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Day 6 – I Am Inspired To Do What Works

December 6, 2010

Ok, I’ll admit – the most recent stretch of this project was a big bummer! I mean, the whole point of all this was to end up on the other side, feeling better about me, my body, my health, right? Well there is no light without the dark they say.  I think they are right, cuz here’s what happened today. Yesterday ended not much better than it started – I was feeling really badly, overwhelmed with depressing, negative feelings. I tried as hard as I could to justify stopping writing this blog.  5 Days of Inspiration…would you all go for that? Can I let myself off the hook? After all it seems I am destroying my credibility one dirty secret at a time here anyway, right? I couldn’t bring myself to throw in the towel, because after all that would just show I’m not good enough to finish – which is my whole trouble to begin with. So I went to bed. I went to bed knowing I’d been here before – down in it, not knowing how to get out, not knowing how to feel better. But then I remembered something from last month: that I know when I feel bad, I can trust I will feel good again. I might not know when, but I know it’s coming. What else do I know? I know that when I was the happiest in my life was when I did a couple of specific practices: setting an intention for the following day before I went to bed (this helped me sleep soundly), either writing or saying what I was grateful for before I went to bed and first thing in the morning (this decreased stress and made me happy), and instead of worrying about how I’d get it all done, holding an positive attitude the morning and letting it carry me throughout the day. This process had brought me a great sense of peace everyday. Was I using The Secret? Applying the Law of Attraction? Had I mastered quantum physics? Who knows. And who cares! All I know is that it was no secret how much better I felt when I paid attention to what I was thinking, took responsibility for it and choose to feel better. So what have I been thinking the past few days? Anxious that I’ve divulged too much with this project.  Aggravated that I decided to take a month off lifting and just do yoga and see if my neck, shoulder and hip calm down (So far it’s working! But I miss the gym.). Sad that I’m bummed out and my boyfriend who always makes me feel better, is out of town (Normally I love my alone time – not this weekend.). Stressed about the three new patients I had on Monday and all the work I need to do before I leave town Tuesday. All in all, I felt stressed, anxious and bad…still. Where was the upswing? I remembered how I’d conquered this jumbled mess of old baggage before and figured, what the hell. I set my intention to feel good today, to feel at peace and inspired by my life. I felt my body relax. Then I got anxious and couldn’t sleep. Rather than be frustrated this made me giggle. I turned on a movie and said, “Oh well.” I finally drifted off. I woke up more tired than inspired this morning, but I got up and started running through what I was grateful for. I did yoga and although I was running late, I started chopping veggies and hard boiling eggs for my lunch today (All stuff I should’ve done this weekend, but hard to care for ourselves when we feel like garbage isn’t it?). I really felt I had to take care of myself today by eating well. I stopped to be grateful that I know how to eat to feel really good. I checked my blackberry and I had a wonderfully supportive, gracious comment on my post from yesterday and I was reminded that I am being helpful by being this honest. I also saw that my first patient emailed me to reschedule. Normally a late cancel is annoying, but today it gave me another hour to get caught up. I was grateful for that too.  Off to get a cup of coffee and write this blog. What’s that? It’s a free coffee! My punch card is full. Sweet. What did all this show me today? *Trust what you know. If there are things you do that make you feel good – why aren’t you doing them? Think of people, practices and habits that have worked for you and make the time to do them. We all know how to help ourselves more than we realize, but we let life’s busyness and other nonsense keep us from doing what we need to do to feel good. We end up feeling like we’re on a treadmill, one day just running into the next. Jump off and set a course that moves you to exactly where you want to go. *Trust that when you feel bad, don’t run from it as it WILL pass. I am happy that I didn’t bury any of the negative feelings I conjured up but dealt with them as best I could knowing they may return but if they do, they will again pass – and each time I face them, I get stronger and they get weaker. When they come up, it’s ok to sigh and think, “Ugh, you guys again?” but look them dead in the face and take their power – they are just feelings after all. *Be happy. Do whatever you can everyday to make yourself happy – whether you are at your skinny jeans fit or not. You (and me!) deserve to feel good as we work towards a better body, better health and a better life. *Be grateful. The Gratitude Project I did last month left me feeling happier and more at peace than I’ve been in awhile – starting this Inspiration Project hurled me back into the depths of negativity. How did I dig myself out? By being grateful again. *Do what works for you. Forget the experts and forget what others think, do what you need to do each day for you – do what works. Over the weekend I talked to my brother about how I was feeling and he said, “You’re finding where your heart and your expertise meet. You are good at both but having growing pains as you find the right mix. It takes courge, but you have lots. Stop trying to win at someone else’s game.”  Well that about sums that up.

Little Brother at my graduation from Bastyr, 2004.

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