Dancing puts me in a vulnerable position.

• 1. I’m not a small girl. So I feel like its obvious, me, this giant chick on the stage
• 2. Being giant, you are gunna see that a) I’m bigger than others, height and weight and b) you will see I’m not a good dancer (especially since I was dancing with former dancers).
• 3. Others in my dance classes are good dancers. They have danced before and they know what position 1 means.
• 4. I was told when I was younger, and wanted to join ballet, that I cant be a dancer because I’m to tall (Stupid that the things we are told when we are young sticks with us). 

So yah, I’m feeling vulnerable but determined to do it. But this experience got me thinking about my thoughts vs others. What I see is me as an elephant in the room, dancing with cute ballerinas. BUT what others see is me doing well. I got good feedback from my friends. But these crappy feelings of me looking stupid flood other parts of my life too.

For example, at my gym, for the longest time, I always thought I could see my tummy reflecting off the heater that is located on the roof right above me. It literally took me over a year to realize it wasn’t my belly at all, but the big ball I was using making the reflection!

Like what the heck!?

Why? Why do I assume, this big ball is my stomach reflecting? Why do I go to a negative place? Why didn’t see a ball? Why didn’t I see me accomplishing this one work station that I’ve struggled with for so long?

Whhhhhyyyyyyyyy???? 

I’m so annoyed with myself when I realized I’ve been doing this. Nals and I have talked about this (a lot). We always remind each other that we are pointing out negative things and will say “that’s not what I see”. As much as I have focused on trying to be body positive, and not negative on myself, I still find I have moments (like mentioned above) where I still beat myself up. I still see negative things. 

But here’s what I can do:

 1. Listen to the positive feedback

2. Recognize when Im being negative 

3. Continue to challenge myself

4. Remember to love myself 

5. Celebrate my accomplishments 

I know I’m not the only one that goes through this. Please share the ways you challenge your negative self talk and ways you love yourself!! 

Self-care has various definitions depending on which lens you look through Psych Central, Wiki, Mirriam-Webster, Urban Dic.

Psych Central most most aligns with N&K’s definition: something you do merely for yourself in a healthy manner, deliberate, and with personal meaning*. You may be relieved after finishing your to-do list, but this wasn’t done merely for yourself. You are happy you did the laundry that’s been piling up for weeks, but did you do it just for the personal joy?

Why self care?

We’d counter this with ‘why not?’ We spend all day running around, multi tasking, doing what’s expected or asked of us.

Why shouldn’t we do something that’s just for ourselves?

Self care helps relax and de-stress. (Refer to Livescience article and NIMH article.)

How often do I need to do this?

We believe self care should be done daily.

It could be taking 5 minutes to enjoy the unexpected afternoon sun. Doing a facemask with your kid. Having an espresso and cookie (or nookie) with your partner. Practicing your burlesque moves. Singing in the shower. Making your colleagues laugh with a silly joke. Complimenting a stranger**. Taking your pups out for a long hike.

Nals likes to get up early so she has time to enjoy her coffee in the quiet of the morning. Kells likes to take naps on her days off. We like to catch up when we’re both working in the same part of town.

Yeah but isn’t self care selfish?

Absolutely not! As long as it is healthy, done with awareness and has personal meaning. Our old pal Mirriam Webster’s definition. Sure, self care is focused on oneself.

But self care’s focus is not on self-advantage and not with disregard for others.

What’s the Oxford Comma Got to do with it?*

Nothing directly. But self care and The Oxford Comma elicits similar reactions: debates, strong opinions, and misperceptions.

If you do use either or both, do it consistently and with honest intention.

Comment below with how you do self care. Please keep comments PG-13, respectful and on-topic.

Footies
*yep here’s your Oxford comma, folks. Self care consists of 3 separate points: healthy, deliberate and meaningful. Without that last comma, ‘healthy manner’ means that choking down veggies is self care because it is deliberate and meaningful. Add the comma, and you can see that though eating veg is healthy, it may not be with deliberation or personal meaning. Oxford comma, broken down here https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-the-oxford-comma-and-why-do-people-care-so-much-about-it/
** Avoid creepiness.

