HungryForLife

top ten questions for 2012

I'm taking baby steps on my Planning 2012 project so here's an update from my 100 Questions post. I found the exercise to be daunting at first and only wrote curioius questions like, How does electricity work? and Why is purple my favorite color? There were broad and often unanswerable questions like, How long will I live? followed by, DO I want to know? Eventually I got down to the nitty grity and experienced a shift to focused specific questions that I truly wanted to answer.

Then I had to choose the top ten questions that resonated with me truly-madly-deeply. Ten? Only ten! I ticked and crossed off and bit my lip and then I put it away. I didn't want to choose only ten. When I was ready to come back to it weeks later (at least I came back, that's huge for me!) I decided to tick off ALL the questions that were particularly close to my heart and I came up with twelve and decided the extra were okay for now. I'm playing by my rules after all.

They are in no particualr order other than how they came to me. Here's a sampling:

What do I want to learn how to do more than anything? What adventure do I want to have in 2012 like paragliding? What do I want to create? Who are my sheroes for aging with attitude? What do I need to do to be ready for my ideal client?

 

My top twelve questions led to creating my goals for 2012. Which I divided into categories of:

Healthy Living, Learning, Biz, Creativity, Relationships, Play, and Writing

I answered this burning question: If you could accomplish only ONE thing in 2012 what would you want it to be? Why? What would your biz/life be like without it. What would your biz/life be like with it? I did this both personally and professionally . These answers gave me my Intentions for 2012.

To reach and maintain my fitest, healthist self.

Create financial freedom via a business partnership with Jeff.

Next, I considered this question: How are you going to make your intention a reality? Glenda suggests SMART goals: specific/measurable/actionable/realistic/timebound

My committment to this process is consistency over intensity! Brian Johnson reminds us, "If we work diligently, patiently, persistently, and playfully we're bound to be successful."

I will continue on to the next level of Palnning 2012 and create action steps for each of my goals. Glenda recommends three so as not to try and do too much. (Who me?) Then the steps actually need to be scheduled. This is the peice that gets me every time! Yes, I have my intentions and goals but I don't designate a time to take action on them. This planning prcocess has been extremely illuminating the process of 'making real' doesn't happen in my head—it begins there with an idea or desire but then I need to take action to begin the actualization process. I knew this logically but now I know it in my heart where it's blossomed into the power and inspiration to transform my dreams into reality.

Christmas without Mom

My mom loved Christmas! She would hoard little treasures from yard sales and flea markets all year long and store them in a trunk to give to us at Christmas. Presents had to be distributed one at a time and in a certain order so we could all watch the recipient open and share their joy. ;) In the early seventies she excitedly drug home her most exciting find and we assembled it in the living room: a garish silver artificial tree made of some sort of aluminum strips. Once the lights and decorations were on she added the final finishing touch by pouring white Styrofoam ‘peanuts’ over the top to simulate snow. At nine I was completely enchanted! Her enthusiastic giving continued even when she was seventy-nine.

Mom became ill two days before Christmas last year and I transferred her to Hospice the day after Christmas. We stayed with her until she crossed over on January 7^th. I’m sure we celebrated Christmas after that but I don’t recall it. And I know I must have taken the tree and decorations down and put her unopened presents away but I have no clear memory. So this year I wasn’t sure I wanted to celebrate Christmas. Did I want to put up the tree she and I found for five dollars at a thrift shop and we’ve used and loved the past seven years? We even considered traveling for the holidays. But I knew I wanted to be with Brin wherever we were and I knew Mom would not want me to give up Christmas. I gave the tree away to a neighborhood family and wished them many happy memories around it.

Our family tradition since Brin was a toddler was to get a ‘free’ live tree on Christmas Eve bring it home and decorate it, have dinner, and then open presents. Oh about the ‘free’ tree—you know those empty lots near shopping centers that pop up after November strung with white light bulbs and cut live trees lined up along a mesh fence? Well this free tree ritual began literally because in those days we could not afford to buy a tree! My parents and sister and brother-in-loveand even our neighbors always joined us. We practiced this tradition for over a decade into Brin’s teens and well after I moved on from working Christmas Day at a movie theatre and could afford to buy a tree! And over the years most of those loved ones for one reason or another join us now only in Spirit.

This year we reinstated the tradition which Brin explained to her boyfriend and we learned she never realized it started because we were broke—we all found this quite hilarious! Brin cooked for us Christmas Eve at our house and Jeff and I went out to look for a tree. Our little town used to have them everywhere but this year we couldn’t locate even one. Sigh. Soooo, Brin’s three foot tall purple pre-lit artificial tree would have to grow on me.

