Summer, Wellness, Life!

SOOOOOOOOO...

I'm going through my annual get-my-shit-together period -- only this time, lots of things have fallen into place in a way that makes me feel motivated in a way i've never felt before. I'm back in therapy again, and John is a really great counselor, better than all the others, or maybe i'm just finally ready to listen and accept help to correct my disfunctions. here are some things that have changed or are changing for me:

1. I have realized that taking responsibility for my own happiness is the key to everything. it's time to grow up, stop the pity party, stop thinking of myself as a spectator and victim and hold myself accountable for my own actions and inactions. it's time to own the things in my life that I have control over.

2. I have a much clearer spiritual center and I'm learning to let go of the things I have no control over. I am learning how to forgive myself and others.

3. I have decided to educate myself every day. At some point, I stopped seeing myself as a student of life and started making wild assumptions and well, guessing, about what course I should take in chaotic or foreign situations. That's dumb. I'm trying to stop making assumptions, and instead, I'm trying to quiet myself, search for wisdom and if there is none to be found, go out and find some.

4. Similarly, when I don't know how to do something well, I am going to learn how. For work, this means reading lots of books on self-leadership and marketing -- two things that are REALLY FREAKING IMPORTANT to the success of my career, and two things that I have never studied before. I realized that I'm trying to do a job that I have no background in -- I never studied marketing or management or business, so I've spent the last two years flailing around in the dark pretending like I know what I'm doing and trying to keep my head above water. That's over.

5. I am realistic about my fitness goals. The only time I enjoy exercise is when it doesn't feel like exercise. This means that from now on, instead of getting burned out at the gym because I hate it there, I'm going to do things that bring me joy and are good for me, like: yoga, hiking with my dog, swimming and dancing. I am trying to love my body exactly as it is, and realize that if I want to be healthy, than I need to embrace fitness for the sake of my health and no other reason. My goal can't be to look like women in magazines, because I will end up living a life of perpetual disappointment. If I am healthy, and my body and weight stay exactly the same for the rest of my life, I need to love myself anyway.

6. I've been toying with the idea of returning to a vegan lifestyle, but I'm not ready for it yet. In the meantime, I've cut out most meats and will move forward from there. I'm not going to be a Nazi about it, because that's no way to live.

7. I'm spending a lot more time in Springfield and am going to take classes at the Skinny Improv to develop my comedy skills and see if I enjoy it.

There's more, but I am bored with writing this so I will stop.
LOVE LOVE LOVE!

-Mandy