Moving Forward

We are already over halfway into January 2019.

It's crazy writing that out that way.

I'm still in shock that 2018 is over and we're almost a month into 2019 already.

2018 ended with me feeling a little scattered and like some things were half finished. I got to do just about everything I wanted to experience around Christmastime and we got to spend a lot of time with loved ones in December, but then I got sick. I think that's why things felt the way they did. I wanted so badly to take that time after Christmas to start organizing my house and my life and get into a better routine. But instead I spent 4 days on the couch, trying to rest so my cold didn't turn into anything worse.

I'm not saying that the resting was bad or that I should have been doing more, but I often beat myself up a little if I rest too much and don't get enough done. Or at least, enough by my own standards.

I didn't get to plan out my goals for 2019 like I wanted to. I didn't get to sit down and really think on 2018 like I wanted to.

And yet, life moves forward. And so do I.

As I type this, it sounds so silly and so petty. Not being able to spend time reflecting and dreaming. But in the moment, it felt like such a big deal.

If you know anything about the enneagram, I'm a 9. Part of being a 9 means that I often stuff my feelings down to keep the peace or because I don't want to deal with the pain or whatever other emotion it brings up. We 9's don't like to rock the boat.

So my being frustrated about not being able to do those things was actually a sign to me of trying to work through my struggles. I shared a little bit in this space about some of the things I've been learning about myself in the past 6ish months. One thing I'm trying to do more of is allowing myself to feel things.

For instance, I re-watched Gilmore Girls for like the 6th or 8th or 10th time (I've seen it a lot). And I re-watched A Year in the Life for the third time (maybe the 4th?). Watching the final episode, I could feel that ball in my throat getting harder and harder as my eyes welled up with tears. I have a hard time allowing myself to fully cry. But I took some deep breaths as I watched the show and I let them come. And that ball in my throat got lighter and lighter. I probably cried for about 10 minutes. And it felt good.

I'm trying to give myself grace and allow myself to really feel things. I think feeling it, living in it for as long as it takes, is essential for me. I don't want to keep bottling everything up inside. So even things that seem insignificant or petty (like not being able to spend time reflecting on 2018) need to be felt and worked through.

So as we move into 2019, I'm determined to keep working on giving myself grace and allowing myself to feel. The word I chose for 2019 was Rise. I'm ready to rise up, to rise above, to raise my head and feel. And I want to help those around me to do the same.



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For the past 10 years, I've made a point to make a collage of some of my favorite pictures and memories of the year before. I hope you enjoy this little glimpse into 2018. I'm excited to see where 2019 takes me!

Pain and Trauma

I still haven't really decided what I want to do with this space yet.

It's been five months since I've typed up a new blog post, but today I got the itch to write.

I've been reading Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis this month with my Color Street team. I have found many amazing things in this book that have really stuck out to me, but I think the chapter I read today took the cake.

One of the things that really struck me was this:

You cannot ignore your pain. You cannot ever leave it behind completely. The only thing you can do is find a way to embrace the good that came out of it - even if it takes you years to discover what that is (chapter 15: The Lie: I will never get past this).

One of the things I've been learning about myself over the past 2.75 years that I've been doing myofascial release therapy is that I have literally been responding to trauma and painful situations the same way my entire life: I freeze or stiffen up. I was reminded this week while at one of my appointments of a painful experience that happened in my childhood.

I was in elementary school and was literally in a constant state of headache. My mom took me to the doctor and they ran a bunch of tests. One was some sort of CT scan. I believe it was a contrast CT, because I was being injected with some kind of liquid when this painful experience took place. The man injecting me was having an issue finding my vein, and instead of pulling it out and trying again, he was moving the needle in my arm back and forth to try to find it. Honestly, it was one of the most painful things I've ever had to endure! I literally could not move that arm for three days after. It was bent against my abdomen, like your arm would be if it's in a sling.

As I was recalling this story, my myofascial therapist responded, "So your reaction to pain has always been to stiffen up".

I don't know why I never put those two pieces together, but I realize now that she was right. Every time I've been in a painful situation, I have made myself stiff so as not to feel the pain, or at least not to feel it fully. And whatever brought on this intense stiffness that I'm experiencing now (which is more than likely my body responding to years of this), has been much more intense than those 3 days or any other episode ever were.

Knowing this information now, and realizing that this has been a pattern of mine my whole life, I'm more determined than ever to break these habits. I often notice that even when I don't realize it, some area of my body is not relaxed. Sometimes it requires a lot of energy for me to relax and let go of whatever muscles I'm holding on to. And it's not even because of something super traumatic! I have just conditioned my body that this is how I am supposed to react to negative situations.

