This n that

• I am trying to train my bugz to go to sleep before 8pm, because starting Tuesday, we have to be up at 5:30am. So far, it isn’t working…
• I’m 6 days in to my 90 day challenge…but really only on Day 4 due to the blender that dropped its bottom out and ruined one of my shakes, running out of samples while I waited for my own stash to arrive in the mail, and being one shake short of 6 days anyway 😉 But my stash arrived today, and I am shakin’ it up! More info at MagzDHealth…
• I found myself getting bored this weekend and did what anyone else would do: I went and bought a quarter gallon of pink paint and painted a border in the bugz’ room.
• I’m addicted to the Kobo e-reader my parents gave me for my birthday. I love that it is small enough to fit in my purse so that I have dozens of books at my fingertips at any given time! And I may also love the fact that I can read cheap, trashy novels without anyone knowing…
• I had the opportunity to do some pelvic floor/prolapse coaching today. What an honour it is to be trusted with such an intimate problem – a huge quality-of-life issue that too many women ignore or are ashamed of. I am so blessed to be able to help women
• It’s raining, raining, raining still, with these tricky little breaks of sunshine that get your hopes up. Thank goodness for Vitamin D and my flower essence blend from My Nature Baby!! 
• I’m heading to Key Lime clothing tomorrow to get a rain jacket, on that note!
• I love singing Rainbow Connection with my bugz at bedtime. It was their lullaby as babeez, and now it’s their bedtime song.
• I’ve slowly been restocking my non-workout wardrobe for my new job – thank goodness everything is on sale right now!!
• Speaking of new jobs, I went in to HR today to sign all the paperwork and get my ID card. It’s official!
• I went for a delicious run in the cool rain today. I don’t know where I find the strength or energy, but the fact that I can pull off 30-minute continuous runs after taking 15 months off amazes me! I think it’s the world’s way of telling me I was born to run.

What’s new in your world?

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{30 days of truth} Day 3

Something I need to forgive myself for: _uacct = “UA-4888259-1”;urchinTracker();

I’ve been stalling on Day 3 for a long time because I haven’t been able to think about something I need to forgive myself for. Finally, in the past few weeks I have found it:

I need to forgive myself for the past 12 years of being a dreamer at the expense of my responsibilities.

Now before you step back and wonder what has me so jaded, let me assure you that I am not. I am still a dreamer, and I will always search for the things in life that make me happiest and I will never settle.

But every time our family has faced a hardship of some sort, I always find myself questioning the selfish motives that have moved me through my career paths. I left a perfectly good 4.0 GPA at MacEwan University (then Grant MacEwan Community College) to pursue dance, which I promptly quit 11 days into the semester because I was scared. I taught dance and worked menial retail and service jobs to support my passion. I took over my own dance studio when I was 21 without a lick of business sense, passing up an acceptance into the Science program at MacEwan to follow my dream. When dance crashed, I went back to school and became a personal trainer. I passed up an incredible job opportunity in the last 6 weeks of school because it would have meant that I had less time for my outside passions. 

Over the next 3 years, I dabbled in little things, afraid to push myself and afraid to fail. I kept a safe bubble around myself, refusing to step out of my comfort zone and get a full-time job to help our family while Leith busted his tail to support the four of us. He was (and is) always supportive of me – I am so grateful for that. But every time we slipped behind, I heard this voice gnawing at my conscience, telling me I needed to pull my own weight instead of chasing dreams.

Finally this past year, I was able to realize a way to keep building my dreams AND support my family as needed. Unfortunately, that position ran out. We spent all July trying to rearrange things, trying to budget ourselves into the smallest box possible so that I could continue to grow and realize my dreams. Everything became “if we can just hit this ____, everything will be okay“.

Then I got a call. I was offered an interview for a job that would take me from flighty and irresponsible dreamer to mature, responsible, contributing member of our household. I was torn, but decided to go to the interview anyway. After all, it was only an interview. What were the chances of even being offered a job?

The more I thought about it and the more Leith and I discussed things, the more we realized that this was an opportunity to finally fix our mistakes. While I don’t regret living in pursuit of any of my dreams, I don’t want to keep living in this limited little box, hurting my husband and kids. I am craving some stability, some continuity, some relief.

When I was offered the job less than 3 hours after my interview, I was floored. And I began to forgive myself.

I began to forgive myself for all the give-me-three-more-months promises. I began to forgive myself for all the times I’ve had to tell Leith “no” because my job or my business didn’t give us the money for him to play. I was living out my dreams and he was living at work. It wasn’t fair.

So I am beginning to forgive myself.

I start my full-time position after the long weekend. Monday to Friday, 8:00-4:30, salaried, benefits, vacation, the works. 

HAWT Fitness will still live, which is the best part. I won’t be the face in the classrooms, but I will continue to develop and research and promote everything that I am so passionate about. But if registrations are slow, it won’t give me a heart attack. I won’t lose sleep, wondering if I’ll meet my registration quota, wondering if I’ll need to shut everything down. I already have one fabulous instructor, and I will hire another to teach the extra classes. I can focus on what I love: being an expert resource in my field.

I’ll be in a big company, with huge room for growth. I will know where I need to be on any given day and what to expect (to a degree, of course). 

I’ll be able to forgive myself for all the dreams I haven’t realized and safely pursue the ones that still matter.

I’ll be able to forgive myself for  all the times I’ve let my family down while chasing my own dreams, ignoring theirs.

I’ll be able to find that elusive balance between nurturing my passion and being a responsible adult, wife and parent.

