Archive for the ‘Milestones’ Category

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Coming Clean

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

The funny thing about losing weight this time around is that I now realize that it’s not about losing weight at all. It’s about self-worth and love. Knowing that you are worthy of achieving whatever your mind can manifest and loving yourself enough to take steps towards making it happen.

I took some time over the weekend to take inventory in all the things that I felt were wrong with my life. Actually, it all got started when I couldn’t find the battery charger for my camera (note no picture this week).  I looked in the junk drawer, in the kitchen, under the couch – EVERYWHERE. I wasted an entire afternoon looking for it (still can’t find it) and came to the conclusion that my disorganized house is a reflection of my life – in disarray.

Though I have a lot of things that I am grateful for these days, I always have this nagging feeling that I am just shy of living the best version of my life. I feel good, but I want to feel great. My life is rich, but I want it to be extraordinary. It’s not that I am dissatisfied, but I know that things could be better. They should be better.

Instead of feeling down about it or like things were out of control, I decided to accept the situation for what it was and move on. I made a list of the things that I felt were really bothering me about my life:

  1. My home (which should be a sanctuary) is terribly uninspired. In fact, it has become that house on the block.
  2. My financial situation is messy – $22,000 in debt from credit cards and personal/auto loans. This does not feel good.
  3. Though I have friends, I sometimes feel lonely or without purpose.
  4. I am tired of supporting myself by working in a career that I am not passionate about.
  5. I am not in optimal health.

And most remarkably, instead of the 100 things that I pretend like there are, I could barely think of 5 things. Seriously, that’s all that I could think of.

Conquering this list seems completely doable. In fact it seems downright easy in comparison to things that are really hard like solving the climate crisis or figuring out how to bring medical care to rural areas of Africa. The last 3 items don’t even need any money, just resolve!

What it comes down to though, is that Ive been focusing on everything else but those goals. I’ve been a classic martyr and used to pride myself on the things that I would do for other people. Of course, I would then turn around and chide myself for not fixing the things that bothered me. But as long as everyone else was happy, I felt smug about it all. It’s really actually embarrassing to think about.

Over the weekend, I am happy to report that I spent two whole days cleaning my house purging the things that I have no use for. As a result, two trunkful of things went straight to goodwill. I already feel lighter. And actually, I am lighter … down a pound from last week. Maybe it wasn’t the most dramatic weight loss, but if you include the miscellaneous stuff I just got rid of, I actually lost 75 lbs.

Who knew that coming clean would make my spirit lighter?

Now if I could only find my battery charger …

Posted in Milestones, Weight Loss, Weight Updates | 16 Comments »

Dog and Pony Show

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

hellomynameis

Yesterday, I took my “dog and pony show” on the road. My friend, Sarah asked me to be a guest speaker as part of her company’s “health & wellness” series because (a) she is a sweetie-pie and (b) she clearly needed a “filler” person to round out her roster. Even though I generally loathe public speaking, I couldn’t say no because, after all, this is my year of saying, “Yes!” to nearly everything that I am asked to do.

My lecture (in a nutshell) was about losing weight, following your passion and setting goals. Not that I am an expert at doing any of those things, but really what else do I have to talk about? Personally, I might have been interested in hearing about how to relieve stress by folding perfect origami cranes out of foreign currency from around the world – but sadly, “I” am a one trick pony – everything that I write about, talk about, blog about is all about me. Me! Me! Me!

Oh, I think it might be time for therapy.

ANYWAY, if you are a “Bacon” glutton and can’t get enough of my miscellaneous ramblings, I plan on to creating a little Youtube video out of my presentation. I seriously did not just put the lecture together for the 4 people that came to see me speak. Actually TWO people that came – the other two people there were my friends. Love you Sarah and Jeff. And I love the two other people that showed up too – they actually chose to be there. Or they were there for the raffle.

Where’s the number to the therapist again?

Until I sequester myself away for an afternoon of video editing, here’s a little picture of me (that I used in the presentation) in 1987:

untitled1

That’s me, a perm, the Golden Gate bridge and about 20 sessions in a tanning bed. For the love of God.

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Posted in Daily, Milestones | 6 Comments »

This Time Last Year

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

April 4th marks the one year anniversary of my last day employment at the job that sucked the light right out of me.

After quitting, I took a small business/entrepreneurship class. (You know, cause I had nothing to do for the first time in 7 years.) As part of the 10-week curriculum, they asked each student to create a “visual representation” of their career goals. Most people pulled together a makeshift vision board made up of newspaper and magazine clippings. I decided to paint something:

giyenenlightened

I very rarely paint – maybe twice in the past 10 or so years. In fact, I completely forgot I did this one. I found it when I was sorting through a pile of paperwork to be recycled. There it was, shoved in a 3-ring binder from the class.

I can remember telling people that I wanted to blog for a living. People would say something along the lines of, “Blogging? What is that? Is that some new exercise? Is that a hobby? No really, what do you want to do?” Even I was a doubter.

12 months later, here I am. It’s crazy. Maybe I haven’t accomplished all of the things that I set out to, but I am well on my way.

Here’s to dreaming.

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Posted in Daily, Milestones | 19 Comments »

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