balance.

Balance. 

It seems like such a simple word and I don't think there is a single one of us that doesn't understand how to achieve balance. We know in theory that we should be spending equal amounts of energy on the things that mean the most to us--usually that means ourselves, those we love, work and adventure. What happens in reality? Despite the ease of the equation, we so easily concentrate unevenly on one area of our life and we get caught in a cycle of just merely surviving. 

I thought for the longest time that my running was the excuse. I couldn't find the right combination of balance in my life because I was training or working 90% of the time. But as that usual mask and excuse has faded away, I'm left realizing that I'm just not good at balancing or prioritizing. Most of the time when I could be doing something productive, I find myself giving it up to go to sleep hours early. I've now started using exhaustion as my excuse but that's just what it is, an excuse. The lack of balance that I create is what makes me so exhausted. There are a lot of instances in life that I would never dream of making an excuse. I'm the girl, when pulled over, who says to the cop "I know, I know, I was speeding. I think it was 10 over" and gladly accepts responsiblity. But in this area, all I find is excuses.

This single area though may be my greatest struggle. I find it difficult to prioritize within the things that are important to me because I find myself with so little time to try to create a life outside of work that I end up flustered and frustrated. Is there some sort of key to this work/life balance that I am missing? I can't remember the last time I cooked a meal or didn't rely on one of the men I live with to switch over my laundry because I can never find enough time to be at home through a whole wash/dry cycle. Or maybe I have been but my day faded into some kind of Scandal watching marathon. 

I have always been the girl who flakes on plans. It's never out of malice or not thinking that someone or something is important. It's always been rooted in being overbooked, overstressed and if I admit it, a little lazy. There are people out there with much more important and hectic lives than me so please don't register this as a complaint. It's just the opposite. It's the tale of someone who has been overly blessed with a hectic but rewarding job, beautiful friends and family, healthy habits that keep me at the gym and a church that I look forward to attending. It's me saying, I've been blessed beyond what I deserve and can sometimes seem to handle. 

For the last few weeks, the healthy habits have seemed to have gone by the waist-side. I knew without the goal of a marathon it would be difficult to keep my ambition up. I have now gone two days in a row without going to the gym, which is unheard of for me. I ate a handful of Hersey kisses yesterday at a wedding shower. All this could lead me to be angry and feel like a failure, as only someone who has worked for over a year to just look normal, not even fi,t could understand but the one thing I know for sure about my experience with cultivating healthy practices in my life, is that no amount of shame would have brought me here. In fact; shame, guilt, feeling bullied by myself, hating my body, comparing myself to others... all of those were things I had to work through to even begin thinking about my health. The best way to be a health advocate is to live it. A positive example does more good than a judgmental voice.

Part of my positive example is always being honest. And honestly, I don't think that my equation will ever be balanced. I think I will always find it difficult to not be overwhelmed by the process of prioritizing. What I do know is that I need to find a healthy way to juggle it all because the relationships and obligations in my life can only be as healthy as my mind and body. Identifying any problem in your life is always the first step to solve it, so for now, starting this dialogue with myself puts me on the right track.

marathon: a dream put on hold.

As most of you know, for the last six months I have been training for my first marathon. I started by running a half in October and decided that I would just follow right through to the Myrtle Beach Marathon coming up in February. I think when people hear that you are training for a marathon they think that you're crazy for wanting to run 26 miles or have respect for you being able to run that far. The thing that has been most difficult for me has not been running that far or long but the time commitment. Already working a hectic job that can keep me anywhere from 40-60 hours a week, with sometimes 13 hours of my day (minus travel) taken by work. To know that on a Sunday, my one day to relax, I would then have to run for 3 hours after church is at times overwhelming. I had made a goal though and I wasn't going to let myself down. I have cried through runs, I have swore through runs and I have gotten lost in the beauty of observing things around me on runs. My sole dream for now has been to run an ultramarathon.

