Friday, February 03, 2006

Being Real

As I look back over the last week (and last month), I feel the need to sit myself down and have a heart-to-heart. What exactly is going one with this maybe-I'm-back and maybe-I'm-not action going on here?

My brain would tell you a lot of stories and a lot of reasons for my half-hearted attempts. But that sentence contains the whole truth. It's not inside the stories, its the fact that I'm only half-heartedly into this.

So what's up with that?

I realized a few months back that I was actually scared to start back to my exercise regimine, which is JUST WALKING, because the last time I resumed walking, I developed serious complications from my previous surgery. Even though I know that won't happen again, I realized that I had this fear lurking back there.

OK, it's been revealed for being irrational, and now it's not lurking. I choose to walk into that fear. What else?

There is a part of me that wants to avoid being completely responsible for myself. I want to be, oh, 90% responsible, but I think I'm really waiting for someone to come along and fix me and my life. Let someone else do the hard work in these areas where I'm slipping. I'm doing the hard work in most areas anyway. Isn't that enough?

Sure, if I want to only reach 90% of my goals, and only be 90% happy at max. I can never reach MY goals through someone else's effort, and I can never be happy based on someone else's effort.

I've got a little bit of resistance going on. But it's not just in this area. I do the same thing with my laundry, my closets, and my housecleaning. I try to cut corners. I'm not willing to empty out the file drawers, sort through the files, and return only what I need in good order. Instead, I open the drawer, pull out things that are obviously misfiled or outdated, and close the drawer. I don't want to look that closesly. It's too overwhelming.

I know that I can't accomplish a major clean sweep through all of my life in a short period of time, but the truth is, I want to be a person who does sweep clean.

The last two days, I've taken almost everything out of my office, moving it to the living room. I've sorted things, and taken most of it back in. But some is still sitting around in the living room, and some of it has found its way to the trash. Because of the amount of stuff I have in my house and heart and mind, I might not be able to clean sweep everything on this pass, but I can attach most of it, and leave the remaining bits for a later sort and toss session. I'm only putting back what I know is valuable and useful. I'm open to tossing the rest, trusting that I truly won't miss it, and I will gain extra physical space, mental space, and even emotional space, for my life.

The same with my healthy lifestyle. I don't have to start out walking 2+ miles each day. It's enough to start out walking a single mile, and adding to that as I build up and gain the desire for more. Some of these folders from my file drawers that are in the living room contain valuable things, I'm sure. But I can put them in a box of things to sort, and one day a week, I can attack that box. I can sweep clean.

I'm glad I've gotten to the heart of this.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

I've Started, Sort Of

My life has been so crazy lately that I've not exactly followed through on my restart. I still haven't weighed in, but I've been eating right! I keep thinking I should just weigh in any day to have a starting number. The perfectionist in me (yes, she's still there) says to wait until next Monday. When I forget, it's the next Monday, and the next.

If I don't weigh in next Monday morning, I promise myself that I'll weigh in as soon as I realize that I forgot. It's a new habit to start. And you can keep me accountable.

I'm slowing updating the website. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the tabs across the top working yet. I've resigned up at Topica for a newsletter service. I expect the first issue will come out in March. I'm trying to get my Blogrolling setup, but I can't remember my login or password (even though I've got them set up on another blog!) So bear with me. I'm doing good just to have things running off of the next computer. The old computer is still sitting right next to it, two monitors side-by-side, while I find things on the old that belong on the new. Which happens a couple of times each day.

Otherwise, I'm doing really well with my lifestyle changes this week. After working too much last week, I'm really taking good care of myself this week. I'm going to be bed early so I can sleep long and still get up close to my normal time. I went to the grocery and stocked up on healthy foods, so I have lots of options when I do get hungry. I'm yawning now, so I'm about to head off the computer for the day. I'll spend the evening catching up on laundry, cleaning... you know the rest.