I’ll be able to forgive myself and breathe deeply for the first time in years.

{30 days of truth}: Day two

Something I love about myself: _uacct = “UA-4888259-1”;urchinTracker();

I’m sure that this is a scary subject for most people to write about since we are taught to be modest about our successes, but this was an easy topic for me.

I love myself.

And by that, I mean that I love my self.  With my 30th birthday just around the corner, I am very proud of how far I have come in my adult life:  

At 18, I was still so painfully shy and self-conscious that I only spoke to 5 people in my entire first year of post-secondary education: 3 girls I went to high school with, my Spanish partner (and only the dialogue given), and a girl in my Earth Sciences class.  I dropped out of the Grant MacEwan dance program after 10 days because I was physically ill at the prospect of stepping outside my comfort zone, even though I’d worked my azz off to make it through the auditions with only 4 years of formal dance training (and no ballet!).

The only place I felt safe was on stage, lost in a piece of music, letting my body lead me.  Even then, I was painfully aware of my need to be perfect in the eyes of everyone else at the same time.  I worked hard to be the best in my comfort zone; I never pushed beyond that to the next level.  I stayed safe and stagnant.  Afraid of change.

Then I met my husband.  Well, re-met my husband, since we’d known each other from high school 😉  He challenged and taunted me, joking that I’d been raised in a cardboard box, pushing me to try new things.  He said he wouldn’t propose to me until I became more adventurous.  Funny enough, he proposed to me 3 days before I went ice climbing for the first time, although he didn’t think I’d go through with the climb at the time.  I showed him 😉

My 20s were a roller coaster of highs and lows, riddled with depression, anxiety, denial and self-deprication.  Such is the life of a late-bloomer in the ballet world, trying to hard to make up for lost time, just to be recognized as a teacher.  When I finally broke free of that world and moved in the health and wellness realm, it was a welcome breath of fresh air, but it was short.  Our wedding and whirlwind pregnancy led me down another dark path that took me nearly 2 years to come out of.

The person I am today is strong, confidence, self-reliant and happy.  Of course I’m still nervous and anxious about change, but I know how to recognize and deal with it.  I can be energetic, charming, buoyant and infectious.  I can inspire and be inspired, and feel good about it instead of hypocritical.  Most of all, I can recognize and appreciate my weaknesses and learn how to grow from them; I can cultivate my strengths.

I am ten times the person I was for most of my 20s, and I am proud of the journey that has led me this far.  I am proud of the person I am today, despite my flaws and failings, and being able to honour and respect my self is what I love most about myself.

{30 days of truth}: Day one

Something I Hate About Myself: _uacct = “UA-4888259-1”;urchinTracker();

I’ve put off starting my 30 Days of Truth because the first topic is such a difficult one.  It isn’t difficult to come up with the answer; it’s writing out the answer that is difficult.

The thing I hate about myself is my anger.  My temper.  My lack of control.

I don’t know when I lost the ability to control my emotions.  I know that a large chunk of my short temper was uncovered by my husband.  Any boyfriend before him practiced the stony silence of emotions and didn’t push my buttons.  Leith pushed and pushed and pushed until I would snap, and it was a welcome change after years of swallowing my frustrations.  It was nice to be able to let go of everything and just be loud and mad!

Unfortunately, it was a Pandora’s box for me.  I’ve never regained that composure in my demeanour since then.  Of course, Leith and I have learned to deal with our differences in a much more mature, productive way and the last all-out screaming match was probably sometime around the end of the acreage renovation.  But since then, my bugz have grown into their father’s shoes.

I don’t blow up at Leith anymore (or rarely, at least…) but that anger and impatience has become a nasty habit in other areas of my life.  I feel like I am constantly on edge.  It’s like that awful feeling of wearing an itchy wool sweater.  Nothing feels good.  Every day compounds on the one before, so even when I am trying really hard to be my best, I rarely make it through my day without yelling about something.

It’s so awful; I hate it.  I hate that part of my personality so much.  What’s worse is that it is the behaviour I am modelling for my kids.  They play “angry” sometimes: I catch them growling at their toys and putting them in time outs.  It breaks my heart, and I vow to be gentler and try to see from their perspective more often.  The tricky thing is that I can see their perspective, but that part of my mind functions at the same time as the part that is losing its temper.  I can fully understand my reactions being wrong, but my instinct is thrashing mad.  

I’ve been making a bigger effort in the past few weeks (especially after reading Natasha’s post about gentle discipline), but I still find myself losing my temper daily.  I feel like I have no outlet when I am at home, around my triggers.  I need to be able to just walk out the door and run, but that isn’t an option when I’m the only one home.  I try and make up for it by spending quality time with my bugz: cuddling with them at night, snuggling on the couch, saying “yes” more than I say “no”…but some days I don’t think I’ve done enough to fix all the yelling they’ve heard in the past 3 years.

Don’t get me wrong: not all the yelling is directed at them.  Petey gets a lot of the yelling.  He truly is my arch-nemesis.  I hope that when Bailey comes to live with us, Petey realizes that cats will never be pets in our home.  Poor Petey!  A lot of the yelling is also just my frustrations coming out – temper tantrums at my frozen laptop or sticky floors or other malfunctioning material good.  

Temper tantrums … and I wonder where my bugz get it from 😦  This is the biggest reason that I hate myself for the anger.  They are learning it from me.  And their reactions make me angry.  It’s a vicious circle, and the only one with the maturity to fix it is me.

It’s on my shoulders to fix.  

Thankfully, Day 2 is something I love about myself…