You May Not Be Who You Want To Be, But At Least You’re Not Who You Used To Be!

Quote Credit to @fleurdelisspeaks

Shit man…I feel like I have not blogged in forever! Keepin’ it real…it’s 10:57pm, I am tired AF (the husband is away on business and I am riding solo for four days…ok not totally solo because I do have my in-laws), but I am so inspired by this quote that I have to write!

So here we go!

As many of you know, over the last year I have embarked on this health and wellness journey. With my original intention focused on weight loss, what I would discover on my journey is that the end result was not actually the win, but the little nuggets you learnt about yourself along the way were. You see in the world of health and wellness, we place so much emphasis on the end result that when we don’t achieve it – what happens? We feel disappointed and act like we haven’t achieved anything. With the concept of gratification and satisfaction based on someone makig a full “turnaround”, so many of us miss our opportunity to celebrate the pebbles that create the path to our transformation.

As I come closer to another milestone in my life (I am 40 in 41 days to be exact!) I find myself asking the question – for all the times that I have made a commitment to live optimally, or be more healthy, what was so different this time?  One of the main things that I feel was a game changer was recognizing that eventhough I had not yet achieved full transformation, what I had accomplished was not reverting to who I used to be. Now let me be clear – who I was a year ago was not bad. In fact some of the my most endearing qualities that attract people to me is foundational and will remain forever (wink wink). What I am talking about are those little pebbles that act as pieces of a new puzzle – shifting you from me to moi!

The path to self discovery and the desire to achieve your optimal self – if you really think about it- shouldn’t have an end date, because growth is a continuum. How does the quote go “Never Stop Learning Because Life Never Stops Teaching.” If we accept this statement as truth, then there is no way that we can accept that there is an end state to personal growth and self-discovery.

STOP puttig pressure on yourself to be the new 2.0 version of yourself, and celebrate that you are the 1.1 version! Take-in what you have learnt about yourself and place that pebble in front of you for you may not be who you want to be, but you sure as hell are not who you used to be!

The Daily Devotion of Self-Care

Ok people…how many times have we told ourselves on a Friday afternoon that on Monday morning we would start:

1. Eating well

2. Exercising

3. Drink more water

4. Go to bed at a decent hour

5. Take care of ourselves

6. Meal prep

7. Read more

8. Register for a new class

9. And the list goes on…

And how many times… as the hours on that Monday passed hour by hour did we both rationalize and get down on ourselves for what we did not achieve? I am not sure if you all share the same sentiments, but one of the things that seems to be common practice is setting ourselves up for disappointment and staying stuck in that disappointment.

As I continue on this journey for optimal health and wellness with self-care being the focal point, I am always intrigued by where the breakdown happens for those around me who struggle to self-care. Now there are MANY (and very valid) reasons why self-care does not become a priority, BUT if I were to take a wild guess (and make some general assumptions) I would have to say that much of the difficulty that people experience is attributed to the pre-existing disappointment in a task that they haven’t even attempted – meaning we are already mad or annoyed at ourselves for not starting some aspect of self-care because previous patterns haven’t been good – and to that I say NO MORE.

Time and time again, and for an array of circumstances, we are told to press the restart button because every day is a new day – but legit the next day is a NEW FUCKIN DAY…so why get stuck on the things that happened the day before. I mean have you really ever thought about the liberties we have when it comes to achieving anything. We have 365 unique days to make shit happen and yet we constantly find ourselves harping on the one thing we didn’t achieve on that one day instead of achieving something different on a completely different day.

“We don’t realize that we actually experience a new beginning every time we wake up in the morning. Each new day brings us the opportunity to start fresh with a new attitude, with new resolve to make it the best day ever.”

~ Mary-Frances Winters~

Often when we think about self-care we think of it as a fulsome process that we have to embrace holistically and with open arms – and I would suspect that for many that is both overwhelming and daunting which is why it seems unachievable and a thought process I can certainly respect. But that is not the purpose of true self-care. True self-care is at a minimum an acknowledgement and recognition that your mental, physical, spiritual, emotional and/or psychological being needs attention. It does not begrudge your responsibilities as a mother, partner, worker, caregiver, etc. but it does require that you make YOU a priority in some capacity and in whatever way you deem is needed.

Like so many things that we have good intentions of doing, it is always easier said than done, but self-care does not have to be a chore, nor do we need to create unattainable goals that do more harm than good. Self-care should be seen as a daily devotion to our being – an opportunity to make a daily commitment or dedication to our self.

