The Month of March Changed Me

So I was implying some big changes happened for me in the past month. Now that it is the last day of March I feel I can talk about it. It has been amazing and I truly feel like a new person. Exciting times, I tell ya.

There were three things I undertook. Two have flourished in my life and the third had to be tossed onto the back burner until the kids are older/sleeping better. I want to share my failures and successes with you because I feel they are probably equally important and we can learn amazing lessons from either.

The first thing I did was to undertake a daily yoga practice. This was not a month's challenge. Nope, I entered into this committment with the mindset it could be for life. I cannot predict the future but I have a strong feeling this was could just stick. It is honestly hard to write about the changes, hard to find the words. I am just so different. I feel me calm, balanced, spiritually less cluttered. The other day at the park I received one of the coolest compliments evah. This lady told me my movement was just effortless. Totally the daily yoga.

It isn't always easy. Remeber I have a 2 and 4 year old in this house. Some morning Logan will join me and you know it is beyond adorable. Somedays they ignore more. Then there are others way more interactive as the play ring around the rosie around me or chase each other under my down dog. It has added a new level of complexity and can be ...interesting at times.

But it has really taught me to just live my life where I am. I cannot wait for the perfect moment to do something. Nope, I grab the momement, savor it, and decided it is good enough for now. It has really brought me a new appreciation for mindful and intentional living. Besides, my kids see me doing yoga all the time. Heck, I pracitice yoga at home before my morning yoga class. I want them to see this.

The next change was my eating. I have really went off the deep end with this healthy eating thing. And let me tell you, the water is just fine. I returned to my vegetarian roots. I am starting to veer more and more vegan but I am not sure if I will ever give up greek yogurt and kefir completely. I have also become even more of a whole food junkie. Seriously people, as I sit here typing this I am munching on some of the sweetest canteloupe and some crackers I made myself with nothing be seeds. You can go ahead and call me a granola girl as long as the granola is made with honey and not processed sugar.

Again the side affects are nothing short of miraculous. I thought I felt good before these changes. I cannot believe how flippin' amazing I feel now. Oh and my skin and hair are gorgeous. I swear I look 10 years younger. I happily go without makeup half the time because my skin just glows with good health.

Now the last thing, yep it was a failure but that is okay. It is all good. Recently I went to a couple of meditation seminars. They were wonderful and the practice is nothing short of transformative. But.....I have littles in my house. The act of trying to create a regular meditation time was causing me a great deal of stress and consternation. So I let it go.

Yep, I just let it go. There will be time for it later.

That is probably the best lesson of the whole month. Sometimes a very good thing is not good for us at the moment. Doesn't mean it will always be that way. Our lives change some often and rapidly. In six months Logan's sleeping could change and enable me to rise early and put a meditation practice in place. When it happens I will rejoice, love it, and savor the changes. But until then I am perfectly content to just let it go.

I am content. I am content in my space, my body, my place in life, in well, everything.

That is a beautiful and wondrous thing.

Peace my sweet friends.

Priorities of a Different Path

Something on Facebook brought some thoughts to my mind. How often do I run into women who are exhausted, worn out, burnt out, overextended, and ready to cry. I would say the majority of women I know fall into this category. It was even said that everyone is overextended as if it is a simple fact of life that must be dealt with but never left behind. I am sure as we go about our daily lives, it may just feel that way. The average woman in our society has problems saying no and trouble maintaining healthy boundaries. It almost seems to be a societal conspiracy to convince her she is responsible for everyone and their emotions. I have seen the extreme in a few troubled Christian women who will not leave their abusive husbands because they are thoroughly convinced their staying and taking punches will ultimately save his soul. That is the extreme but how many women do you know neglect their health and well being in order to live up to some unreachable expectation place upon them by society and sadly, themselves? Maybe everyone, or every women, is just overextended. There is only one problem with that hypothesis.

I am not and I haven't been for quite some time.

More to the point, I know several other women who are not. These women and I refuse to follow that path. For me it leads to sadness, despair, and depression. Now matter how I strived for perfection I would always fail and it ate me up inside. So you know what I did? I quit. I refused to strap myself in to that insane rollercoaster. I have chosen a different path. And I have absolutely no regrets. None.