A few weeks ago, I was in the shampoo isle of Wegmans with Siena when I got a phone call from my doctor. At the end of a length explination the blow came that I can no longer run my marathon or for that matter any other type of "competetive race" as she calls it. For the few minutes that the phone call lasted, I felt like it was all okay. But somewhere during my search for Aussie shampoo, it took everything I had to hold my composure in front of a 3-year-old. I am not the type of person who usually gets my hopes up about many things in life. My goals are simple. This marathon is one of the few that I am working on now.  I had come to look at running as a sort of job, or so I thought. My reaction quickly told me that running was more than a job or a hobby. It was something that had been engrained on my heart and turned into a passion. As my mine flashed over the past few months of work, I felt like a part of me had died. It wasn't that I needed to get some medal at the end of a race but I did need the fulfillment of keeping my word to myself.

I don't know if you've ever spent months and months working towards a goal just to be turned away. It made me feel like I had wasted so much time and effort. I could've been spending time with friends or with Jim but instead I was at the gym hitting the treadmill. I believe heavily in faith and I really believe that the goals you have are formed because they are part of your destiny. Was I wrong in thinking running was something made for me? Did I form a goal and spend my time selfishly? Or was this just a case of bad timing and overworking? 

I know that I can always run another marathon... I know that I can find new goals that are more at a level that my body can handle... I know that as much as running has become my passion, it's not my only identity... Most days I wonder if my doctor even knows what she is talking about. I can't seem to let go and admit to myself that I'm not running the race. We are still planning on going down for vacation and I keep telling myself what the doctor doesn't know doesn't count.  I have broken up with boys, I have lost friends, I have been told off on more than one occasion but I will say, this is the biggest heartbreak I have ever suffered. The only way through this is being realistic and just figuring out how to handle a dream that has been put on hold.

starting the new year with a blog about depression...

In the last few months people have been using the word "inspiring" to describe me. I don't feel very inspiring. I don't point this out because of a non-belief that I have made worthy strides that are noticeable to people. I can't accept the word inspiring because it is based on people's perceptions of me based on what they see on social media or in short conversations that we have while catching up. I think there is a big part of me that people are missing and it is not something that I am ashamed of but a big part of my genetic make-up. I battle depression. I have since I was 13-years-old. Some days, some years, are better than others.

If you've never dealt with depression yourself than you might not understand how life altering it is. I can say that the last year has been one of the happiest seasons of my life but it is also the year that I have most heavily felt the effects of depression. If you don't deal with depression, I think some of the misunderstandings about it are that people with depression are lost and without directions, that it's an inability to let go of sadness, or that it's just one more excuse to complain and ask people to take care of you. I am not sad. I am not lost. I am planted in life, faith, health and happiness and still I have never escaped my mental health issues.

Have you ever found yourself thrown overboard and trapped under a canoe, struggling to come up for air and not knowing if this breath might be your very last? Literally, I have. Figuratively, this is sometimes how I feel for weeks on end. Some days I would love to get out of bed but I feel like I dropped the weight on myself while bench pressing. There is nothing glamorous or beneficial about having such a constant ailment that can come out of nowhere. Some moments I find myself out of breath and slurring my words because even the simple task of speaking and saying good morning feels like it's too much.

I don't think that depression and happiness are mutually exclusive. There are whole days, like the day I got engaged, where the world is absolutely perfect but some glitch in my mental make-up tells me that the world is falling down around me. I can find myself breaking up with my fiance (or trying to), throwing things across the room or on the floor crying hysterically with absolutely no excuse or explanation why. I find myself overwhelmed often and in an entirely different universe. I shut down in order to not hurt anyone else in the fall from high to low.

I am so glad that over the last few years celebrities and magazines have made it okay to admit that we are less than perfect humans. That people have mental health issues and that talking about it is one of the best things we can do. I found myself several months ago in a meeting with a friend and as we discussed my mental health issues, she suggested that if I was working with a child who suffered with these types of issues that I step up and help them channel those funks and emotions to something else. I know she meant it as advice to help others but really it helped me. Since that meeting I have been channeling any negative energy that I can in another direction. I'll say that running saved me but the truth is lots of things save me. Cooking, running, blogging, drawing, writing, pilates... Anything that I can channel the negative in my life out into changes my whole mental landscape. By planning my workouts by the week and doing them in the morning, I never get the chance to wallow in whatever negative emotion I might wake up to.

