Today, I took two hours out of my super busy life and did something that I wanted to do.
I know, holy crap, right?!
(Today also featured a series of unfortunate events that forced me to call into work for the first time in nearly six years. This troubles me, but I can’t sweat it; it happens. Life sometimes messes things up. I’ll be back on the normal “this would kill a lesser woman” schedule again tomorrow)
I attended a super rad seminar hosted by gym about eating. As someone who spends 97% of her life working and the last 14 months dropping 100lbs, this is super important to me. I can’t undo all of this hard ass work by eating garbage food. After all, it’s not like I have a lot of time for meal prep, but when I do I prep the crap out of stuff. I have worked too hard to be amazing to let a little thing like “working literally every second of my life” undo it.
The seminar stressed that we need to change our thinking in order to progress. You can’t just run on the same treadmill or eat the same foods or think the same way. We as humans need to grow and evolve. The crossfit mentality is there is literally no limit to how strong you can become, how fast you can go. There are no limits to what the body can do. Isn’t that super rad? There is something so exciting to me about the idea of growth, of evolving, of changing and growing. While yes, I am stubborn as a damn mule and I know what I want and will not settle for anything less than the life that I deserve, the career I want, or what I think is the right thing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to improve things, change things, learn, grow, try things from a different perspective, etc. I bore easily unless it involves my children, journalism, yoga or crossfit. I can’t do the same things over and over. That’s why my career speaks to me so much. I never write the same thing twice and that’s really kind of exciting to me.
But part of eating right and living well means thinking well. In order to become the person we are meant to become, we have to believe that we are capable of being the person we are meant to become. We need to think we are amazing, extraordinary, we have a purpose, we deserve to be loved the way we’ve always wanted and we have a purpose.
Purpose isn’t something I lack, as I’ve known what I was meant to do my entire life. I was meant to be a good mother and a good person and a good writer. I was meant to be a kind person who gives to those who aren’t very kind, to themselves or others. I was meant to find positivity in less than pleasant circumstances & lead by example and raise compassionate, kind hearted and strong women. I was meant to kick life’s ass. This has been my purpose and I’ve been pretty passionate about it. In fact, unless it involves my children, Great West Newspapers, my various retail gigs or crossfit, I probably haven’t really paid much attention to it (unless you visit my tumblr, which is pretty much just a shrine to Seth Rollins at this point. I’m a huge fangirl. I regret nothing)! My drive to fufill my purpose has blessed me with opportunities to achieve my goals, three amazing daughters, a fitness program at a gym with some pretty rad people that feel like I do; that there are no limits to what a boring human being on her pink couch can do if she puts her mind to it, focuses on things that are positive and enrich me and walk with the purpose that I’m meant to achieve all of my dreams.
But no matter what happens, I know there are no limits to what I can accomplish. During my workout last week, I was using a 20lbs kettlebell for my Turkish Get Ups (look them up, they were invented by Satan himself), but the first time I did them, I injured my leg doing them…and that was with a five lbs dumbbell! My coach and I giggled a little bit through the memory as I plugged through the set of three unbroken reps, amazed at how strong and coordinated I’ve become. Every time I can do something more, I get excited because it means I’m getting stronger. This has a domino effect; I can get much deeper into my yoga poses and hold the more complex ones longer. The endorphins and healthy eating have improved my physical health; no longer am I experiencing migraines and rarely am I ill. I can remember a time when I was constantly having blood taken to figure out why my iron was low or my blood sugar or why I was always tired. Those days are gone (well, not the tired, that’s totes present in my day to day life, especially because I’m giving up caffeine for thirty days to help improve my eating habits). This improves mental wellness. I haven’t had a panic attack in 19 months. The events that used to cripple me were bumps in the road & my persistent optimism remained. These things improve my professional life; my job performance improves, I never call in sick (well, except today, except I’m not the one that is sick) and my writing has been pretty solid. All of these things help me live out my potential and fufill my purpose. A few changes and the right frame of mind goes a long way. You can do it too. There is no limit to what a human being can accomplish if they just try. You can be extraordinary and you can find your purpose and live out your dreams.