So where do I go from here? What do I take away from this revelation and the words I read tonight? That I need to acknowledge my pain, feel it, sit in it as long as I need to but also try to see what good possibly came from it. Maybe not every situation in my life is there yet. I'm a work in progress, as we all are, and maybe my body isn't ready for complete healing.

But knowing what I know now, and being more aware of how I've functioned my entire life, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. For many years, I thought I might live with this forever. And while I can't predict the future, I honestly have a lot of faith and hope that this is not going to be my permanent state. I've been in this place for 7.5 years now. Not as severely as I was 2.5 years ago, but it also wasn't as severe as it is now when it started. But I know I have hope that this will change. That I will continue to learn and grow and work on the areas in my life that need work. That I will keep striving forward, tears in my eyes at times, crying through the pain, to be a better version of me. To not be a pain-free version of myself, but a version that doesn't stiffen up and freeze when the pain does come.


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Oh and in case you were wondering, my headaches were caused by the fact that my neck was out of alignment. My mom took me to a chiropractor after the doctors could find nothing wrong with me and my headache went away after a couple of treatments.

08.16

August came and went so fast!

I had to look back at my calendar to even remember what we did. It was a whirlwind of a month!

Here are some highlights of the month:

We went to a going away/birthday party for a sweet young lady who headed off to college in another state. I am going to miss her sweet spirit around our church.

We had a women's worship night at church and it was incredible! There is nothing like worshipping God in a room full of other women who are also there to worship Him. I also went out to eat with a couple of good friends after and we had some great conversations.

We also went to a gender reveal party for our friends R.J. and J.J. They found out they are having a boy!

We also went to an indoor go kart track with some friends. I didn't race but I had a lot of fun taking videos of everyone else racing. We also went out for dinner and ice cream. It was a really fun night.

Some other things that happened this month:

I decided to become a LuLaRoe consultant and have been working on getting everything together to make that happen! It's been a really fun journey so far and I'm really excited for the actual selling part to start.

I read The Cursed Child (the Harry Potter screenplay) and I LOVED it! I know many people have very strong emotions of either hate or love, but I am definitely one of the ones that loved it! I don't wanna ruin it for anyone that is planning to read it, but it made my heart really happy.

I've also started exercising on a regular basis. That may not seem like a big deal to most, but I haven't been able to do this in years because of my body issues. My myofascial therapist is getting her student teaching hours right now to become a Pilates instructor, so I've been doing Pilates with her once a week. I've also been doing Just Dance through the Xbox at home. I've been able to exercise between 4-5 days a week and I feel so much better. I'm so grateful to God and to my therapist that my body is able to handle this now.

And that was August! My fall decorations are up and I'm excited for fall weather to (hopefully) arrive soon!

07.16

July is over and we are getting closer to fall! This summer hasn't been too bad weather-wise, minus some recent 100+ degree days, but I'm such a fan of wearing jeans and boots, so fall sounds amazing right about now.

Here are a few highlights of our month:

We went to a really fun 4th of July party with some of our good friends. We ate so much yummy food, had fun drinks, played Quiplash and lit some fireworks in the street (the legal kind). It was a great evening!

Our nephew celebrated his second birthday and the family had a birthday party for him. Josh's parents hired our friend to take family pictures of us as well, which was really nice because we haven't had a professional family picture since Josh's youngest brother got married seven years ago! It was a fun day.

Josh planned a surprise date day for us! We went to the Walt Disney Family Museum and he took me out to dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant. We spent quite a few hours at the museum and soaked everything in. It was awesome and I highly recommend it for any diehard Disney fans!

This was my favorite part of the museum! They have this scale model of Walt's Disneyland (so every attraction that existed or he was directly working on when he died). It's incredible. I could have starred at it for hours. The details are fabulous.

Some other things that happened this month:

My appointments are still going really great! I've had some major breakthroughs in my body and I'm so excited to see and feel the changes! It's been such a long, at times really hard process, but it's been so worth it. I've also been doing some Just Dance for exercise, which has been great for me! I feel so much more energetic throughout the day, even just from a 30 min session. I also started another great exercise regimen this month (August) that is also going to be really helpful for my body, so I'm really excited about that! More on that later.

I have been really bad at reading lately. I started a book about a month and a half ago and have only made it through a few chapters. BUT...I did purchase The Cursed Child script (the 8th Harry Potter story, for those that haven't heard) on Harry Potter's birthday (July 31st), so more on that in August's post!

We've also spent a lot of time with family and friends in July. Our nieces were all together for almost two weeks and it was so fun to see them interacting with each other. We had a great time with them! We saw quite a bit of both of our families, which was really great. Josh has also been studying as much as he can for the certifications he needs for work, as well as continuing to help out in jr. high at church. Our time together has been pretty limited these days, but someday things will settle down again.

Onto August!