Not a lot of great stuff came out of my first marriage but one of the things that did was that my ex-husband did not think it was appropriate for me to go on medication for my depression. There were times that I hated him for that. As I have become more blessed and overwhelmed with happiness on a daily basis, I couldn't imagine being on anti-depressants (and this is just for me. I'm not speaking to anyone else here). I get to have these amazing highs in life and it's true, they are spiked with extreme lows. I want to experience all of who I am and my range of emotions. I wouldn't have the strength that I do if I did not have to find a way to make it through the most difficult numbness and pain several times a month. I probably wouldn't have the strength to pour out real emotions on this blog as often as I do.

I think that calling someone inspiring is one of the biggest compliments that you can pay someone. I  know if people are going to use the word inspiring to describe me, I don't want them to have the romantic, goal setting, running maniac version of me in their head but the whole me. And if in the process of introducing the full me, I make someone feel like they're not alone in their struggle, it's worth completely worth opening up.

learning self-love.

For years I don't think that I really had the words self-love and self-hate in my vocabulary. But as I began to run, eat right and learn more about what makes happiness sustainable, these two words have carried a lot of weight. There are things that instantly make me hate myself--like weighing myself every week and seeing minimal results and then there are things that I can do to love myself--like stop weighing myself and go for a nice long run on a brisk morning. These actions influence my internal self-talk (and this is where battles are won and lost). We all have a voice inside ourselves that tell us how we feel about ourselves. I would say most people don't have one that says very nice things and sometimes mine doesn't still. Along the way I've learned that the voice that is negative can always be silenced and replaced by an empowering though.

I wish I could offer a simple advice on letting go of all the negative feelings we’ve learned to have about our bodies and ourselves. As we grow up it is quite literally marketed to us that our bodies in so many ways don’t measure up, and attaching this idea strategically to our worth we buy all kinds of products to “fix” all these things that make us unlovable.  So we spend years upon years repeating that message into our mirrors, running a tape in our heads, “if I could just change my appearance in this way” my life would be better/I would deserve love/I could accomplish more/ I would be worthy.

So when someone who still is above average for her height on a scale looks in a mirror and says I’m beautiful and worthy– it’s a little our of place.  It doesn’t match the running tape.  It doesn’t fit with all that we have learned about what it is to be a woman.  But somehow it feels familiar.  Because we didn’t always feel this way. We were taught with every beauty product and ever Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition this is what we're supposed to look like.

I feel like I can call myself an expert on the subject  of self-hatred as I started on this self-hatred path early.  I always had the perfect athletic family growing up around me and I was the chub of the family. I had already learned to position myself “appropriately” as less-than by the time I was in middle school because I couldn't play sports as well as the rest of my siblings and wasn't as slender as the other girls on the basketball team.  I can recount many stories throughout childhood where I felt like I jiggled too much or I had dressing room breakdowns because an outfit didn't look right. (My mothers singular response was always "you can change it so stop complaining".)  Also, being the type of person people who has a large circle of loved ones, I can tell you that while not all stories are the same, almost all the women I’ve ever known have felt these feelings.  There is no dress size attached to it.  Most of us have these scripts embedded into us.  

 All that to say, letting go of the story you’ve been telling yourself about your body for decades is not the kind of thing that happens overnight.  There are no easy steps or 30 day plans.  It’s a big pill we’ve swallowed and it takes time for the effects to wear off.

Here is how I did it:

I’ve had moments, and I think most of us do, where I've felt beautiful.  During an engagement shoot, getting ready for a night out, that kind of thing.  But they were fleeting and certainly not enough to shift my thought patterns. I remember the first time that I felt like maybe I had somehow broken down a barrier that would turn me into an extraordinary, beautiful person. It was when I ran my first half-marathon. I've never been a woman who attached beauty to make-up or hair styles. I wasn't raised that way but I did attach beauty to being slim and athletic. Maybe it wasn't even finding that I could push my body to it's very limit but more so that I could find something that was uniquely me. There is beauty in being unique and even at a horrible 13:00 mile pace there was something so freeing about getting sweaty and forgetting that there is such a thing as looking beautiful because this moment was beautiful. 

