Choosing a Resolution that Works

Lots of people feel a little sluggish and bloated this time of year.  Holiday celebrations leave us a little uncomfortable in our skin, which is why many of us use the new year as a time to get motivated to eat better and exercise.  I think it's great to reflect and set goals, but I'd like to offer some direction so that you can pursue resolutions that you can be successful at and that will make you healthier and happier. My former self was quite insecure (that's putting it mildly) and would always strive to lose weight.  No matter what weight I started the year off as, I wanted to weigh less.  In January I'd obsess over my eating habits, adopt the latest fad diet, and push myself to workout, but eventually I would grow frustrated or hungry and give up.  What I didn't know, was that I was setting the wrong goal.  In my early twenties I decided to shift my focus off of changing my exterior and instead focus on what's inside.  Instead of counting calories and obsessing over weight, I decided to pursue self-love and change the way I felt about myself.  I wanted to feel good in my body, no matter what size I ended up at and I was amazed at how that shift made adopting a healthy lifestyle so much easier.

We respond better to love than hate.  Motivating ourselves with punishment, mind games, guilt, negative thoughts, and deprivation just doesn't work.  It creates more obsession and gives more power to our negative thoughts.  It's a downward spiral that I was stuck in for a long time.  Every year when a new year is around the corner, I choose to use it as a time to reflect instead of time to riddle myself with expectations.  It's a time for me to look back on the previous year, acknowledge the growth I've achieved, and express gratitude for the gifts and lessons of that year.  It's also a time for me to set achievable goals for myself and to look forward to future challenges I'd like to overcome. Every year deepening my love for myself is a focus.

Self-love is a term I use constantly, but I realize that isn't a concept that is at the forefront of everyone's mind, so I'll explain what that term means to me.  I have this belief that love is a powerful tool.  Love is more than warm feelings and kind gestures, it is the thoughts we think and the actions we use.  I believe that all of our negative habits stem from some area in our lives where we need some love, nurturing, and attention.  By focusing on giving to ourselves more and nurturing these parts of us, we're able to pursue a healthier lifestyle more effortlessly.

I think it's important to note how hard it is to retrain ourselves to take care of ourselves.  Many of us, and this was very true for me, have a hard time putting ourselves first because it feels selfish.  It's okay to focus on yourself, in fact, it is when we ourselves are taken care of that we are able to give the most to others.  A lot of my clients tell me they have been wanting to get massages sooner, but it gets put on the back burner.  This is so common.  Whether it's taking the time to do something that's good for us or choosing to spend money on something that we want or need, it's easy to let these things slip through the cracks.  I'm asking you to bring awareness to the ways in your life that you do this and to choose to take care of yourself next time.

Right now, today, is an opportunity for you to make a commitment to feel deserving and worthy of self-love.  To show yourself this by nourishing your body with healthy foods, getting hydrated, finding ways to move, nurturing yourself with a bath, a book, a movie, a walk, a massage, surrounding yourself with loved ones that help and support you, asking for help if you need it, etc.  This year make resolutions that support you.  That support your journey to becoming a happier and healthier individual.  You deserve it and the world will be better for it.

I made commitment to love myself years ago and I still choose to make it a priority as it's just as important today.  The more I love myself the more I transform inside and out.  It's a constant journey and is equally challenging and rewarding, but it's the best decision I've ever made.  You can learn more about my transition here.

I know first hand how important support is when choosing a healthier lifestyle.  Starting this January I will be offering Wellness Coaching and Consulting Services to anyone who may need some help on their path to wellness. Click here to find out more.

Chronicles of a Yooper Hippie: Let Your Freak Flag Fly

This last week has been a little tough.  I found myself missing California… a lot.  This always scares me because I'm afraid it might ignite my wanderlust.  Roots… roots are what I want… right?! I'm settled in, started a new business, registered my car, got a Michigan license, signed a lease, bought a bed…! I now own more things than I can fit in my car and the pick-up-and-go attitude has been put on the shelf, so I do not welcome feelings of longing for elsewhere. After careful thought and reflection aided by an amazing yoga class, I realized that it wasn't a place I was missing.  Sure I'd love to have hot springs at my finger tips and my favorite hiking spots around the corner (ahh redwoods), but what I miss the most is me.  Being back home I have been able to reclaim part of my identity, the grounded, salt-of-earth, focused part of myself, but I've been squelching the weirdo, unique side of myself that flourished in California. That has been my constant battle, finding a balance between the two unique parts of me that allowed me to feel at home in two different worlds: the U.P. and Northern Cali.