I set it up on a table in the living room window and dug out the Christmas decorations brought in from the shed but I could only find the bulbs mom and Jeff and I had painted together last year. Oh it was a brilliant idea but a bigger project than I had anticipated as it was too challenging for her physically. But we muddled through and had a great time. We gave each of her caretakers and family and friends a special bulb to remember us and this Christmas.  They actually looked perfect on this little purple tree and I was happy.

But I couldn’t find the box with all of our family decorations, yet the box of lights were there. I was disheartened. I had no memory of packing them so I wasn’t really sure what I’d done with them. We rechecked the shed—not there. I ran through several unhappy scenarios and decided to let it go for then (which was a HUGE stretch for me) and not deal with it over the holiday. The tree was glittering and was a perfect memory of mom—she would have been delighted with it just the way it was.

I really ‘got’ this year that Christmas, or whatever winter holiday you may celebrate, is about love. And demonstrating that love with others. We didn’t exchange presents, we had a little tree, Brin cooked a scrumptious meal, and we had each other. The people in the world I love dearly were with me and healthy and happy and I am incredibly grateful and blessed that this is so. That’s all the gift I needed.

Later that night I was leaving mom’s old bedroom, now storage and exercise room, and I felt the impulse to whisper to the darkened ceiling, still glowing from her glow in the dark stars, Happy Christmas Mom, I love you. I was at peace.

A few days later when I was taking the outside lights down I moved the boxes in her old room and there was an unopened box of Christmas decorations that I swear had not been there before! I sat down and opened it and low and behold (pun intended) it was our family decorations, the ones I thought were irrevocably lost! I appreciate the serendipity or miracle or marvel that I didn’t find them until I was ready—until I’d made peace with Christmas. Until I’d made peace with loving mom long distance.

Marvelisms

My mom's subscription of O Magazine has arrived each month all year and I have piled them in a basket without reading them. Not because of the magazine but because it was something mom loved to do and had struggled with so much in her final months. She was always tearing out tidbits and words to share with me from magazines. I miss that.

Last month when I was ready to create my weight goal vision board I used the magazines to cut out words and photos that spoke to me. I also couldn't help but read a few articles and was wowed at the content and insightfulness. Mom would want me to read them, of course she would! I know it seems such a glaringly obvious fact but for me this was an AHA moment.

I read January's edition from cover to cover and the final page "What I Know for Sure" by Oprah resonated with me immensely and I hope you'll go here and read it in it's entirety. Here's an excerpt that seeped deep into my core and settled quietly, stilly, basking in the truth and power of these words:

"I choose to see it (2012) as the dawning of a new year of alignment, because with alignment comes enlightenment. When you're aligned with your heart's desire, when you're in sync with who you're meant to be and how you're supposed to contribute to our magnificent Earth, you feel a shift in perception. You start to notice that miracles show up regularly.

Some people call these miracles coincidences or serendipity. I like to call them marvelisms. Because when I'm doing everything I'm meant to do to keep my mind, body, and spirit whole (which for me means meditating twice a day, eating healthy, and exercising at least one hour daily), I constantly marvel at how other experiences fall into place. It's as though that beautiful line in Paulo Coelho's novel The Alchemist comes true: "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.""

Isn't that the best word!? Marvelisms. What marvelisms do you want to attract for yourself in 2012 dear reader? I have made great strides the last month of 2011 to answer that question clearly for myself and already on this fisrt day of the New Year feel I am on the exact right path and it feels...well it feels marvelous!

"If you can dream it, you can do it." ~ Walt Disney

I spent the day with several AssistU Virtual Assistants on a virtual retreat on Friday. Our goal was to plan our year for 2012. I have never taken the time to map out goals to accomplish in a year and I thought this was a brilliant idea for next year: my year of action. 2011 was a gift to myself I needed to spread my wings and fly, to experience freedom and the ease of soaring but next year I want to focus on digging in and taking action in my business and personal life.

My first step was to take Kim’s advice and journal where I wanted to be in December 2012. Oh that was easy—to have one more ideal client; to be debt free again; to finish my screen play and the edits; to create a new WOWVA Wordpress website; to discover a business that Jeff and I can do together; to maintain my weight and fitness goals with ease; to volunteer with a local therapeutic riding organization; to learn to sail; to take the Weight Watchers leadership training.

