REVELATIONS - REAPING THE POSITIVE FROM THE NEGATIVE (ie.I SAY YES! TO ME!)
So...I got home from work last night and did 30 mins of yoga. And then I woke up at 6am today and did my hour Tracy Anderson workout. Day 1.
About a year and a half ago, I bought this program: http://tracyandersonmethod.com/metamorphosis/
It's a 90-day program, sort of like a P90x for women and they have four variations on it depending on your body type (ie., where you tend to gain weight. I'm "Hipcentric"). And I have tried a few times to start it, but have never made it past doing it 3-4 days in a row before stopping the entire program. I did a lot of research on it before buying it and I know it works (even if you don't do her diet plan, which I think is too extreme, but if I eat healthy, I think it will still be effective from what I've read. Other women do this too.)
I'm feeling so good now, and I'm going to make it a big personal goal for myself to do the ENTIRE program. I'm not going to give up my momentum, I'm not going to think about it or complain to myself or feel sorry for myself b/c my muscles are sore--I'm just going to DO IT. I'm not going to TRY anymore. How can I coach others if I am not owning this part for myself? How can I express strong confidence and not have this part of my life worked out? I have to be in shape, mentally, emotionally and physically. I think I'm doing pretty good with the first two, now I need to tackle the last one. I have been sticking to a better eating plan as I work with my nutrition coaches--it's been a week and a half since I had any dairy and almost no gluten. I've also cut way back on the amount of animal protein I take in and upped my leafy green vegetables to twice a day (I put fresh spinach in my protein shakes at breakfast to get that extra serving in--you don't even taste it and I get all the benefits of the spinach mixed with my berries and protein powder! YES!).
And I have a confession to make and a story to share...I have been wanting to do all of this for awhile, but the exercise part has been really tough for me for a long time. I used to be super athletic and toned and after injuring myself years ago through dance class, my workout habits suffered. For awhile I just couldn't work out at all due to injuring my IT band and had to go through a lot of physical therapy, massage and chiropractic. It was really frustrating to me to have to start up again and then have to stop abruptly due to the injury becoming irritated again. It was a constant stop/start cycle so I just gave up. But I finally met a chiropractor who was more holistically minded and knew just what to do for my body and after working with him for two years, he helped get my leg back to 80-90%. I even finally went back to some dance classes this past winter and didn't have a problem.
So for awhile now, I've had no excuse except for my fear holding me back and my resistance. I've been so scared of being a failure again at starting to exercise, or putting in the hard work and not getting the reward I want from it--or the reward that I've been "promised." I have had this kind of thinking pattern about a few things throughout my life. And I was thinking about this last night after doing my yoga workout and realized that this pattern was put into place long ago by growing up with my dad. He would promise me rewards in exchange for me working hard in school on subjects that were tough for me, but then when push came to shove, he would never deliver. Or he would make me needle him for months and work "harder" then finally get him to give me what was promised but he would always flip it and make it seem like I was being greedy or asking for too much or something I didn't deserve. CRAZY MAKING! And I saw in that instant how this programming has been holding me back in this area of my life. But it's crazy b/c it's not me with my father or anyone else--it's me with MYSELF! I'm treating myself like my father treated me and I'm reacting to myself the way I did to my father. Total and complete WOW moment. I had to share.
On top of that, right before I started working out, something a bit disturbing to me happened. I have been going out on some internet dates here and there, have gone out on 4 so far. In any case, one was with this investment banker-divorced guy who lives in the neighborhood next to mine. He is 43 and has three kids (gasp). He was kind of rude to me during the date (ie., was 20 mins late, made some judgmental comments about my career path, didn't walk me home, etc.) But he had asked me to dinner for a second date so I said yes to try to be flexible (everyone can have an "off" day). But then I decided to cancel the day before and asked if we could reschedule because I realized I had packed too much into that day already and would have been exhausted that night. I also was honestly feeling a bit uncomfortable about seeing him again. In any case, he seemed to have gotten a bit offended by my asking for a rain-check and was slightly rude to me again in his response. So I decided then and there to trust my gut and that it would not be a good idea to go out with him again at all.
Since then this guy has been texting me here and there over the past month and a half trying to get my attention again, just sending me random texts with links to music he is working on (he is an amateur DJ) and making comments about my online profile? So weird. I have never answered him. Until yesterday. He sent me a text with another link to one of his songs and I decided to write back and ask him politely to please stop texting me and to delete my number. The guy wrote me back this:
"Is this the crazy, depressed, underachiever, looking for a winner...with looks alone?"
I have to say it stunned me and hurt me more than I thought it would. It was like this man pressed every button I have about my life when I'm feeling down and I couldn't believe that this person would talk to me this way, especially after only meeting me once on a blind date that was innocuous, in my opinion.
So I then wrote, "Please delete my number and do not text me again or I will report you to the police for harassment."
And he answered, "You are a waste of space. Think about that :-) now I will delete your number, crazy."
I was kind of speechless. I am not used to being spoken to that way by anyone but it brought me back to my ex and how he used to always put me down. And it brought me back even more to my father. Now this guy obviously has major issues and I don't care about him at all, but I do care what others think of me and that little girl inside really cared and it really punched me in the gut. His words about being a waste of space and an underachiever really hit me hard. And to suggest that there's nothing more to me than my looks, that was also something that my ex used to focus on, so that hurt too. It really hurt. All of my insecurities about being a failure in life, in my work, in my finances, in my relationships got hit by those statements and the pain was so great that it gave me the final leverage I needed to wake up this morning and exercise. I thought, where do I feel I'm underachieving in my life? Where can I truly do more? Where am I holding back where I know I'm capable of giving and growing instead of staying small? And the exercise thing was there, shining clear as the sun in my face. I thought, I'll be damned if I let this loser guy make any kind of statement like that about me and give him any reason to be even a little right. So I woke up this morning, determined, and I'm going to do it again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and follow through.
It's amazing how the bad statements get replayed in our minds so much more easily and often than the good ones. I'm still wrestling with these negative statements today even though the logical side of my brain knows that they are the words of an immature man who is obviously hurting over things unrelated to me in his life-- but it's amazing for me to see in action how right Tony Robbins' words are when he talks about our relationship to pain and pleasure and how they create leverage for us in our lives on a constant basis.
gummygunk
kianamaiart
