It's been a little while since I created a blog post. I am in hibernation mode, and I've been reclaiming all the energy I was putting out. The energy to create social media posts, the energy to hangout with others, the energy to 'talk about doing something' rather than doing something, all of it. Call it selfish, but I'm using that energy to fuel myself and it feels so good! When I started this blog I decided that I wouldn't hold myself to any schedule or requirement to produce posts. I only create them when I'm feeling inspired or called to write. It's a more feminine approach and it's a mini example of how I've been approaching all areas of my life. It helps me to stay aligned with my values of authenticity and freedom.
I felt called to write this one, so here I am! Lately I have been focused on health and wealth. The thing is, I found myself in the same familiar merry go round: the scale and the bank account looking about the same, the goals looking about the same, and the path to get there looking the same. I thought to myself, 'Am I really going to approach this the same way I have done a thousand times before? It hasn't worked, so what is different this time? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results...isn't that the definition of insanity?'. So I did what I always do these days, I talked about it with my life coach.
In the past I would get frustrated and say things like 'how am I here again?' and 'I thought I learned this lesson already', or 'I'm so stupid, I clearly have zero self discipline'. Okay...I will be honest, I still had those thoughts (hehe). The difference this time, though, is I decided to take a new action.
What I realized is that there are some deeply rooted fears that I have that have kept me in this same cycle, trying to achieve the same goals with little to no success. Fears like: I won't feel safe in my body if I'm too fit, or people will only want to be my friend because of my success.
Now that I have the awareness, I can do something about it.
There are a couple things I started to do. First, I started building awareness when I was making decisions that worked against my values and my goals. A perfect example is when I would go to make a decision about food. Let's say I wanted to order from Door Dash...that's a double whammy. It works against my health and wealth goals. I would stop and ask myself: 'Is this a self betrayal?'. At one point in time it was not. Last year, when I was healing my broken heart and didn't want to see the world and craved anything that would bring me comfort, it was not self betrayal. It was helping me make it through the long minutes of each day. But now, I am not in self preservation mode and ordering takeout is absolutely a form of self betrayal. Asking myself that question puts the small decision into the bigger picture. When you really think of the decision to order out in that way and run it through your value system, it makes ordering the food so much less appealing. Actually, it makes you want to do the opposite: eat healthy prepared food you have already sitting in the refrigerator.
The next thing I did was start dredging up all the subconscious fears I have related to these goals each morning in a routine called 'Deep Fear Inventory' taught to me be my amazing life coach from the book Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliott. These fears have kept me in a self-sabotage cycle for years. So each morning for 2 weeks straight, I have been writing out at least 20 fears I have related to my goals. Every. Single. Morning.
I read them aloud to my coach, and then I rip up the piece of paper. This helps bring awareness to the fears and has helped me to realize most of them are really illogical and ridiculous.
People always ask me how I stay positive or how I achieve my goals, and the answer really comes down to making a commitment to myself. I am committed to my values. I am committed to my soul's mission, I am committed to the bigger picture. That commitment isn't fleeting. It isn't just one big commitment made at the beginning of the year that gets swept away a few weeks in. The commitment is in every single decision I make. Now don't get me wrong, every decision doesn't push me closer to my goal. I'm not perfect, but I'm also not striving for perfection. I'm striving for progress. I just have the awareness that every time I have a decision to make, it is an opportunity to move myself a little bit closer to my goals.
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