A couple of those potential manifestations surprised me and spoke to stepping out of my comfort zone. Next, I knew I wanted both a theme and a word for 2012 to help me focus on my priorities, create a plan of action and processes, and stay on a clear heading for true north. I realized during this process they may not be the same word and that was a new possibility as well. I mind mapped the word action which felt like the right beginning for my theme but I wanted more.

Action as in ‘something done’ led me to accomplish, achieve, realize, and finally actualize as in ‘make real’.  It clicked. The word fit my purpose and intention exactly and resonated in my entire body kind of like a deep hum or the vibration from a stringed instrument. Thawaaaaang!  Some of the synonyms for actualize are: activate, create, begin, undertake, initiate, accomplish, bring about, produce, realize. The other synonym that came from mind mapping the word action was challenge—there it was like a clear blue day filled with possibility. The definitions that applied for me are: difficulty in a job or undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it. And: something that by its nature or character serves as a call to special effort.

Stretching myself out of my comfort zones both personally and professionally is a way to challenge myself and achieve the ultimate goal of living my best life—a call to special effort. Beautiful that. Sailing is something I’ve always wanted to learn to do and would be a stepping stone to the live-aboard life hubby and I envision. I’ve shifted my thoughts from ‘I don’t know how to do that and can’t picture myself doing it’ to the possibility of: what does it take to learn to sail? Who do I need to become and what do I need to do to actualize being a sailor? Amazing that.

Now that I have my theme and one little word and have generated a slew of goals for 2012 I am combining Jamie Ridler’s planning ideas with Glenda Myles’s Planning 2012 Series. I’ve completed the 100 Questions exercise (extremely enlightening—more on that in another post) and am ready to select my top ten questions and move on to writing my intention for 2012 and a plan for transforming my ideas into reality: actualizing them!

Here's to a year filled with possibility, delight, and your wild and woolly dream actualized!

Here’s a quick review of the 100 Questions exercise—you may be inspired to play:

See it. Be it. Live it.

For most of this year I have struggled with emotional eating, over eating, and craving comfort foods. In the beginning of my weight releasing journey I was focused on getting done with burning fat but I learned that it was a process and there was no way to do it but go through. The same with all life lessons from having a baby to losing a loved one. I had to wrap my head around the idea that once I released the excess pounds that maintaining my weight might be a challenge but I didn’t imagine it would be more challenging than my original journey. Oh my—it is. And I realize I have not listened to my wise self and I have gained rather than maintained.

At 140 lbs. I heard, you’re too thin from a few people—I hadn’t heard those words since I was nine years old! In 2009 when my mom and her love of sweets moved in with us I gained five pounds and I was okay with that because others thought I was too thin. I liked how I felt at 140 but I could live with the gain. When mom was sick last Christmas and died in January—I gained five pounds in a few weeks. They stuck. Every trip I’ve taken this year I’ve gained 3-4 pounds and then struggled for what felt like forever to let them go. It's not about the number but how I feel—heavier and less energized.

Since starting CrossFit I have definitely seen and felt a difference in my body (yes, besides sore muscles!) but I haven't lost weight. Yes, I built muscle. Yes, I’m stronger and have more stamina. I still have a ways to go to be toned but I’ll get there one workout at a time. But I see that I slowly gave up on all my other exercise; walking, biking, dancing, and I felt sorry for my poor sore body and didn’t I deserve a reward for all my effort? I reverted to thinking of foods as good, bad, and evil. Guess where all my comfort foods lie out of those three categories?

It has taken me all year to realize I’ve been stuck in diet mentality. My Weight Watchers leader Stacey mentioned this in a meeting last week and I had an Aha! moment. I wasn’t consciously depriving myself but now I see that’s why when I broke down and binged I could disappear a half a pan of brownies. Poof! The thinking is: scarf as much as possible because it may be months before I get this again. Then came the cycle of guilt, admonishment, feeling bad about myself, which triggers a whole ‘nother emotional food-fest, followed by the question why bother exercising after eating all that!?

I was discouraged. I was tired of the struggle. I’d lost my way. I'd forgotten that this journey is a process—not about getting to done. There is no done for this over eater/emotional eater. For me the first step to getting back on track is to pick myself up. I wanted something to lift my spirits and energy. I needed a vision. Once I became aware of my thinking I was on board immediately with letting go of diet brain—I know diets don’t work yet I had reverted to my comfort zone. I needed to stretch myself out of that supposed comfortable place of excess and ease and get back up. I needed to see it. Be it. Live it. Not a DIEt but a LIVEit. Isn’t it interesting that evil in reverse is LIVE? Hmmmm.