As I embrace and soak in the knowledge ascertained through my new certification, it is not the learnings that have me enthralled in this process – but a greater understanding at the simplicity of self-care and how our daily devotions can provide us with so much. That very list of things that I made mention of above that seemed so unattainable because we turned it into a task, can appear in our lives as a daily devotion – a simple commitment to take care of but one aspect of our self. And so I want to challenge you all. I want you to identify one simple daily (and I emphasize the word DAILY) self-care devotion that you are willing to do every day for the next five days that contributes in some capacity to your self-care and see how you feel. The intent is not to make this onerous and/or life altering, but more to explore bite size opportunities to check-in with your self to take care of YOUR SELF!

Law of Attraction: The Self-Care Edition

Have you ever followed someone on instagram who literally writes out or memes the things that either go through your head, or are things that you say or wouldn’t/shouldn’t say but think? And beyond saying or writing what you are thinking, it seems like they are legit listening to your thoughts cause what they post is sooooooooooooooooo relevant at that very moment. Well that is my current situation. It’s like when you see 11:11 on the clock consistently (which sidenote I see way too often and have yet to figure out what the significance of that is, but if you know PLEASE let a girl know!). Anyways… I follow this woman who goes by the name of Fleurdelisspeaks. If you don’t follow her, get on it. This woman writes very powerful and highly timely messges about life, self-care, hardship, accomplishments – pretty much anything and everthing.

Most days as I read her post, I take a moment to reflect on what message she is seeking to illicit – process it, maybe put it in my instagram story and move on. But then there are other days like last Thursday when she writes something that legit has me feeling like a southern black Baptist Pastor about to deliver one hell of a sermon on a glorious Sunday morning!

Disclaimer: To some of my readers this post may seem directed, please know that it is not directed, but highly coincidental as I started writing this post when she posted the above statement last Thursday.

Fleurdelisspeaks writes – Essential Self-Care:

Taking FULL responsibility for your own toxic mindsets and behaviours that are holding you back rather than blaming your lack of progress on others and what they may have have done to you.

Hold the phone. Drop the mic. Bombaclaat. Ka-Lord have mercy. #REALTALK

Have you ever taken the time to think about the amount of time you spend processing a particular situation (especially those situations that didn’t end the way you wanted it to) and then spent more time than you should have thinking about how you reacted to someone’s actions versus owning YOUR part. How often have you said to yourself (or even out loud) that the “only reason I reacted that way was because you…”

So here is the thing – CLEARLY placing blame on someone else is so much easier than taking ownership for our own bad or self-destructive behaviours, but what becomes our excuse when we find ourselves in the same predicament over and over again, just with different people.

If we think about the concept of the law of attraction, it states that it is the attractive, magnetic power of the Universe that draws similar energies together. It manifests through power of creation, everywhere and in many ways. This law attracts thoughts, ideas, people, situations and circumstances. Now I am not asking you to buy into all the stuff about magnetic power and the universe – that is neither here nor there – what I want to bring to your attention to is how a lack of self-care can draw the wrong people to you, resulting in the dishonouring of who you are intended to be.

By not taking care of your emotional, spiritual, physical and mental state you leave yourself vulnerable to toxicity, that more times than not you have actually created. Cause you see, it isn’t that toxic people are coming to you – it is that you are attracting them to you because the manner in which you are showing up for yourself permeates an energy that toxicity is attracted to.

Let’s be real. No one can actually take you to a place of negativity unless you were already on the train heading to shitville. An encounter with a negative indiviual should not provide insight into who that person is or is not. What that encounter should signal to you is that you are depleted and are in need some self-care. And not the bubble bath, chocolate cake type of self-care (that can come after). I am talking about the uncomfortable, raw, peel back the layers type self-care where the ONLY person you can actually blame for both your shortcomings andg gifts is YOU.

Self-care is such a powerful enabler to achieving your optimal self. It’s kind of like a mullet you know. When you do the work up front, it’s always a party in the back!

The Power of Pain

How many times have you said to yourself “I have learnt my lesson” only to find yourself going down the same fuckin path a second, third – hell even a fifth time!

Think about when you were small or even as an adult who may have small children around you – we make it our business to pain proof any space so that we limit or mitigate any potential pain those we love will feel. But what if, instead of trying to avoid pain (which if you have managed to make that happen please let me know) we looked at the power of pain.

According to the Merriam – Webster dictionary, pain is defined as “a localized or generalized unpleasant bodily sensation or complex of sensations that causes mild to severe physical discomfort and emotional distress and typically results from bodily disorder (such as injury or disease)” and “a basic bodily sensation that is induced by a noxious stimulus, is received by naked nerve endings, is associated with actual or potential tissue damage, is characterized by physical discomfort (such as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leads to evasive action”

Sidenote: I am a policy analyst by profession so know that there will always be a research component or definition to my blog…lol.

