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January 1, 2014

loving feelings.

people will try to silence you everyday in small, quiet ways. 

i wrote this on my birthday last year. the world does this to us a lot, but i believe we do it to ourselves far more often. sometimes we don't know how to speak up, so we find a way to fill that need. or silence it. 

2013 has been an incredible year, but for someone who does not thrive on change aka someone who has a whole lot of fear surrounding change, 2013 was a doozey. i finished graduate school, left a job i'd had for two and a half years, then moved to another state. to live with a man and his daughter. i walked away from so many things that no longer served me. i went through dozens of recruiters and job interviews, most of them crap. i found one job, which, for several reasons did not work. i then found a great one, a job i like more and more each day. i get to work with kind and smart women and i fully believe we are the company we keep. and I rounded out the year by turning 29 and getting engaged. hello, big things!

the "funny" part is i want to change. i want to grow and be better and learn more and become who i'm supposed to be. and yet... all of these things terrify me. 

this is a massive amount of change and even when the majority of it is big and good where there's change there is sure to be stress. and when we feel so stretched and exhausted we find ourselves on christmas morning swearing in the kitchen because you forgot the parmesan cheese for the lasagna and the only way to feel better is by doing three loads of laundry and cleaning the bathroom and reorganizing the pantry it's time to stop. a lack of parmesan is not a tragedy. (and in a pinch chihuahua works just fine.)

moments like these are signs to stop, reminders that this is not the hardest thing we will ever go through. but one of the hardest things to do, no matter the circumstances is show myself patience. and kindness. 

loving ourselves is an inside job. it doesn't matter how many books we read, or programs we enroll in. i did weight watchers for about six months several years ago. i hated every second of it. 

therapy helped. one of the biggest things i took away from working with jim was when he said, food is not the problem. your emotions are the problem. (for those new to the blog here's a good starting point. here and here too.) when stress piles up so do the bad choices. i hit the gym less and the chocolate dish more. but i know myself well enough to know why i do the things i do. thank you, therapy. but when we know ourselves, and there is magic and a hell of a lot of hard work to this, this is when true change happens.

if you want to have loving feelings, do loving things.
-anne lamott

walk more. as much as possible. take the long way-to the bathroom or the train. 
slow down
drink more water (so many problems are solved by having a glass of water. truly. the slowing down thing is a huge part of it.)
nap more
stay off the goddamned scale
get out of your head 
cook more (relaxing beyond belief)
put lavender in your bedroom and bathroom
get the spicy sushi for lunch. laugh at the fact that it makes you sweat ever-so-slightly
watch more episodes of the pioneer woman on saturday mornings when the world is still quiet
walk through macy's on your break just to hear the jazz
forgive
forgive
forgive

i know i'm a better person when i do these things, when i am kind to myself. so "simple," but so frigging hard. but i'm a happier, healthier person when i do them. and i vow to forgive myself when i forget.

how do we get there? left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe. 

to a new year and a clean slate, cheers. 

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