My vision manifested itself as a vision board with a twist. I cut out magazine pictures and words that gave life and color to my intentions of building a strong and healthy body. I added my weigh in date for each week in December and my intended weight. First I SEE it on the board. Then I BEcome it, manifest it. That’s how I LIVEit. Creating the board itself was a messy creative trial and error endeavor and reaffirmed for me how important going through the process is—not the end result.

The first time I attempted to make it I was in a hurry and resistant to the process. I ended up tearing it up and starting again the next day. I set the mood and took a pile of O Magazines and all the tools I’d need to snip and glue and sat in the middle of my bed. Once I relaxed into the rhythm of opening and receiving, the perfect photos and words popped up everywhere. I had set my timer for ninety minutes and I stopped and walked away when it beeped. I left the bed just the way it was. Oh my inner control freak wanted to clean up right now! I gently cajoled her with, No dear, we’re not finished, it’s not your turn yet, we’ll come back later and you can whip it into shape.

I went back before dinner for an hour to trim and choose my final pieces and lay them out. Oh, it was delightful! A childlike process akin to paper dolls. Once again, I walked away when the dinner bell rang. Later that night as we settled in to watch a show I sat in front of the TV wielding my glue stick like a magic wand and whisking all the pieces into their ideal places. It took all day to complete this concoction because I let it simmer and burble like a good potion maker does.

I learned to be in the moment; to connect to my creative genius; to trust my gut; to see what I want to be; to be patient and loving with myself; that mis-takes are merely do-overs to celebrate. I learned that I can enjoy the end results but not let them be the keeper of joy— happiness lies in the journey not the destination. I learned that all the lessons of creating my LIVEit poster apply to living my LIVEit life!

(I wrote this draft on Monday and weighed in on Tuesday: at a half a pound below my goal for week one! Woot, woot!)

 

 

Vugs to hugs

My dear hubby really is a dear and dotes on me and my whims to an extreme. I'm not complaining mind you, I love the results. They go something like this; Honey, I have an idea to send friends a special momento of the AssistU Homecoming. He knows I love giving 'hands to hearts' gifts. He comments that's a great idea. I extrapoloate and say but it's something for you to make on the scroll saw. I smile sweetly and bat my eyelashes at him. Oh. Long pause and then always something like, a loud guffaw and then, Okay, what do you want me to make?

Jeff has been my best friend and partner for twenty-eight years and we have made a life filled with love and adventure. He is always there for me. He always supports my work, my passions, my crazy ideas, my life—which is whole and complete because of us. ♥ I love you Jeff! (Oh, and happy birthday!)

In case you're wondering what a 'vug' is I kinda coined it when I was in AssistU's Virtual Training Program instead of signing: Hugs, Laura I sent a virtual hug and wrote: Vugs, Laura. It stuck! So our slogan at Homecoming was "From vugs to hugs". Here's one of the signs he made this week which are winging their way to friends right now:

 

 

Tami shared hers on Facebook with the card I sent. ;) Friends posted and said they wanted one, too! They are not painted or varnished so you can leave them natural wood or paint them yourself. You can place your order with Jeff via: neofab at cox dot net. Won't he be surprised to hear from you! <grin> I'm thinking a donation to your favorite charity in lieu of a payment. Whatcha think? Big vugs!

Enough already!

This post is long overdue. Until this moment I was hesitant to write it and be authentic and vulnerable. I had eagerly anticipated our final bootcamp session at CrossFit on August 19^th. That evening we bootcamp ladies and our coaches met for drinks and appetizers each of us stylin’ and unrecognizable to the others out of our workout clothes. Prizes were awarded to participants who had worked their butts off (literally!) and the results spoke volumes.

Yes, I was happy for my classmates’ success but I was disappointed in myself. This is a repeat lesson for me.  I did my best but could have done better—my best wasn’t good enough. How did it become so ingrained in me not to celebrate my successes but to actually refuse to acknowledge their existence by beating myself up for an imagined expectation?

I wallowed for a week. Then I realized I was using unhappiness to motivate myself. To do what? Try harder or quit.  The way I felt it was more likely I’d give up. As I wrestled with that demon I had another ‘aha’ moment. I was wallowing and beating myself up not only because I was disappointed in myself but because I was back full circle at this lesson again.  I’d dealt with this not enough issue over and over why was it back? Because I had dealt with it, put it to bed, made peace with it in those other scenarios—not this one. Ahhh. Got it.