Soooo, after failing many many times with a workout routine I wanted to try something different. I needed to refocus but honestly, I had no idea how.

1 thing I knew for sure, trying to commit to 3 days at the gym a week didn’t work, committing to one month at a time didn’t work. And trying to eat healthy all day every day didn’t work. I was frustrated with myself. Sooo, I found myself back at square 1 (again). What can I try differently…what haven’t I done…oh wait…I haven’t tried one day at a time. Just wake up, do today. And don’t think about tomorrow, next week, the month, the failures…it wasn’t helping anyways.

Sooo I started by taking a picture for every day I made it…and surprise surprise…they started piling up. Hence the “96 and counting”.

Here’s the deal…with focusing on one day at a time, I stopped seeing failures. I stopped losing hope and started to lose inches. Wowzas!

Through this journey I learned something about myself…

if I’m failing, I just throw my hands in the air and let the failure take over.
I’m not getting to the gym as much as I like, oh well I guess I just wont go.

What’s one workout a week gunna do anyways, might as well just not go.

I eat one cookie…might as well eat 3 more.

And here’s the thing…I generally don’t give up on things, I set goals and go for them, hence having a Masters degree. But for some stinking reason when it comes to a healthy lifestyle, I give up way to easy. Tad embarrassing to admit.

So now here I am…10 months in to a day by day plan…and I going strong…I actually feel like going to the gym, and that it’s part of my routine. New feeling…and a gooder. But here’s what I’ve been noticing lately: I’m looking at myself going: geesh Kells its been 10 months, why haven’t you lost more? Why are you still squishy? Why do your arms still look like that? Why do you still have a muffin top and back fat? Why this and why that…and guess what’s seeping in? Those damn thoughts of well its not working so why work so hard? Why keep going? Why not just be happy with what you got and stop trying? Aaack! Why am I my own worst enemy? WHY!?!?

And I know I’m not the only one fighting with myself.

So why do we do it? Why cant we be happy with ourselves and celebrate what we have accomplished. For goodness sakes, I’ve been going to the gym and living a healthier life for 10 months!! That’s the best I’ve ever done, and all I wanna do is cry about some back fat! It’s so silly of me, I want to focus on the negative, and not all the good things.

One of the issues is that I didn’t recognize the warning signs. I didn’t notice the negative self talk seeping in and taking over. I only noticed the other day when I was at the gym, one of the trainers took my picture for their IG page. Which I have no problem with. BUT when I saw the picture I was horrified. I saw every ugly roll, double chin, chubby legged thing I hate about my body. I was embarrassed to think other people have to see this horrific picture. And that’s when I realized, I am being way to hard on myself. And that others are probably not seeing all these things. So you understand what I mean…here’s the picture:

Yup, that’s it. The picture I was so disgusted with. BUT once I noticed how hard I was on myself, I knew I had to stop and rethink. So let me share with you all what you are looking it in this picture.

Improvement!

Hard Work!

Dedication!

Sweat & Tears!

This is a freaking hard station to do. It’s a good butt burner and takes some practice. I have never done well on this particular station. But after 2014, when I had my car accident and back surgery, I really couldn’t do this station. I started with my feet on the floor, then moved up to the big ball. But I had to keep it pinned on the wall for months. It wasn’t until recently that I was strong enough in my back and hips to move the ball away from the wall and do this work out for a full 2 mins. (ok maybe not the full 2 mins, but pretty darn close).

From all this I realized I need to not only rethink how I set work out goals, but also how I fight the negativity I bury myself in.

Here’s what I’m going to add to my day to day; focus on the here and now plan: acceptance and celebrating what I have done.

But like I said, I know I’m not the only one that has these stupid negative thoughts…so please share with me what you do to fight these silly inner voices? I’d love to know how you all fight the good fight!
Please leave your comment below!