You may or may not have noticed I took a break from posting for a while, I just want to be honest not only with you but with myself. A lot of people come up to me & are constantly saying they are jealous of a lot of the things I do or have or place I have gone, & they tell me they wish they had an “exciting life” like me. I just want to clear this up, nobody should be comparing their lives to someone else's highlight real. I can't remember where I heard someone say that, but it couldn't be more true, please don't take the posts I make or the pictures you see on my Instagram & assume this is what my life looks like every day. I try to be as real on my blog about my day to day life as I can be. The fact of the matter is that most days are repetitive, most days I'm on my feet for 75% of it. Most days I spend picking myself apart over standards I hold myself to.
I went through a really difficult time when I got back from my trip to NYC. I fell in love with that city & came back from such a high that I just wanted to hang on to it. I finished my turn it up 20 challenge with SoulCycle & my body felt like it had become an athlete. I ended my last ride of the challenge with a hyper-extended knee. During the last ride (which has been my third for the day as well, at the SOPT studio) the knob at the bottom of my seat came undone & fell completely off the screw, I had gotten off of my bike in the first row to re tighten the knob, only to see that it was completely on the ground. I ended up riding the last song completely out of the saddle, & that's when I realized I hyper-extended my knee. Needless to say I took a break from working out for a while & became extremely unmotivated to get back to the gym. Not only was I not working out, I had let go of my diet for a while too. In NYC I loosened a few of my diet restrictions & it has turned into a thing where I was telling myself that I should let myself have the meals I wanna have & not be so hard on myself anymore. I was beginning to fear that I was sounding like someone who had an eating disorder. People with work out addictions tend to have dealt with eating disorders or just having unhealthy relationships with food. I became super worried that people were thinking that because of how much I was working out & obsessing over food & blogging about it that I was developing an eating disorder.
Not only was I dealing with this, I obviously gained some weight. I got up to 109 pounds. I stopped weighing myself for a few weeks out of shame. I stopped posting on Instagram, then Snapchat, then twitter. I removed myself from social media because I was ashamed that I had made such unhealthy choices when I am constantly promoting a healthy lifestyle. On top of this, it was the busiest time of the year for MAC, prom & wedding season, on top of spring/summer beauty events for our department. That means lots of appointments, lots of sales goals, lots of hours, a lot of pressure. Todor & I began fighting constantly due to my state of stress & exhaustion & lack of self motivation to get through it. Our personal lives began to effect our relationship & at the verge of his leaving on tour for a month, we were trying to patch things together & failing almost daily to keep promises to each other. When he came back from tour things were finally feeling normal. Why? Because we both took the time spent away from one another to focus on personal growth. My guy was out there doing his thing, different city every night, following his dreams. Me? I was trying to feel like myself again. I started to create a better relationship with myself. A relationship where guilt about food did not exist. A relationship where I didn’t force myself to do things if I didn’t want to do them.
I let go of constantly seeking perfection & punishing myself over mistakes. I struggled to maintain healthy eating habits still, & I felt weak in my body. I accepted it. I wanted to heal myself not only for myself but for my relationship. I just needed to not give a fuck for a while. I didn’t want to care if I didn’t work out for 3 or five days, I didn’t want to care if I wanted to eat a damn cupcake. I didn’t want to be in my head about it anymore at all. I learned from this experience that it is really true that you cannot always be in a movement of progression. We need these challenges, these tough times where we feel stuck & like we aren’t going anywhere to develop what it takes to move forward even stronger. It took a lot to get me to be motivated again. I felt like a failure. I felt like a whole year of building building a new lifestyle was wasted. The only way to move forward was to accept the time for what it was. Just a learning experience.
I’m proud to say that I have begun to feel like myself again. I’ve been in the gym, I’ve been to yoga, I’ve been riding, eating clean, all that. I finally decided that I was done not caring. That I needed to get back to my old habits, but in a healthier way. I talk a lot about listening to your body but I never really listened to mine. Now I do what I can with the time that I have & the energy I have. If doing a double work out is going to feel good I do it, if it isn’t then I’ll take 30 mins in the gym to do what I need to.
I signed up for yoga sculpt teacher training. This was a turning point for me. I start on September 16th & cannot wait to challenge myself & grow in my practice even more. I’ve been thinking about becoming a fitness instructor all summer. I didn’t audition for SoulCycle because of all the reasons above. I felt like I missed an opportunity & another one opened up in front of me & made me feel like I missed the first one for a reason. I am proud of myself for taking initiative & knowing when it is time for a new beginning. Some people are not so lucky to have this intuition, but my timing has always been great. The next couple weeks are dedicated to getting myself in the mindset of a fitness trainer. Someone that can truly balance & health & wellness. I’ve been practicing being more grateful, being more organized, & taking time to write down everything. I am so excited to share my experiences with you again.