What I think it really comes down to is priorites. What you value in your life defines you. What you value in your life will shape every facet of your existence. It is who you are. My top three priorities shape me into my being. They are.

1. Peace in my life and in my home.
2. Relational living which means I work to have deep, meaningful relationships with my husband, my children, and the other important people in my life
3. The heath of me and my family. This includes physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

How this all works is every step and every choice is deeply and profoundly influenced by these tenets of my life. As I said above, I used to be a terrible perfectionist. I drove myself to exhaustion. I would be cleaning my house at midnight when my body desperately needed sleep and rest. Now to maintain peace and health in my life, I still keep a fairly clean home. However, since perfect cleanliness is no longer the end goal my expectations are far more reasonable. I am much more gentle and graceful with myself.

I love feeding my family healthy whole food. I would love to feed them organic and/or grass fed everything always cooked from scratch. But it would literally drive me to distraction. While trying to hold a standard of excellence for physical health, I would stress and fret alot and ultimately sacrifice emotional and mental health. So there are compromises made to maintain the balance of needs of my entire family.

I take alot more time to myself than most of the women I know. I run, I read, I meditate, and do alot of yoga. I seek inspiration from the bible when I am feeling a bit ragged and know sometimes nothing would do my soul better than meeting a friend for coffee and laughter until I am crying with joy. I guarantee you that all the time I take drastically increases my ability to be a loving wife, mother, and friend. Not running around feeling like I am going to drop and insisting on regularly refreshing my spirit as enabled me to the person I really wanted to be even though it took me a long time to realize it.

I won't lie, there are sacrifices. We live in a much less expensive house than many of our friends. Other than a recent exception, we buy used cars. We don't eat out alot or go out on the town with friends. I have to plan and save for many of our purchases even things some people think are harmless impulse. We miss some holiday gatherings that would be really fun because I keep our committments down to a minimum. We can't do every activity or field trip. We can't run in every race nor travel as much as others.

But I am more than happy with our decisions. We love our life and we would not change it. The peace and joy we are privilege to feel every day makes it all worthwhile.

So if you love your life as it is, that is great. But if you don't, if you are constantly feeling worn and exhausted, there is another way. You can choose a different path.

Month of May Personal Challenge

I had every intention of challenging myself with three things this month, 20 minutes a day of yoga, 30 minutes daily hooping, and going sugar free. However, I am a firm believer you must embrace flexibility in order to fully live your life of abundance. A few things happened:

Two weeks ago in a fit of yuck, I gave up sugar early. I had intended for this to be only for the month of May but I have quickly refined my focus to incorporating it into my lifestyle. I did not realize the horrible grip sugar had on me. I feel incredible and I didn't feel that bad before. This is immendsely better. My sleeping issues just left. I am sleeping so soundly now and waking refreshed and ready for the day. Whole foods taste amazing. Finally, when the bloating in my abdomen left I was shocked. I did not understand at all the effect sugar had on me.

We have figuratively moved to Ireland. We have had so much rain I believe a displaced group of Irish refugee fairies have taken up residence in my now verdant and lush perennial garden. Although I am in pure love with my only two year old flowers, I can barely find enough dryness to hoop. Hooping inside is just not possible, so that challenge will wait. I will still hoop any day I can but I will not hold myself to a particular goal.

I did start my yoga challenge and it is lovely. I keep it to only 20 minutes as a goal because I am unable to truly practice with the children. I know, I know I can do yoga with the kids but it isn't the same. But I will probably be able to practice many days for much longer periods of time. I love yoga. It balances me in so many ways, physically and emotionally. When I practice regularly, I maintain a centered and content mind. It is amazing.

I am increasing my running because as I said last post, I am going for the full marathon. I am very excited about the training and the challenge it will be to my committment, determination, mental strength, and physical ability. I love reaching for goals that I am not quite sure I can make. It makes life...sweeter.

Wow, It is Really Hard

I have been mostly sugar free for..5 days? I am not exactly sure because it has been incredibly hard. If I had any doubts about the insidious nature of sugar, I wouldn't now. I feel like a drug addict going through withdrawals. Well, I guess I am a drug addict going through withdrawals. You know, if it walks like a duck, quacks like duck. Sugar is a drug and a nasty one.

