respect, haystacks and my husband

happy st. patrick's day!!

a little late, i know, but better than never!  i didn't actually realize it was a holiday today until two hours into work - a bummer because i got off work with a half hour left of the day.  but because i'm a believer that holidays MUST be celebrated, i'm going to celebrate tomorrow.  probably just by wearing something green and making some green food.  green smoothies...green peppers on my pizza... or maybe i'll paint my nails green.  or something like that.

anyway, on with life.  it's late and after a throbbing headache all through a nine hour work day, i'm ready to hit the sack.

today, i'm grateful for my husband's support.  today marks the first full week of my gym-going goal and he's been with me through all of it.  there were probably three days that if he wasn't going, i probably wouldn't have gone.  seriously.  i'm so grateful to have a husband who supports my goals and desires so much.  he cares so much about me and it brings more joy into my life than i can describe.

today, i'm also thankful for hawaiian haystacks.  yes, i brought dinner to work tonight. {yippee!!!!}  the norm lately has seen me forgetting dinner and just grabbing a smoothie or something during work.  this results in me also snacking all through work and the customer's left over smoothies and such.  which results in me having an upset stomach and teeth that still really want to chew something.  tonight, rice and gravy tasted so deliciously good to me.  it was satisfying and fulfilling.  aaaand helped my motivation to eat less sugar and more nourishing food this coming week.

i'm also grateful for my manager's son today.  his playfulness reminded me of the joy of simple things.  why don't i do a dance when someone gives me a glass of apple juice?  not that it happens often, but i'm just saying... next time i have a glass of orange juice in the morning, i hope i dance.  he made me feel a little more alive tonight.

and one last thing.  i'm grateful for an employee who {despite past actions that would suggest otherwise} told me that i had her full respect.  it's nice to be complimented and know that someone respects you as their supervisor - especially since the statement came after she'd asked me if i was a mormon several minutes earlier.

and now to bed again.  tonight, i'm also grateful for my bed.  on nights like this, nothing feels as good as climbing into a big cozy bed.

i think i'll go do just that.

i am enough.

it's a late night tonight.  i'd like to start writing and doing all my things i do before i go to work.  that way, i could come home, rub some oil into my sore tired feet and crawl into bed.  instead, tonight i came home and still have things to do.

today, i've been noticing my "not enough's" and shocking myself {yes, even myself} by how many ways i can tell myself i'm not enough.  today's prominent mental statements were...

i'm not skinny enough.
i'm not pretty enough.
i'm not in shape enough.
i'm not attractive enough.
{can you tell i had a hard time at the gym?}
i'm not funny enough.
i'm not a good enough employee.
i'm not motivated enough.
i'm not energetic enough.
i'm not healthy enough.
i'm not skinny enough. {again...}

and that's a load to unload.  it's interesting how i can say i like myself pretty well and then tell myself all of those things in the course of a day.  and a day during which i'm paying attention to what i'm telling myself!  the good news is that because i was mindful, i was able to contradict many of the above statements with some like this:

i am just fine the way i am.
my body is fulfilling it's purpose and is healthy.
i am loved and important.
i am responsible and do my best in my work.
i try to be kind to my body and that pays off.
funny might not be your strong point, but you have many others.
i can do anything for a minute.
i can do anything for a year.
i can do this.

although it was quite the downer to hear "you're late." right as i walk into work {three minutes.. that's all, really}, it made up for it mostly when my boss left and said, "hey, i appreciate you. when you're here i can leave and not worry about anything!"

that made working tremendously easier today.  today when it was so hard to get there, i am deeply grateful for a boss that {every once in a while} voices his appreciation and gratitude.  i'm also grateful to work with a funny girl who puts me at ease.  karlea is witty, snarky, and calm.  when i work with her, i come home feeling much less stressed than if i'd worked with several of the others in our team.  i'm grateful for her humor and positivity tonight.  she was a blessing to me.

although i am taking steps to become a more grateful person, i still feel as though the ordinary experiences that could bring me tremendous joy are escaping me.  i'm not feeling them.  not deep down, at least.  and i'd like to.  that's something that awakens passion in other areas for me as well.

which means that it's time to be a little more gentle with myself {and forceful all at the same time}.  a little more mindful.  to sit outside on the porch and feel the wind.  and feel nothing but the wind and the sun and the old wood underneath me.  to smell the cut grass, hear the chirping birds and do nothing but listen.

that sort of mindfulness sounds more restorative right now than any amount of sleep.  however, sleep will claim me.  most likely within the hour.  and that deep mindfulness will wait until tomorrow.