I digress. Based on the definition noted above, often when we speak of pain, we are speaking about a physical, emotional and/or mental feeling that is negative – most times something we wish to not repeat. So if the concept of pain illicits feelings of negativity why do we continue to engage in activities and/or actions that cause us pain?

The million dollar answer…Is it possible that we are actually empowered by pain!

DISCLAIMER: Let me just be VERY clear before I continue with my blog. Feelings of mental, emotional, psychological and/or physical pain are real AF. Many of us we walk around in this world portraying the prettiest and most filtered sides of who we are in an effort to hide our pain. Pain in any form can be debilitating and the intent of this blog is not to undermine or disrespect those who are in pain or suffer silence.

I want you to think about a time in your life where you did not succumb to your pain but instead triumphed. How did it feel? Did you feel relief, empowered, shocked, happy…what. Or did you not even recognize or acknowledge that you had triumphed (which we do far too often). You see because pain is so predominantly focused on the negative, so few of us take a moment to see our power in that moment. There is much to learn about ourselves, about our resilience and our sources of power in times of pain – and yet we too often leave that by the roadside.

Human resilience is not really driven by the amazing things that come our way, but rather in times of hardship where we are challenged to not only face our pain nor push through it but CONQUER it! So if I go back to the concept of “I learnt my lesson”, perhaps we should explore reframing that sentence to what power did I gain through the pain. I can appreciate how simplistic this may all seem, and seeking the power through pain is not always feasible nor is it appropriate in certain instances, but exploring the opportunity to reframe the things we tell ourselves in times of hardship can help us tap into a space that many of us don’t acknowledge or feel we have.

I want to challenge you to think differently about how you show up for yourself in times of hardship – because the fact is we possess the power to rise above the pain. This is especially important when pain has been inflicted on us. To show the world and those closest to you that you are not defined by your pain but rather the power that you illicited can take us one step closer to freeing ourselves of the sadness that sometimes follows pain.

I operate under the mindset that because I am human, pain is a fact of life. What is not required to be fact is the ability of that pain to be a permanent fixture in my life.

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey”

 ~Kenji Miyazawa

Saying Yes to Me…ABSOLUTELY means No to You!

Have you ever just randomly yelled out the word ‘NO’…not for any particular reason other than to feel how it felt in your body when you belted it out (very fuckin librating). Do you remember back in the day when they used to show you those self-defense classes on commercials and the man with the mullet would encourage his female student to yell ‘NO’ with every eye poke or karate chop…do you remember the feeling it illicited as you put yourself in her shoes…liberating! So if the appearance and thought of saying the word no seems so powerful and impactful, why the hell don’t we say it more often?

My husband has a running joke that no matter what he asks me (even sometimes before he finishes his question) my answer is no! According to him I say no just because I can …and to that I will say absa-fuckin-lutily! So here is the thing…and I should say that this blog was inspired by a meme that was posted by the bae on her instagram page… saying no to someone’s request means that you are saying yes to yourself. And saying yes to yourself  is a fundamental step in self-care. Remember this people-  self equals me and me does not equal you so yes to me means no to you…you get it!

So the question I ask then is (cause clearly no blog is complete without a question)…why do we struggle to tell people no? Is it because we don’t want to disappoint people? Is it that we are uncomfortable with people’s more than likely negative reaction when they hear the word no? Are we fearful of appearing selfish because we have decided to put our needs above someone else? Are we a people pleaser? Honestly the list can go on…so let me put this to you.

If someone comes and asks you to do something for them, this mean they have made a conscious decision to satisfy a need of their own that they hope is facilitated by or through you. By you saying no to them, you are actually replicating what they have done for themselves which is to put yourself first and so they don’t really have a reason to be mad!

Here is the thing about the word no. We need to stop thinking of this word as a catalyst for the disappointment of others, but more about showing up for ourselves. I understand that there are expectations and societal “norms” that say that selflessness is the demonstration of someone’s commitment to those they love…but how does one demonstrate their level of commitment to themselves? Very simple – JUST SAY NO!

The art of self-care is not an easy journey because as you begin to say yes to yourself more, you inevitably are saying no to others. As we begin to focus the attention on ourselves we are also shifting the equilibrium of those who have grown accustomed to us always saying yes. Is this process easy – absolutely not. As a matter of fact I am sure there are some of you who are quietly stressing at the thought of tellig a loved one no… but just as the mullet lays free on the back of the man in the 80s self-defense commercial…give yourself permission to belt out the word NO as a demonstration of your commitment to protecting your physical, emotional and mental well-being.

You see our responsibility is not to provide an explanation as to why we have said no to them, but instead why we have said yes to ourselves.