On a Soapbox

I'm gonna get on a soapbox here for a minute.

I'm not one to usually do so, as I hate confrontation and I hate stepping on people's toes. But I've seen a lot of things circling around online, and I've heard and had a lot of conversations recently with people about health and exercise...and I feel like something needs to be said that keeps being avoided in these conversations.

But first, here's a little background information.

For those that don't know, I decided to get healthy last year. I've been struggling with chronic neck and back pain for three years now. I have undergone many different tests and procedures and seen lots of different specialists to try and fix what's wrong...and nothing has worked. So I decided to look online and see if there were other things I could do to help myself out. One of the things I discovered was that certain foods that we eat can aggravate or create inflammation in the body. Some of the biggest culprits were preservatives and ingredients found in processed and fast foods. Too much processed sugar and fatty foods can be bad as well. So, I made the decision to change my eating habits to try and improve my condition.

As a result, I was able to lose some weight over a period of six months.

I wasn't perfect in my eating habits and I definitely "cheated" quite a bit, but I stayed away from the majority of the foods that could possibly make me feel worse.

I never looked at it as a diet. I never felt like I was depriving myself of anything. I just replaced some of my favorite foods (Jack in the Box tacos, Coke, ice cream) with some that were a lot better for me (fish, green tea, fruit).

I consulted one of my friends, who is a personal trainer and who has studied a lot about nutrition, on some things I should incorporate into my diet that would be good for my body. I learned to love eating healthier foods and noticed a lot of positive side effects in my life.

Unfortunately, my new healthy habits did not take away my chronic pain and mobility issues.

Since then, I've discovered essential oils and found some that have helped so much with my pain. I used to take 600 mg of ibuprofen every night before bed, just so I could fall asleep comfortably. Now, I just rub on some oils and I'm good to go.

The essential oils company has a candida cleanse program, that is also supposed to help get rid of inflammation in the body. You pair the pills with a strict diet to see if you can get rid of a possible candida overgrowth in your body. Since I thought my pain might be associated with candida, I decided to give it a shot.

Notice anything here? My purpose for changing my eating habits had nothing to do with wanting to be a certain size or wanting to look a certain way. It had everything to do with wanting to be a healthier, pain-free person (of which the latter I still haven't achieved).

Time to get on the soapbox.

I'm seeing a lot of stuff circling around about these "magic" shakes that will help you lose weight or these exercise programs that are supposed to make you look like a body builder. And while all of those things are fine and dandy if you're into that sort of thing, there is a huge problem that I see and hear when most people talk about them: it's all about image.

We live in a world where everyone shares everything on social media. I know way more about people then I would like to. Including oftentimes what they've eaten that day, if they're angry with their spouse, if their cat ruined their new curtains...again, and even the new shoes they just got on clearance. Don't get me wrong, I care about people and I care about what's happening in their lives...but our oversharing on social media can get a bit out of hand.

And one of those areas I feel we have to be extra careful about is concerning our health and our weight. Hear me out: I'm not saying I don't care if you're trying to live a healthier lifestyle, because I do. I'm all about taking care of our bodies, as the Bible calls them our temples, because the Holy Spirit dwells within us. It's important that we take care of ourselves so we can be useful for doing what God has called us to do. What I am saying is that we need to be careful that our desire to be healthy does not become an unhealthy obsession...and that we aren't making people feel bad about themselves.

When I first started to change the way I was eating last year, I used this app to track all the food I was eating. I made sure to enter everything in so I could see that I was eating the right amount of calories and to make sure I wasn't having too much fat or sugar each day. While it was incredibly helpful for me to be able to see all of that, it became too much after awhile. I started worrying more about numbers than about being healthy. So I had to take a step back and stop using it. I had been eating differently for a few months at that point, so I was pretty good at discerning what foods were best and which ones weren't. And let me tell you, it was so freeing not to have to worry about entering in every last food item I ate each day.

I also made a point not to share too much with people about what I was doing. Not because I wasn't excited about getting healthier and taking better care of my body, because I was, but because I didn't want it to be about me. People started to notice that I was losing weight and would make comments. And while of course those comments made me feel good, I didn't want those comments to fuel my life. My only goal was to be healthier to try and help myself feel better and I didn't want people's praise to make me lose sight of that.

I've heard some comments lately from people around me about how they are "fat" or they feel like they need to lose "xx" lbs because they are so "overweight". And while people always say those kinds of things, it makes me nervous when it comes from young girls or after someone's had a conversation with a person who's on a diet. We compare ourselves pretty harshly to those around us; it's human nature. If I'm feeling insecure about myself and a friend tells me that she's never had a zit in her life, it's gonna sting a little and make me feel like crap because I'm 29 and still get zits. If I'm feeling unloved and I overhear someone talking about how happy they are to have lost 5 lbs when they are way tiny to begin with, it just might make me decide I'm fat and need to stop eating for a few weeks to get rid of all this "extra weight" I'm carrying.