mindfulness sounding that appealing tips me off that i need more of it in my life {indeed, don't we all?}.  i'm glad a new week is approaching - it gives me a chance to evaluate everything.  sit and think about what i need more and less of in the coming week.  something i'll definitely be adding to my dailies is mindfulness.  a whole lot of it.

my muscles and mind look forward to tomorrow morning.

lastly, i'm grateful for water.  after forgetting my waterbottle at work today, the sip when i jumped in my car was heavenly.  i love water.  and after watching all those coffee drinkers refill their cups time after time, i'm grateful for my fresh metal klean kanteen.  yes, water is my friend.

and now to bed.
goodnight!

peace

tonight i'm feeling gratitude, passion, life, and contentment.

it's been a day.  worked eight hours, came home to look a little more into brene brown, worked out {hard}, made homemade pizza with my husband and scurried away to my bedroom while he attended an online meeting to write him love notes and read more brian doyle.

this is my favorite quote of the night: "I did not expect a miracle to happen.  No.  That is not what praying is for.  I was praying not to lose hope.  I was praying to be calm and accept what would be.  I was praying to be calm about what would happen.  I did not know what would happen."

and this: "But my heart tells me that it's immensely grateful for the whole unpredictable extravaganza that is life."

really, brian doyle is one of the greatest word geniuses that has ever lived.

after reading for a while and letting my mind unwind the gratitude started to set in.  as i said previously, my homework for this week is to notice the ordinary in my life and find beauty in it: to be grateful for the ordinary.  as i've been looking today, i've seen ordinary beauty in a few ways.  i expect the list to grow with practice, but for now:

i'm immensely grateful for my heart.  my heart that's allowed me to live, to run, to love and to feel pain.  i'm grateful for it's capacity to feel pain and joy today.  both together, because {as brene brown would say} we can't selectively numb the dark emotions.  i'm grateful that my heart has felt true pain because now it can feel true joy.

i'm grateful for my dear husband.  today, i've felt his wind in my wings - he's a joy to live with.  we've created a place of safety together, a place a peace and growth and understanding and acceptance.  a home like i've never experienced before: with a freedom from expectation, infused with curiosity and possibility.  a content home.

and tonight, i'm grateful for this time in my life - that i can sit down for a half hour and read for enjoyment.  that simple pleasure {one that was denied to me by my own self discipline and lack of time management all through my degree} helps me feel awake, relaxed and at peace.

on that note of gratitude, goodnight.  sleep tight, and make sure to keep a prayer in your heart tonight!

vulnerability:: brene brown

incredible lecture by brene brown i listened to tonight - really, it's worth the 15 minutes.

i connected with this so much tonight.  we live in a culture that teaches us to fear vulnerability, making us emotionally numb and teaching us to put up a shield of perfection.

for the next week, i'm going to put aside my "not enough's."  i'm going to physically create my surrender box and write all those i'm not enough statements down on paper.  i'm going to put them in my surrender box where they won't be accessible.  where i can't get them back out.  then i'll be grateful for what i have - i'll notice the beauty in the ordinary in my life {because i do not want to live in disappointment and i refuse to believe that my life is not good enough because it's ordinary and simple}.

these are the tools i'd like to pack into my tool kit:

1} connection: when i feel not enough i want to connect with other real people.  people who can tell me to stop it.  people who can ask who are you, really?  people that can pull me out of my perfection.

2} self-compassion: to prove to myself that i am important.  to stop negative self-talk and start positive affirmations.

3} courage:  when my fear and shame tell me that i can't or that something is way to scary, i want to do the opposite of what that fear and shame are telling me to do.  i want to have courage to connect.

courage to be vulnerable again.

awake, my soul.

today, i've been pondering on the things that set my soul free.  i mean, really make me come unmistakably alive.

i remember posts from the last several years full of love for running and immediately want to reclaim that rush.  i haven't been running much lately, although i've been to the gym consecutively the last couple days.  lately, i love to walk.  long walks with my husband around the perimeter of campus after his classes have finished.  brisk morning walks up hills.  i hope to start running again soon, but only if i can reclaim that love.  if not, i might be in search of something to replace that aliveness that running used to give me as i flew up and down hills, feeling free.

lately, i've been thinking about art.  specifically, i've been thinking about the years when i spent five to six hours a day in the art studio of my university trying to get the color just right or the shading with just a little more contrast.  i've been missing that, lately, remembering just how alive i felt when i'd paint and draw.  i'd love to get back into it - break out my art again.  but if it doesn't awaken that same passion, maybe i'll test my hand at sculpture.  after all, i've always wanted to sculpt.

