make me feel enormous. I look in the mirror and I like what I see...
At the same time I am also disappointed that I have stalled. My challenge is now to move to the next level of loss, out of my current wardrobe and into the small clothes I have packed away. Its been too easy to rest on my laurels now. I have lost focus and I want it back.
I have two weeks of this 12 week round to go and I recommit myself to getting and staying on track. I then maintain myself for a few weeks, and will start a second 12 week program at the end of May. My overall goal is to lose 15kg... which will see me under 60 kg for the first time since my early 20's.
Its a hugely challenging goal and one that I already find myself doubting my capacity to achieve. It will require an incredible amount of physical effort, but more than that is the mental work involved. My mental image of myself is about where I am now. I let go of the hope of ever being smaller than this again, and I am not really sure how I will get my head around it or what it will mean for me.
One thing I am sure of, having learnt it from experience... it will be achieved through consistency, with humility and not thinking I know better than the program, and by focusing on one kilo at a time.
One step at a time, up the slippery slope...
At the same time I am also disappointed that I have stalled. My challenge is now to move to the next level of loss, out of my current wardrobe and into the small clothes I have packed away. Its been too easy to rest on my laurels now. I have lost focus and I want it back.
I have two weeks of this 12 week round to go and I recommit myself to getting and staying on track. I then maintain myself for a few weeks, and will start a second 12 week program at the end of May. My overall goal is to lose 15kg... which will see me under 60 kg for the first time since my early 20's.
Its a hugely challenging goal and one that I already find myself doubting my capacity to achieve. It will require an incredible amount of physical effort, but more than that is the mental work involved. My mental image of myself is about where I am now. I let go of the hope of ever being smaller than this again, and I am not really sure how I will get my head around it or what it will mean for me.
One thing I am sure of, having learnt it from experience... it will be achieved through consistency, with humility and not thinking I know better than the program, and by focusing on one kilo at a time.
One step at a time, up the slippery slope...
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