During that almost 3 hour run, I decided that I was beautiful. That the person I had become was worthy of so much more. Not because of any of the normal standards but because I could be inspired and motivated and to me that was beautiful. So I suppose if there was a step one it would be: Decide you aren’t going to hate yourself anymore.  More important than any weight routine followed, cardio completed, piece of kale eaten--this decision changed me.  But that doesn’t mean it changed the track in my head.

It was a conversation with my roommate, Mike that reframed how my mind thought about my body. Over a usual Sunday dinner, he asked me what my goals were with all this running and working out. With a wedding around the corner, the first thing that came out of my mouth was something about weight. He cut me off right there and told me that was first of all an awful goal and secondly, it will never work. From that moment on, as much as I can I decided that I would think differently about my goals. If I would begin rolling the tape that says things like, “You’ll never lose weight, your body is disgusting,” I would immediately change my thoughts to something like, “You are beautiful, you're getting healthy and any improvement on the scale is just a bonus.”

I have said negative things about my body to friends in the past 2 years.  I have said awful things to myself.  I have replayed that old tape time and time again.  But as I've gotten closer to accomplishing my goals, I’ve pushed back with positive loving thoughts, even when it was hard to really believe them (I always say fake it until you make it).  I made the commitment to be my own cheerleader until the bully I had always known began to disappear.

Along the way, I began to trust in my body and nourished my body with good, whole foods.  I've always loved to cook but I made sure that I was cooking the right things. I took baby steps, never allowing weight loss to be my primary goal.  I wanted to be inspiring. But I didn't want to be an example of “how not to be fat” but how to take care of yourself and to be the kind of woman that honors her needs as important and not just everyone else’s.  

I didn’t realize at the time, but the very act of exercising for the sake of feeling better instead of as a way to bully myself into looking better gave me power.  It forced me to pay attention to how I was feeling and act accordingly.  It made me proud when I accomplished something new.  Every time I could do something, I learned to love the power that my body held rather than seeing myself as weak. 

Next, I stopped making judgements about other women.  This is one of the more challenging ones, and it’s not because women are jerks.  I believe that women are so cruel in their judgements of one another because we’ve agreed to these impossible standards for ourselves.  We hold so close to the ideas that we don’t measure up, that the logical reaction is to throw stones at anyone who might or feel like we're better than those we feel like we're doing better than. If I didn’t have to judge other women then I no longer had to think about how i measured up.  I could see their unique beauty and thereby honor my own. Also, I think it is just as important to stop spending time with women who constantly bring down other people. We all know the type--they're the ones who can't sit in the bar without making fun of what a woman down the bar is wearing because it's not right for her frame. You'll never improve your own thinking space if you allow people who constantly bring others down pollute that space.

I see pictures of myself from the last two years and it is clear there is some sort of outward change. It takes sitting down and making a list of things that I have changed to achieve my goals that I realize that something much bigger has changed. I love myself and think that I am beautiful inside and out. That is not something that anyone can take away from me or that the number on a scale will change. I don't write this as an expert on self-love because really it wasn't easy to get this far and I still struggle. But it is the most freedom I have ever felt to be exactly who I am.  It is the accomplishment, while internal and non-medal earning, that I am most proud of.  It is the most empowering thing I’ve ever felt knowing that I can contribute to my body as it evolves and changes and know that it is was and always will be good.  I’m beautiful.  I’m good enough. And I know I have the power to walk around in this body at peace, however it is (and will be).

That is beautiful.

the only truth i've heard about running.