i can recall a time when every batch of cupcakes made me jump for joy.  opening the oven to wonderfully rounded cake tops made my heart flutter.  and now, a batch of cupcakes just doesn't thrill me the way it used to.  true, part of that might be my screwed-up oven.  but if it's not, i'm sure having a dandy time making my green smoothies taste like heaven and learning to cook meat.  that's an adventure that makes my heart pound for certain.  

last week, as i waited for my husband inside the bible building on campus, a crowd of teenagers came and sat in the seats around me.  they were full of life - talking, laughing, praying out loud.  they lived outward.  there was true enjoyment in their rambunctiousness.  and it was obvious they felt alive.  i was taken back years and years, to the times i've felt most alive.  i remember myself as a teenager: so many things i'm glad to have gotten over, to have gotten rid of.  and then i felt a sort of missness.  i miss that energy, that life.  the feeling that my soul {every unfelt speck of it} is absolutely alive.

the point is i've stopped doing so many things that used to bring such enjoyment into my life.  like drawing, baking cupcakes, running three miles straight up a hill to show myself how freaking strong i was.  true, those things might not bring the same enjoyment and passion into my life now.  maybe those loves have faded.  but if they have, it's time to find more.  because if working {nearly} full-time has taught me anything in the last several weeks, it's that i need things in my life that remind me that life is to be enjoyed.  to be loved.

it might take some experimenting to find the things that do it for me just right now - in this different body, at this different stage.  but i'm on a mission to find them, and darn it, i'm going to hold that feeling of life close to me until it comes back full force.

because i believe it: life is meant to be lived.  meant to be felt.  and meant to be loved.

staring at the ceiling

lately, i don't sleep well at night.  i turn and roll and toss and it's just a good thing my husband is a pretty deep sleeper.  i can never get my pillow just right.  it always feels off in one way or another: sometimes too high, sometimes not quite high enough, sometimes tilted at an angle that explains away every ache in my neck the next morning.

i've been waking up lying on my back, lately.  something i've never done before, despite back-sleeping being the healthiest and most beneficial way to sleep.  i've just never been able to do it.  there was a period of time {three or four months, maybe} when i forced myself to lie on my back until i fell asleep.  but even those several months, without fail i'd wake up several hours later lying on my stomach or side.  after a while, i compromised.  if it was impossible to turn myself into a back-sleeper, then i'd settle for making a side-sleeper out of myself.  and so it's been for quite a few years.  from stomach, an attempt at back, and then side.  my side was a compromise - it didn't hurt my back as much as sleeping on my stomach would, and it wasn't quite as difficult as falling asleep on my back.  so it became routine.

but lately i wake up in the mornings on my back.  note, i go to sleep on my side.  almost always my side, and yet i wake in the morning with my head and neck craning upward toward the white ceiling as i lie flat on my back.  only when i move the pillow does a smidgen of comfort return to the position.

it's as if my body is adjusting to the healthful routines i've set, determining that it will follow suit and cooperate with that once feeble attempt at my back-sleeping conversion.  maybe the tossing and turning are simply an attempt of my body to land me in a position that feels natural, healthful again.  perhaps it has something to do with not curling up in a corner of bed alone anymore.  possibly it has something to do with my sore neck legs and feet pushing me into the most nurturing and restful position that my body can muster.

whatever the reason, my health or my feet, i wake in the morning on my back.
and if this trend continues, i really ought to search for a pillow that doesn't crane my neck toward the sky as my body seeks a new comfort place.  because waking up to an aching neck just isn't doing it for me anymore.

i might just make a back-sleeper out of myself, yet.

come on in

i've been thinking extensively about boundaries, lately.  and how, although boundaries used correctly are always a safety, they can be pretty scary sometimes.  it's interesting that as humans we either want to have other people so close that we can't tell the difference between us and them or so far away that they'll never really touch the real us.  very few people naturally strike a happy medium, although a healthy medium is absolutely attainable.

i've also been thinking quite a bit about natural consequences for intruding on another person's boundaries.

as i've come to see, boundaries act like a fence.  it's not healthy to have a solid rock ten-foot wall surrounding my home with no gate, making it impossible for anyone to leave or enter.  it's also not healthy to have no fence at all - making it possible for all the evil to come in right along with the good.  one leaves no room for accepting new good things and people; the other leaves no mechanism for keeping out danger.

and so i am in search of a good study gate.

and maybe some white paint and wood, too.  my fences need to be thoroughly inspected.

you will have created something.

even a lousy poem.

i'm going to create a little more on my days off this coming week, even if it's lousy.  after all, you've gotta start somewhere! :)

happy saturday, everyone!