All in a Day's Words

Month: April 2015 (Page 2 of 2)

Winds of Changing Habits

When asked about my fitness and weight management lifestyle, I explain its gradual, consistent, and purposeful ascent into habit. With focus and intention on “clean” eating, allowing it to penetrate physically and psychologically, it becomes a consistent routine. Not a diet, I defensively deny the depiction of the boxed definition of deprivation, restricted calories, and control over food intake. Instead my lifestyle requires a new mindset, viewing food as fuel, consuming an abundance of healthy real food, and practicing self respect and care for what enters the body. As for fitness, boot camps, and specialty strength training classes strengthen the core, muscles, and mental toughness. Yet subtle describes the process, like a dot-to-dot puzzle, connecting one action to the next. When exchanging old habits for new ones, fresh seeds are planted.They orchestrate the winds of change.

Eight months concentrating on altering my actions, mindset, and knowledge, establishing a sustainable lifestyle is transformative. Yet the test of time is the deciding factor. Is it sustainable for a year, two years, five years, or a lifetime? Embracing this lifestyle and engaging in extensive emotional healing with significant physical, mental, and emotional strength has added a meaningful dimension to my life.  A newly conceived body, a healed heart, and a committed mindset lead the line of longevity. Making the habits what I do, who I am, how I live, and allowing the winds of change to wash over me, require continued motivation, inspiration, and intention towards each day’s actions. Can I do this for a lifetime? At the end of my life I will know. For now, moment by moment, I embrace the change while a lifetime passes.

Living from the Tombstone

While attending business school, an assignment to fill in our tombstone fostered a meaningful discussion. Writing your eulogy for leading a better life examines our values, ambitions, and dreams. Hearts beat in an inspiring direction to live with purpose. Grounded in meaning, our actions breathe a life of compassion, kindness, and connection. A playing field of anything is possible sprouts from the imagination. Yet as I took stock of my life, awareness of my damaged wings rose to the surface. Emotional baggage prevented me from soaring, tattered and torn wings were weighed down by my past. A wounded soul in need of healing, I reexamined my life from the inside out.

To live a life with meaning, my wounded heart must know forgiveness, experience peace, and learn to love again. Without the wherewithal, I searched within for worthiness only to find empty space, a tortured anger, and dormant sadness from yesteryear. Uncovering the depth of my despair, healing the wounds with compassion, love, and forgiveness, years passed. The process was as silent as a whisper, as if inching closer without being heard, gathering strength by the gram rather than pound, and releasing the past like a caress that dissipates into the wind. Enigmatically with fifteen years of gradual ascent, a knowing of self-love, gratitude, and comfort of self-worth encompassed every cell of my being.

Arrival at this knowing is palpable, but not readily explainable. Like a softened heart, an inner strength, and a self-respect, the intangibles source the emotion of well being, happiness, and self-love. Healing reformulates wings, more magical than I imagined, stronger than I thought possible, and full of Grace for flight. Soaring now with self confidence, self-worth, and comfort in my skin, I fly effortlessly, higher by the heart’s internal light, and smoother by the wind that releases my sails initially obstructed by weight, force, and obstacles. Lightened by the healing, love, and journey, I see my tombstone now engraved by a life being fully lived. Written upon it is the description of a woman who lived, worthy of speaking her truth, loving, and connecting all the way to her grave. She soared like an eagle, free to fly, free to roam, and free to live without fear. Are you living from the tombstone?

Dump the Scale

Waiting for the pounds to plummet is a process that people worldwide experience daily. They awaken to step upon the metal box that adorns the bathroom tiles, praying that a certain number’s appearance commends and rewards efforts. Unfortunately the lifeless object contains no feelings, friendship, or faithful bond. A scale will never give you the validation you seek. It has no authority, only the “all-knowing” power given to it. Allowing this metal, rectangular prism to declare your fate of happiness or tears, smiles or sadness, strength or weakness, is a practice in futility. Is it time to say “good-bye” and “good riddance” to your scale?

The scale, housing itself on bathroom floors in millions of homes, lives a scandalous life of torturing souls who step upon it. Giving the scale the heave ho may be the next step. As a measurement tool, it is limited in its inability to accurately calculate body fat, size, or muscle mass. Even the number is flawed, as it does not assess a body’s water retention. Additionally its consistency from one scale to the next differs significantly. Yet its emotional power over the masses has long reigned. Whether you stand upon it multiple times per day, per week, or per year, it may change even if your body hasn’t. Yet it loses its power when you remove it entirely.

Hopping upon the scale never shows us any love, nor does it say, “good job.” The clanky base upon the floor awaits silently our arrival, yet will never be your friend, nor has it ever been. It bruises egos, shatters confidence and adds fuel to the pendulum of bad feelings. We want a good relationship with this daily visit, but the foolish number glides upward processing painful realization, upset, and awakening of a number defining us is less than satisfying. When it hunkers downward, we scream with alliance, but its upward spin makes us yell with defiance. It seems a no-win proposition to have any relationship with the scale even though breaking up is hard to do.

The scale’s utility as a weight loss assessment tool is limited.  It sets off emotional turmoil, resulting in momentary approval or disappointment. Rarely is satisfaction the resulting emotion, and its effects of overconsumption no matter the direction the dial moved, negates progress. Removing it from the household may be a plausible solution for this negative, influential, inanimate object. After years of this toxic relationship, it is time to give it the boot. Happiness you seek lies within; no number defines you. Recognizing the weight on the scale as simply assessing your gravity in relation to the ground and not your success rate, the healthy lifestyle remains the focal point. Dump the scale; it never loved you anyway!

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