I wasn’t dealing with actually feeling not enough in this situation but what my feelings triggered when I first decided I was not enough. Oh, breakthroughs are incredibly freeing when they dazzle you with their shiny wisdom.  And I was buying into that belief again because I’d forgotten I had a choice.  With this awakening I chose a different way—no I don’t want to wallow in unhappiness, no I don’t like self-sabotaging myself, no I don’t want to quit, no I don’t want to live as though I am not enough.

I choose to let go of expectation and be in the now and celebrate where I am. A human ‘bean’ with human issues like feeling and believing I’m not enough when those unworthy feelings are triggered. I could also delve into what ‘enough’ means to me but for now it is enough to know I am enough. Let me say that again: I am enough. Just. As. I. Am.

Advanced Bootcamp begins next Monday and I will be there with my sneakers laced, my spirits high, and my expectations left…well I won’t leave them behind—I won’t give them life or breath to begin with.

Coloring My World

I read about Kathryn Sockett, this new author, some time ago. She had written a book about black maids raising Southern white children.  I resonated with the story right away and couldn’t wait to read The Help.

I grew up in the Bahamas Islands with a professional mother who worked in real estate and later owned tourist shops in the Bazaar.  We always had a maid that worked at our house and was home after school. This wasn’t because we were wealthy by any means  – these women worked cheap and were often employed illegally. As a kid in the late sixties I didn’t wonder about this arrangement.  Unfortunately our maids didn’t stay with us for long so I never grew attached. We had high spirited Jamaican women with their lovely lilting accents enticing me into our kitchen to taste their fried plantains. There were quiet hard working Haitian women who only had a few words of English but signed and pointed animatedly so that I understood their meaning. And even Bahamian women with proud attitudes who were insulted by the job and sat and watched television with me.

I was in awe of these women—their rich ebony hands on my pale freckled arms made me long to be like them. Dark. Strong. Passionate.  They spoke their minds around the bosses kid, I never made a peep anyway as I was drunk on their foreignness yet their differentness seemed so natural to me. They lived in their bodies danced and sang while they made beds, mopped floors, and cooked exotic meals I was far too tentative to taste.  I learned the song Yellow Bird and longed to fly away with them when they left.

I grew up a minority in a country that was learning how to be independent and was achingly proud; many natives were prejudiced towards foreigners regardless of their skin color. I know what it’s like to be judged by what I look like not who I am.  But the dark skinned women who wove a colorful patina on my monochrome world opened my eyes to a new way of being and living that was alive and free of any judgment for my shyness, pale skin, or lack of culinary appreciation.  They accepted me as I was and gave me the greatest gift—I was free to be me.

Watching Kathryn’s book come alive on the screen last week was an emotional tug-of-war.  These women’s stories were the weapon of choice for justice and what was right. When I wasn’t laughing out loud I was crying either tears of heart rending grief or rivers of joy.

When Aibileen asks Mae Mobley to remember what she told her for the last time and Baby Girl recites,
“ I is kind. I is smart. I is important.”

Heart rending.

Skeeter summed it up with this description of her relationship with her maid Constantine,
"Oh, it was delicious to have someone to keep secrets with...It was having someone look at you after your mother has nearly fretted herself to death because you are freakishly tall and frizzy and odd. Someone whose eyes simply said, without words, "You are fine with me."

Joy. Rivers of joy.

The Help Official Movie Site

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

Joe’s journey to health and vitality is inspiring, engaging, and filled with laughter. His Aussie accent is easy on the ears, too. Here’s a five minute clip to entice you to watch the whole movie, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and get inspired to reboot your life!  (Available as DVD rental and on Netflix via streaming video)



In the movie you’ll meet Phil — he is my hero! The courage that it took to call Joe and ask for help was heartrending. His commitment and perseverance to his life, his son, and his health were phenomenal. Worth the watch just to see Phil’s transformation.

DH and I are looking into Breville juicers and plotting our ten day reboot. Life is juicy!

That’s Awesome!

Neil Pasricha explains in the foreword of his book The Book of Awesome that he was a boring nine-to-five guy who started a little website called 1000 Awesome Things and he got excited when his traffic doubled because his mom forwarded the link to his dad.


“With so much sad news and bad news pouring down on us, it’s fun to stop for a minute and share a universal high five with the rest of humanity.”

My favorite so far is on page 172:  “Discovering those little tabs on the side of the aluminum foil box.”

After a lifetime of unrolling the entire roll of tinfoil I have discovered this piece of awesomeness that I never knew existed. It made me grin. Thanks Neil!