There's only one truth I've ever heard about running. My friend, Jamie, told me it when I first decided to train for a half marathon. He said 'running will change your life'. I had no idea what he meant but I'm sure I responded with a smile and then my inner voice said some nasty things and I thought 'yea right'. A year and a half later I am here to say running has changed my life. I think that it's only fair to say that not all that change has been easy and, until about 2 months ago, it has felt a lot like work. Two months ago I made the decision that if I am going to sacrifice time away from family and friends to train, to workout, to skip out on alcohol centered events the night before a run (aka 6 nights a week), then I was going to love what I was doing. And now, I wake up and can't wait to go to the gym. Sometimes I don't run my fastest miles because I stop to sit on a bench to stare at the beauty of the Japanese Gardens. I have never felt such passion about something in my life before.

I started this as a way to prove to myself simply that I could. After I got engaged I decided I need to hit a goal weight so I looked amazing for the big day. I currently sit 18 pounds heavier than that number but I have given up the hope of thin for the desire of fit. Running has gone from a way to workout to reshaping my dreams. I've always been an East Coast girl, but I dream of being on the West Coast. I think of the trails I could run and the mountain climbing I could do. I've always wanted to stay home with my kids but thought it would be a small and simple life but now nothing more interests me than being able to stay home, have a modest farm, adventure and be active, and in some capacity use that love of nature, life and fitness to inspire others. [This blog and my Facebook are my outlets, for now, to attempt to inspire someone to be better than they were yesterday, in their health or otherwise.]

It honestly doesn't interest me to run a half-marathon, a marathon, a 50k peaks my interest but I have set my sights on ultra-marathons. Someone asked me recently why I would even want to run 50-miles? My answer was that I can so why not. It was a simplified way to say what I really meant. I don't want to be one of those people who sits around and watches safely from the sidelines. So many of us accept the easy way, the next logical step, and settle in. I will never know what I am capable of achieving as an individual if I don't go out and try to beat myself every single day. They say that ultra-marathoners have somewhat of an addictive personality. You may be a shopaholic, need your coffee in the morning, a workaholic or a partier--my drug of choice is pushing my body to it's limit. I haven't found that limit yet and I'm not willing to stop until I find it.

The second part of my answer goes deeper. I was born the type of person who was scared of everything. If you asked me what I'm scared of it would almost be comical the list that would be produced: driving, dogs, heights, deer while I'm walking, my own home some days, the dark, spiders, people's opinions, failure/trying, riding lawnmowers... the list goes on and on. For once in my life I am not afraid. For once in my life I am trying and sometimes failing daily. For once I know who I am and have a clear vision of who I want to be in five years. For once I am the only judge. For once I don't care if I'm in pain. For once I, the girl afraid of standing on a chair, can't wait to ice ax her way up a mountain. I have found a way to conquer my fears. I've found a place where it is me, the pavement, and a little prayer to God.

I'm not sure this is what Jamie meant when he said running would change my life.

gratitude makes what we have enough.

Every day we are overloaded by information from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and every other website that is now so easily at our fingertips at all times. Every person, company, and article seems to end with something that you should buy to read more, look cool, or accomplish a task better. Maybe I am alone in my selfish, greedy attitude but I can't even count the number of times a day I send a link to Jim or write down something with the words "I want" attached to it. The only thing more obnoxious than the amount of times a day I say "I want..." is those times that I let the words "I need..." slip out of my mouth. For instance, my recent "I need..." is a Jawbone. I eat right, I exercise plenty, I hydrate like it's my job and I get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. Do I really NEED something on my wrist that will confirm each of those things with more exactitude? Will it really improve my health? I know I need gas for my car or food to eat for dinner, but do I NEED a Jawbone? [Honestly, sometimes I will have something in my hand at a store and hear the words "I want this so bad" come out of my mouth and I promptly put it down and leave it at the store. I have a home full of things and spend barely anytime in any sort of clothing besides those fit for working out or playing with children.]

I understand this is the most superficial level of want and need. I know that there are people in my life, including me, right now who are looking for things that are the more basic needs and wants. Some people are looking for houses, wishing for significant others, heartbreak to go numb, hoping for healing, trying for babies, searching for forgiveness, or thinking about relocating. The heartbreaking disappointment that can come with these types of wants can cripple you. They bring down your self-confidence. They make you feel trapped in a jail of sorts. They create stress and make you feel like good things aren't meant for you. If I could snap my finger and have everything I wanted, is this the life that I would be sitting in right now? Absolutely not.  