I know we can't control other people's actions and I know that sometimes our excitement or passion can make people feel bad without us meaning for that to happen...but we need to be conscience of the people around us. We do need to think when we are in a group of people talking about an accomplishment of any kind, am I going to make someone feel bad for saying this? Our words can wound someone or make someone's mood change in an instant, and we need to be aware of what we are saying.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made...whether we weigh 500 lbs or whether we have skin that never stops breaking out. We are fearfully and wonderfully made...whether our pants still fit or whether we made a big mistake at work. We are fearfully and wonderfully made...whether we feel like we are the ugliest person on the planet or whether we have a bad hair day. We are fearfully and wonderfully made...whether we exercise or not. We are fearfully and wonderfully made...even if we eat McDonald's 24/7.

I'm not trying to call anyone out or make anyone feel bad, as I am so guilty of these things myself. I am sorry for making anyone feel less than because their accomplishments in life might be different than mine...or because I'm excited about something good in my life that you might still be struggling with. I just think we need to think about our audience before we post things on social media. Is it wise to discuss weight loss with young, impressionable girls? Is it ok to make people feel bad because they don't eat healthy foods or exercise as much as we do?

Some things are better left unsaid. And even better, some things are better left off Facebook.

Before and After

I am taking a very bold step today.

Two years ago, when I decided I needed to start exercising on a regular basis to try to be a healthier person, I took pictures in front of my bathroom mirror so I could see my progress. That exercising on a regular basis thing didn't stick for very long. In fact, I only exercised once or twice in the first two months and it's been very intermittent since then.

I have never shown anyone these pictures, because I was purposefully wearing tighter clothes so my curves showed up more. I am pretty sure I was at my heaviest point when I took these pictures, but it's hard to know for sure because I don't own a scale and I don't weigh myself on a regular basis.

Fast forward two years...it's been almost 8 months since I decided I needed to change my diet and eat healthier foods. I can proudly say that I rarely ever have soda anymore. I had one last night and I think it had been at least three weeks before that. I still get cravings for ice cream and pumpkin pie (dang Costco and their cheap pumpkin pies!), so I do occasionally indulge in those sweet treats (maybe once or twice a week, depending on the week and what we have going on. It's usually more on the once side). I no longer eat fast food...unless it's In n Out. I do have that on occasion as well (maybe once or twice a month). I had Jack in the Box for the first time last week and I felt like I was cheating on someone while eating it! It was the weirdest feeling...especially since I probably had Jack in the Box tacos and egg rolls at least twice a week in the past. I have resisted McDonald's French fries, and I think I've had Taco Bell and Carl's Jr. maybe once in the past 7 months. I eat Chipotle occasionally and usually just get a burrito bowl so as to avoid the calories in the tortilla.

I do eat out at other restaurants on the occasion. Josh and I get sushi once a month. It's our standing "he got paid" date. We probably go to another restaurant once or twice a month, depending on what's going on. Usually with friends or family to celebrate a birthday or just for a fun hang out. I try to eat off the lower calorie part of the menu the majority of the time, but there are definitely days when I feel like splurging...and I do.

I feel like some people in my life are waiting for me to fall and decide I'm over this now. And while I will say that I don't enter my meals into My Fitness Pal every single day anymore, I also have a pretty good idea of when I've hit my calorie goal for the day and when I've gone over. I just kind of know what foods I should be eating and which ones I should avoid. I snack on fruits and veggies as much as I can, especially when I'm feeling like I need a snack. There are a few staples we usually keep in our house: broccoli, clementines/cuties/citrines (basically all the same thing), edamame, avocados, some kind of berry, spinach, and bananas. We also always have Greek yogurt (as we both usually take them with our lunches for work), some kind of fish, ground turkey meat, and green tea (I usually make myself tea every time I work and sometimes on the days that I am home. It's the only thing I drink anymore to get a caffeine fix).

But, I'm not tired of this. I enjoy eating better. I like knowing that the things I'm putting in my body (most of the time) are actually good for me. And not just for the results I've had in my body (though they are definitely a plus). I just like knowing that I am taking better care of my temple and trying to keep myself healthy so I can do the things God pulls me toward.

So...here are the pics:

My apologies for the grainy iPhone pics. I shouldn't have used the front camera

I wasn't quite considered overweight for my height...but I was definitely getting there. And I know extra weight makes your body and your muscles work harder...and with the pain and stiffness I have, anything I can do to elevate that is a good thing.

So this is where I'm at...taking better care of myself and hoping to be able to get into a regular exercise routine soon so I can take care of myself in other ways.