Let me tell you, it has not been easy living the life of a Yooper Hippie, but it has been fun as hell.  Sippin' on whiskey after a mind-blowing kundalini yoga class, tromping through the woods, making kombucha cocktails at camp after an amazing vegan meal, living out of my car across the states, cherishing the love I have for friends and family in both my homes, and anything outdoors.  It's a unique combination that makes my life interesting and adventurous, but can easily get out of whack.

Since being back in Marquette, I've welcomed the shift to a more structured, rooted lifestyle, but I've stopped letting my freak flag fly.  Yeah, I've been hooping, yoga-ing, juicing, and all that, but I've been holding back, afraid of coming off as too hippie or too strange.  I've struggled expressing that part of myself since I'm not as immersed in a culture that celebrates weirdness, but I know I'm not alone in my yearning for spiritual fulfillment, delicious vegan foods, and deep, meaningful conversations about our inner children, astrology, chakras, alternative health, chi flow, feng shui, sustainability, spiritual enlightenment, parenting and childbirth, nutrient optimization, acupuncture, emotional growth and hardship… I could go on and on.

Despite my yearning for more, I'm slowly discovering a world here that is a blend of the two parts of me, but until I feel like I've created that for myself I am committing to spending more time accessing and expressing my inner weird.  Are you ready, Marquette?!  :) I do believe that we all deserve to fully embrace ourselves so that we can shine our brightest, even if it's weird.

An Unconventional Expression of Gratitude

Ah, yes, here we are again, that time of year when we reflect on the things in our life we're grateful for.  That awkward moment when someone at the dinner table suggests you take turns sharing: family, friends, happiness, blah, blah, blah.  Every year I express gratitude for the things that are very obvious, but this year I wanted to try something a little different, so here it goes: Angie's Off-The-Beaten-Path List of Gratitude

1. Slippery sidewalks for the extra core workout and for forcing me to be present while I walk.  Apparently staring at my phone, in no way, makes it easy to avoid falling on my a$$.
2. Shorter days for forcing me to get creative with my time indoors.  I've been reading lots of books, cooking, knitting, working, cleaning, doing yoga, meditating, and obsessively listening to the podcast, Serial (check it out!!).
3. My body's desire to consume large quantities of food (is this a change-of-season thing?! Am I getting ready to hibernate?!) for allowing me to try MANY recipes I've been wanting to experiment with.
4. My fear of driving in the winter (either I've turned into an old lady or I was in California too long), which makes me get A LOT of walking in.
5. My ignorance of the U.P. weather for providing lots of entertainment on my walks to work.  I completely forgot about wet hair icicles.
6. The stairs at Sugarloaf that resemble icy slides more than stairs for the adventurous and hilarious trip back to the parking lot.
7. The hurt caused by a freshly applied bentonite clay mask for creating some of the weirdest faces I've ever seen and the most painful belly laughs I've ever experienced.
8. Wool socks… enough said.
9. The soft, pillowy snow for catching my case-less (I keep forgetting it) iPhone more times than I can count…
10. My temperamental heating situation in my apartment for sometimes allowing me to snuggle up in slippers and tons of blankets and for other times encouraging me to have the windows open during a snowstorm.
11. My uneven floors for collecting the dropped lip balm tubes (I have lots of these as I make my own) in the middle of the room.
12. Aaaand… the whirlwind of life changes I've experienced this year for challenging me in every way possible, forcing me to be strong in who I am, and to claim the things I want in life.

I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving full of laughter, delicious food, friends and / or family, and love.  Reflect on the things you love about life, but always find ways to be grateful for some of your struggles as they're our biggest opportunities for growth and learning.  Plus, it makes the world a better place when we can be thankful for everything that comes our way.

An Alternate Reality

We are all seeing the world through special lenses.  Lenses that brighten or darken the world around us.  Lenses that focus on some things and disregard others.  Lenses that create a reality specifically tailored to the viewer.  No lens is the same. The day I realized that my reality wasn't necessarily the reality was a liberating and earth shattering day.  I have lived in two worlds.  The one before this realization and the one after.

Before:

Fear.  From a very early age I was scared.  I had a premature sense of mortality that, with much thought and consideration, I feel stems from the loss of my uncle. My Uncle Billy was a quadriplegic who I had grown up seeing in wheelchairs and hospital beds.  I think my own struggles with illness that landed me in and out of doctors' offices, made my uncle's situation comfortable to me.  I wasn't intimidated by his condition or the environment he lived in.  I felt connected to him.  When he died, I believe this is when I realized that my life wasn't a permanent thing and that I am also vulnerable to death.