Recently, my spirits have been low. Jim is my rock, my strong and steady when I can't seem to fathom holding on to anything else. He said, 'let's go, let's  move'. It gave me pause. Will moving make me happy? Will having kids be a secret pill? Will having a partner make your life perfect? Will having new clothes to hit the bar with or the latest iPhone make your life complete? It won't. 

What will make our lives more full is gratitude. Being thankful for what we have been given in the here and now. Are there things that I wish I had that I don't? Sure. You know what makes me feel fulfilled? It's starting a list of things I'm grateful for when I start getting a little down with a certain area of need or want. I start at the beginning of the day--I woke up in a house, with heat and a bed next to someone who loves and takes care of me. I ran in $110 sneakers. I drank coffee. I checked my iPhone with a bill higher than our heat and electric bill combined... I can usually stop there. It's never going to be the big things that make us feel grateful. The big things are the ones that so easily go wrong or we can find holes in. The things that are so small--food, heat, love, transportation, money to make it to tomorrow and possibly no further, jobs, family, friends--are where we will discover we have all we NEED.

Thanksgiving is always the time to remind ourselves that we are blessed. I will say that this year, I especially need that reminder. So many things that I want, that I need, are out of my control right now. I can't have them by snapping my fingers like buying a new sweater but only through planning and patience. I'm sick of feeling like I'm fighting a wall almost every day but need to learn to be grateful for the things I have now, the things that I can control. There are a lot of my friends going through struggles today. I'm not diminishing the pain that some of these things create but just asking you to step back and take a moment to consider what you DO have. 

One of my favorite quotes is "what if you woke up today with only what you were thankful for yesterday?" I know what I'd be left with. What would you have?

obsession.

All of us have obsessions. I used to worry about money, constantly. I would avoid plans with people so I didn't spend money that could be used more wise. Now, I have replaced my money obsession with calorie counting apps and nike+ workout logs. The blog I wrote just a few short months ago about positive body image seems like a distant dream and another person because the truth is you start to get fit, people compliment you, the distance on your runs goes up and the number on your scale goes down. For me, this seemed all well and good until I realized that almost every day something has come out of my mouth that is negative word vomit. The words ugly and fat have become an obsession. Almost daily I am concerned about where my worth lays. I am not even thin yet but there is something so hollow about my eyes and cheekbones that says my healthiness comes at the cost of exhaustion. Sleep comes hard but never long enough until I am jilted awake for a gym session or a run. Could I just sleep in if I wanted? Sure. Could I sleep in and then not sneak minutes on the elliptical (on top of my evening workout) while my kiddos watch their one morning show because I am so upset I missed my morning run? Most definitely not. 

Does everyone have these obsessions? Am I the only one who cannot spend a healthy amount of time and energy concentrating on something? I realized something needed to change after a recent conversation with my roommate in which he told me he couldn't handle anymore of me feeling like my day was ruined because I drank part of an iced Capp (really though, it was a whole run down the drain. I'm still upset at myself.) A similiar conversation occured when I was debating outloud whether I should have a string cheese or not. A 9-year-old told me to 'stop talking outloud. I don't care, it's your body do what you want.' 

I have never been good at striking a balance. I'm either all in or all out. Tunnel vision to a goal and a number and feeling like a complete failure if they weren't hit. It is debilitating. Yesterday on an 11-mile run I stopped upset that I wasn't holding under a 10-minute pace evenly but neglected to accept that even what I did do on that run would land me with a PR on race day that would be 36 minutes less than my best thus far. 

As always let me insert my moment of insane honesty--most mornings I LOATHE myself for not sweating enough, cutting enough calories, or drinking enough water. I guess I am just sending this into the void to say, I am healthy, I am energized, I am usually happy but mostly I am self-obsessed and can't seem to find a balance that feels like I am loving myself with my healthy lifestyle. What is your obsession? How do you force the balance?