The Source of the Fear

Some time ago I had a bit of an epiphany, one that has really made a difference in my way of thinking (except for those days that I forget to remember it). At the time, I was listening to a lecture in which the speaker pointed out that it is crazy that we as a society judge the worth of a person by what they look like on the outside. The more I thought about that, the more I realized how true that is. Why does how much I weigh or how attractive I am have anything to do with who I am or how worthy of love I am? It doesn't really, but if I spend my life thinking that it is true, then I live in constant fear--fear of what other people think of me, fear of being too fat for people to like me, fear of gaining weight when I am thin, fear of never being able to lose weight when I am not thin, fear that I will never be worthy of love. But the truth is, that is all in my mind. Now don't get me wrong. These beliefs are a big deal and can create walls and limit the progress of anybody who gets stuck believing those things. But they are all in our mind; they're not real.

After listening to that lecture, I pondered on it for some time. I realized that my whole life, every choice I make, is based on fear of something. I wanted to be done living in fear and doing everything I do only because I'm afraid of what other people will think of me if I don't or because I feel obligated to do it. And I wanted to be done beating myself up because my body is not perfect.

So I imagined myself living in a vacuum where nobody else existed besides me--there was nobody around to judge me or to give me reason to worry or fear. And what I was able to see in that space was a completely different me than I normally see. Instead of noticing every blemish and flaw that I am constantly fearing will cause others to look down on me, I saw an absolutely amazing, miraculous body that does miraculous things. Instead of being frustrated and disgusted because of the stretch marks on my abdomen, I felt tremendous gratitude for this amazing body that grew four perfect little people inside of it and was able to stretch to accommodate each rapidly growing life! Instead of seeing love handles or the muffin top that are typically a source of ongoing stress and embarrassment for me, I saw a beautiful body, full of life and health, that has supported me all these years with only minor ailments and injuries in all that time.

I realized that all of the negativity that I feel for my body and thus for myself is a direct result of my fear or belief of what others might be thinking of me. And the kicker is that no matter what anybody thinks of me, it has nothing to do with me. It does not in any way affect my worth or my value or my beauty. I am a child of God and thus am a being of infinite worth and beauty and potential. Nothing they say or do or think will change that. Furthermore, I would venture to guess that 9 times out of 10, nobody is thinking the things I am worrying that they are thinking. As I said before, it is all in my head.

So what can I take from this experience? The next time I catch myself trying to camouflage the size of my belly or worrying about what somebody will think if I haven't lost more weight before I see them again, I'm going to stop and return to that vacuum momentarily and allow myself to feel love and amazement and gratitude for this miracle of a body that I have been blessed with. I am going to give myself a hug and tell myself how wonderful and awesome and beautiful I am. And I'm going to acknowledge to myself that I'm doing a good job in this life.

I'm the One Who Writes My Own Story aka Time to Stop Being a Victim!

A few mornings ago I woke up with the words to a song from an old LDS play going through my head: "I'm the one who writes my own story. I decide the person I'll be." I've heard the song many times before and even pondered the meaning of those words, but for some reason they really struck me as I woke up that morning. I suddenly understood them in a new light, and I felt powerful! I am in charge of my life! Nobody else is! I get to create it just how I want it to be, and I'm starting now! I can't possibly describe just how deep and poignant those feelings were for me; suffice it to say that is was an Aha! moment for me that changed my whole perspective. Ever since then, whenever I start feeling frustrated about how things are going, I have been taking a step back and saying to myself, "Wait a minute. If I don't like it, I am the one who needs to change it. What is my story going to say about how I chose to live this day of my life? I'm not just going to sit back and wait for things to change by themselves or for someone else to come in and save the day for me. " What a victim mentality that is! And unfortunately, that is the mentality that I have unknowingly operated under for the past 30+ years of my life. But I'm done! I am now creating the life I want to have in the future by taking charge of today. I am creating myself into a joyful person, a loving mother, a supportive wife, a successful business owner, and a woman who loves herself and treats herself like a queen. I know that a priceless creation like this takes a lot of work and a lot of patience, so I'm just taking things one day at a time. And when that fear starts to creep in, I stop and remind myself that I get to choose. I don't have to be afraid of anyone or anything anymore because I choose how I will meet any given scenario. I am in charge of my life. And I am powerful. And I am done being afraid.

I am the one who writes my own story. And what a story it will be!

Exercise for the Brain

As I was literally spoon-feeding my 3-year-old son his breakfast this morning, as I do with at least a portion of every meal of every day, I once again found myself fast-forwarding 15 years and imagining myself feeding my 18-year-old his breakfast before he drives off to school or work for the day. I wondered if his wife will be willing to keep feeding him his meals when she takes on the responsibilities of being married to him. Should we include that in the marriage contract? Now, this is not meant to elicit comments about my bad parenting. I actually want to talk about this habit that I would guess many of us have of projecting ourselves into the future. While this is not necessarily a good thing when I am seeing my 9-year-old as a juvenile delinquent 7 years down the road because he runs off to play with friends instead of doing his chores today, or my 7-year-old flunking out of school and not being able to keep a job because she forgets to turn in a homework assignment, I do think it can have its uses if we choose to change the vision.