The following year I began to have panic attacks.  My constant struggles with illnesses convinced me that I was dying.  At 10-years-old I was obsessed with taking my temperature, always careful to monitor the possibility of contracting meningitis, which I was convinced would be my end.  I remember many nights not being able to sleep, feeling like I couldn't breath, and crying to my parents.  This fear did not leave me even when the panic attacks stopped.  My fear morphed from hypochondria to fear of the world around me.  I felt small and powerless, the perfect combination for a victim mentality.

Throughout high school and college I let life happen to me.  My fears and powerlessness led me to accept treatment that was so beneath what I deserved, but I felt I had no choice.  I saw malice, danger, and deceit in the world surrounding me.  The possibility of rape, robbery, death, failure, and disappointment was constantly on my mind.  Not only were they apart of my fears, but my reality.  I had so many things stolen from me, I have brushed elbows with sexual assault, I have felt attacked, and I saw people, especially men, as distrustful and had plenty of evidence backing this up. For a long time, the world was a scary place and I wasn't safe.

The Moment that Changed Everything:

After college, I met my mentor who exudes love and nurturing energy.  There is a kindness, happiness, and self-assuredness to her that inspires everyone around her.  She's one of those people that you meet and you just have to know their secret.  One of those people who has life figured out in a way you haven't yet grasped, that allows them to shine.  This woman is the one who shattered my world and I will forever be grateful for that.

Working under my mentor, I managed the office of my massage school.  One day, while working the front desk, a man came into the office.  He was obviously drunk and instantly I was frightened.  Almost as if he could smell my fear, he was drawn to me, and instantly began encroaching my personal space.  Although there were other people in the building, we were alone in that room and I felt frozen.  I feared the worst, yet felt incapable of protecting myself or calling for help.  At one point he was behind the desk with both his arms firmly planted on either side of me and I felt trapped.  At that moment, one of our massage therapists, Sophia, a beautiful, strong, mother of three, came into the room and instantly reacted to the inappropriateness of the situation. She barked at the men who, just as instantly, recoiled at her strength and firmness. In a flash he was out the door.

My mentor came into the room and saw my stress.  I broke down crying and told her the story, shaking with fear.  She looked at me, all hints of the nurturing, loving woman melted into a shocking fierceness as she told me that if anyone hurt me, she would kill them.  I believed her.  She then, with tears in her eyes, told me she was sorry that this was the world I lived in and said that it didn't have to be, if I so choose.  If I so choose. If I so choose. She went on to explain that the strength that Sophia possessed that scared that man away, could be mine as well.  That I could learn to feel safe in myself and that sense of security would project a powerful energy out into the world and I would begin to see how that resulted in a safer world.  This was the beginning of the end of the fearful, negative world around me.

Constantly inspired by my teachers, classmates, and mentor, I began to consciously shift my thoughts to ones that were more empowering and positive.  I began to recognize that the reality I was living in was seen through lenses actively focusing on the darkness, completely unaware of the light surrounding me. I began to choose to switch my focus to the light and was in awe of how much more beautiful my life became.  I began to feel safer, happier, and in charge of the life I was living.

About a month after my encounter with the drunk man, I was again working the front desk when the VERY SAME man stumbled in, just as drunk. He recognized me and made his descent.  Little did he know, I was not the same weak victim he had met last time.  Not an ounce of fear was triggered in me in this man's presence.  Instead, I saw him more clearly as a sad, disturbed man, harmless, but hurting.  I didn't take his advances seriously and very firmly told him to leave.  I watched how my strength met his advances and completely shut him down.  He left.

I was shocked by how quickly my world had changed and was so grateful for those two experiences that profoundly showcased the contrast of the two worlds I had lived in.  From that moment on I have consistently and actively chosen to live in a new, more positive world. When I feel burdened by negative thoughts or feelings, I try to remain open to a different way of framing my struggles in order to see them more positively and in a way that promotes positive growth and change.  I choose to feel safe and strong and to approach life with a sense of empowerment.

After:

My world has forever changed with the shift into positive thinking and seeing.  Every struggle turns into a blessing.  Every hardship has a purpose.  Every bad day is an opportunity to fight for a good day.  Every negative thought allows me to learn how to love myself deeper.  Every argument leads me to a deeper understanding of myself and the people in my life.  The world is no longer scary, I don't feel endangered, and I refuse to be a victim.  What small shifts in the way you think can you make to change your life?