I wasn't going to go completely sugar free until May 1st. I was just cutting out things like ice cream, cookies, cake, and the like right now. Well, it has been so rough I have decided to pull that band aid off immediately. This weekend will find me making homemade granola and some cookies for the kids. We are doing this right now.

My kids, oh my I feel terrible for the amount of sugar I have allowed. I am setting them on a path they will have to fight with for the rest of their lives. We are rectifying that situation right now. I won't make them go completely sugar free. Their natural peanut butter has sugar and the occasional cookie at grandma's is okay but it will be cut down drastically.

Why I have come to these dramatic measures? Since I have quit sugar I have had the shakes, headaches, extreme irritability, and serious fatigue. My energy has plummeted. Anyone who knows me irl would proably say no way. I am one of the most energetic people you will find. I have bottomed out. I am so emotional and downright depressed. It truly has been hard.

But all of that is nothing compared to what I experienced shopping last night. I was shopping for my kids Eeaster baskets. There are some neat things in those baskets, slinkies, kaleidoscopes, sun glasses, books, good stuff. But I decided to get one small thing of M&M's for them both. I went to the candy aisle. Now I am a chocolate snob. I don't eat most candy because I like GOOD chocolate. Ghirardelli will do but Godiva is my preference. So there was surrounded by cheap, yucky candy and I almost had an emotional breakdown from wanting it. I am not joking. I was shaking and broke out into cold sweats. It was somewhat traumatic to realize what this nonfood substance has done to my body. So, no more. I will break this addiction.

On the positive side, my husband is really the greatest husband ever. I have been impossible and he has been nothing but loving, caring, and supportive. He has been compassionate and gentle when I KNOW I have been downright silly. I am truly blessed to have him.

The Time Has Come...Sigh

The time has come for me to finally drop the last 15-20lbs. I am not fat. I don't have body issues, finally. But the fact of the matter is 135-140lbs (see I am not even sure) is just too much for my 5'3 extra small frame. I have a bad back from a car accident. Carrying extra weight begs for it to bother me. Plus, my running should even be better with less weight to carry. So, it is time.

I have not concerned myself with it lately. I refused to actually try to lose weight while training for the half marathon. I couldn't do both so I chose the race. But now I have a few months in between races and it is time to actively work on this.

My exercise is fine, beyond fine actually. I refuse to do more because that would be silly. I am active every single day and some days are crazy intense. So you know, there is only one place to change. It has to be done. The diet. I don't mean diet as in restricting calories but diet as in what I eat. I know many people who do not understand why they can't lose extra weight. They exercise but they won't change their eating habits.

And what the normal American eats is scary. It is no wonder obesity is blooming faster than flowers in spring.

Don't believe me? Track your own calories. There are awesome free sites out there to use. I love fitday.com but others swear by Sparks People. I have yet to find someone who was not surprised how many calories and junk they were eating when they accurately tracked their food intake. (So that is what a tablespoon of mayo looks like.)

My approach is simple, a clean, whole foods diet. What I mean by clean is no artificial sweetners, sweetners, preservatives, processed sugar, additives, and the like and organic in many aspects. That is right, no sugar. I have already started by elminating sweets but some of my granola and exercise bars have a low amount of sugar. Come May 1st those are going as well. I will be making homemade granola and finding alternatives. For how long? At least a month, longer if it is going well.

There is a second motive behind this, I am addicted to sugar. I really am and it is, well a rather terrible substance all in all. It is simply not good for you. Living without it completely would make your body very happy.

What I will be eating:
Lean meat but really sparingly
As much fruit as I want
As much veggie as I want either raw, steamed, or roasted with a little olive oil.
Nuts
Whole Grains
Honey and Maple Syrup, again sparingly
Lower Fat Dairy such as milk, greek yogurt, cottage cheese

I think that pretty much covers it. I think this new practice will also result in a break through for my health. I hope to really enjoy this new manner of even better eating and lack the desire to go back. That does happen rather often to me. Once my body felt the benefit, I no longer craved fried foods, most processed foods, etc. So I hope it will do this again.

I am also very excited because this is all happening at the same time as a bunch of new hoop classes and workshops. Couple it with a month of yoga and I am looking at a happy holistic healthy time. Those times always leave me feeling incredibly refreshed and rejuvenated. So there is alot of good in this even if I am no longer going to eat cookies. You just have to look at it the right way.