Our minds have so much power, more than we realize. If we will take that ability to project into the future and just change the picture a little, it becomes a very powerful mental exercise. If, for example, you lack motivation to do physical exercise at all, start envisioning yourself as someone who likes to exercise and who looks forward to getting up and doing something active every day. The more you visualize the future you want to create, the more you will lock that into your subconscious and get the wheels in your head moving so that that vision can start to be created. Most of what we do every day is controlled by our subconscious thoughts, so if we can just lock those more positive thoughts into our subconscious mind, the things we do when we are on auto-pilot will more likely be things that help us reach our goals. And in our conscious mind, visualizing what we want our future to look like will keep us motivated to keep working toward our goal. 

So take 10 minutes today and try it. Visualize something that you would like to see in your life, whether it’s a healthier body, a better job, an intimate relationship, etc. and paint a picture in your mind of just how it will look. How do you feel? What are you doing as a result of this change? Where do you see yourself? What are the sights, sounds, and smells, surrounding you? The more detail you put in, the more you will be able to lock it in. Take a few minutes to do this every day, and see how your life starts to change. You may surprise yourself!

P90x Week 4

Today marks the end of my 4th week doing P90x, which also means weigh-in and measure day as well as fit test update. Before I get to all that, though, I want to review the past 2 weeks since my last post.

Week 3 went relatively well for the first part of the week, but by the end of the week I started feeling really discouraged because I didn't feel like I was seeing any results. But I also realized that I had missed reading my scriptures for the past few days. For those of you who are not religious, this may seem odd and totally unrelated to exercise and fitness. But for me, my relationship with God is central to everything I do in life. The more I am able to enlist God's help in even things that might seem unimportant to Him (although I believe that if it's important to me, it's important to Him because He loves me so much) and the more I have faith that He will help me succeed, the more successful I am. So as I study the scriptures and pray, I receive insight and inspiration, for example, about how I can organize my time more efficiently to fit in all that I need and want to do during the day, such as exercising as well as spending quality time with my children. Anyway, I hadn't been reading my scriptures, so I wasn't feeling as close to Heavenly Father or feeling the help of His Spirit, and I just felt down. So I recommitted to making that a priority every single day, and I've been feeling much better as a result.

I also started to lose motivation to keep going with my exercise and fitness because I didn't feel like I was seeing the results I wanted to see by this time. But I immediately stopped myself from thinking that way and took the time to realize that even if I I'm not seeing results yet, that doesn't mean that improvement isn't occurring. I know that my body is becoming stronger and more fit every single day that I exercise and eat well and that eventually I WILL see big results. I recognized also that I have often given up by this point in any program I commit to because I get sick or injure myself and have to stop working out. But this time I am at a level both physically and emotionally to handle the strenuous exercise schedule I am following without burning out or getting hurt. These realizations have renewed my motivation and kept me going.

Another big help is my commitment to doing EFT every single day. I have tapped about my weight concerns, about my concerns that I'll get injured, about eating right, about cravings, and about so many other things, and I've done it just about every day since starting the P90x program. I have never been this consistent with EFT before, and I am noticing a huge difference. Whenever some big emotional issue looms up and threatens to sabotage everything I'm trying to accomplish, I have managed to weather it fairly well and not let it overwhelm me thanks to tapping about it. That's not to say I don't get down and discouraged some days, but those feelings last for a few hours rather than days or weeks, and I am able to pull myself up and forge ahead really quickly. I can't wait until I am trained to help other people deal with their emotional blocks this way. I know it is a powerful tool, and I really love the idea of helping others transform their lives both physically and emotionally.

It didn't hurt also that this was a lighter week in my training due to periodization (changing up routines from time to time to keep your body from getting too used to any routine), so I was able to give my body a little bit of a break.

So now to the results at the end of week 4: I'm down 2 more pounds today, and I've lost several inches over my entire body, including a half inch from my waist! I was able to do 4 pull-ups (that's right: FOUR!) up from 1.5 a month ago, and I was improved on every other part of the fit test as well (except for the heart rate maximizer, but I attribute that to a dying hr monitor battery the first time I did the test). Hooray! I feel like getting through that big wall of resistance I hit last weekend was like a test. Once I passed it by not giving in and giving up, my body let go of a bunch of fat and basically took a big step forward in its level of health. I feel so excited that I am seeing results, especially when I've been working so hard. I'm proud of myself and excited to see how much more I can achieve!

I have improved so much and felt so good through it all for the most part that I'm actually going to move up to the classic P90x, which is a little more intense than P90x lean, the program I've been following so far. I will start with month 2 of that program and follow that for the rest of the 90 days since I started. I'm looking forward to the challenge.