Weigh In Wednesday

Okay, I hopped on the scale and broke it!  Kidding, although not really.

I have the number so today that number is 0.  Each Wednesday I will report back--hopefully the number will get bigger each week!

Goal is to get to 20 by March.

Onward!

Tenacious Tuesday #1

Here we are!  Tenacious Tuesday, first installment.

I am not tenacious.  Tenacious is defined as tending to keep a firm hold of something; clinging or adhering closely.  I am resilient and enduring; I am not tenacious.

My daughter is tenacious.  When she wants to learn a new skill, she goes all out.  She wanted to learn how to swing so she did it without stopping until she figured it out and mastered it.  Same with learning to swim and dive.  She does not give up.  

I am not like her.  I am scared to fail so I rarely make progress towards my goals.  By not making progress, I haven't really failed, at least in my mind.  You can't fail if you never start!

Yes, I understand that is a terrible rationalization but it got me here so I guess I should be thankful?

Anyhow, this is how we got here.  A month into my year of progress with very little progress.  Tenacious Tuesday will be my way of keeping accountability to my goals.

Win: I met with a financial planner, twice now!  We put together a budget (I am now on a cash plan only).  She said my situation was not nearly as bad as I think it is.  We will meet again in a month to see how my first month of budgeting went.  

Win: Right after I went to the ATM to get my cash out for the week, I found 5 bucks in the snow!  Yay for me! 

Win: I am making homemade chicken noodle soup for my kids tonight! 

Win: I have been hard at work creating my goals for the next year for my life and business.

Fail: I logged my lowest amounts of steps this week.

Fail: I had to put my gym membership on hold due to the budget.

Fail: I still haven't cleared my driveway of all the snow.

Fail: I haven't worked out in quite some time. 

Well now, that wasn't so hard!  Feels good to have an equal number of wins and fails.

Tomorrow I will start Weigh In Wednesday.  Weight loss is a huge goal that has been holding me down for many years now.  I feel like if I could just conquer this obstacle, everything in my life will sparkle and be perfect!  So not true, but that is how it feels.  I am not one of those women who hopes to love herself once she loses weight.  I do love myself most of the time and just want my insides to match my outsides.  I do want someone to love me one day as far as a romantic partner goes and I would like to offer my best self.  

Speaking of that, I had a great idea for a coaching product: Best Life Yet.  So in order for me to coach authentically and not feel like a fraud, I need to get to MY best life yet.  As a coach I sell myself and clients will know if I am legit or not!

In the future I hope to set more mini goals for myself and then tie them to Tuesdays.  Hold me accountable!

getting focused

So here I am, nearly one month into my year of living healthfully.  I've gained back all the weight I lost on the detox and then some.  I've got nearly zero traction towards any of my goals.  Ugh.  This, unfortunately, is not a surprise.

This is my pattern.  Make big pronouncements and plans.  Then do nothing.  Over and over.  Then I wonder why I'm exactly where I was before.

I think accountability may be the answer here.  That isn't something that I really have, except for this blog.

So tomorrow begins a new feature!  Tenacious Tuesday.  On Tuesdays I will provide updates on what I've been working on.  If I fail to do this, please inundate my inbox with comments and threats!

And Wednesdays will become Weigh In Wednesdays.  I will not be posting my actual weight because it is far too horrifying.  But we will start with 0 and hopefully get that number up to 20 by the time I leave for Disney in March! 

Please keep me accountable.  I need help.  I have no adult in this house to keep me focused (and truthfully, that didn't help even when I did).  Gather around me and kick my ass forward!!!

Also, if you'd like to join my Facebook group, click here!

the most wonderful time of the year?

This holiday season is proving to be a tough one for me.   My ex asked for the divorce on December 23, 2011 around 10 PM.  Nice timing.  No thought at all about how it would impact the kids and of course it was MY fault for making him tell me that night.  Never mind the fact that he had been ignoring me for a week and spent each night in the bathroom till 2 AM texting his girlfriend.  But I digress.

I thought the holidays would be hard last year since it was my first year alone.  But I was so excited about how good life had gotten that I felt pretty upbeat and positive about the whole thing.

This year is not so good.  All the beautiful lights, the songs, the décor--it all is bringing back very painful memories.  And that makes me irate.  Seriously.  Why do I allow a person like that to steal my joy?  Why do I allow his crappy choices to affect me still, two years later? 

I am blessed to be out of that marriage.  I am blessed to parent my children on my own.  I am blessed in my new life.  I know all these things.

He and I had a huge text fight the other night and I had a total emotional meltdown.  After sobbing on the phone with my mom for a while, I made an appointment with my therapist.  :)  Clearly the work is not done!

All I can do is hope that I find true healing at some point and that all this grossness will help me in my business as I coach other women through this. 

But I still wish I could snap my fingers and make it all better.

irrational

I have been feeling irrationally irritated the last week or so.  Not entirely sure why.  It's the holiday season--normally I feel joyful and peaceful.

So what's my problem?

One major source of discontent is the amount of crap in my house.  Seriously, this house is overflowing with crap.  Everywhere I look I see something that should be given away.  A massive purge is on my agenda for 2014, culminating in a garage sale in May.  I hope to reduce the amount of crap by half--how's that for a giant goal?

Another source of discontent is my kids.  I love my kids, just like every other parent out there.  But sometimes being a single mom is exhausting.  I am playing too many roles and it is wearing me out.  I get 7 hours away from my kids each week.  7 hours.  That is when their dad has them so during that time, I spend it running errands, cleaning, working and sometimes visiting with friends.  Not much time.  The rest of the time I am on duty for them, even when they are at school.  If the nurse calls, I am the one who has to drop what I'm doing and take on sick kid duty.  If there isn't school, I am on duty. 

Don't get me wrong--this is what I wanted from the divorce and I don't want it to change.  I would feel adrift if I didn't have daily, meaningful contact with my kids each day.  But once in a while I would like a clean house for more than a few hours, I would like a shopping trip to Target that doesn't end in badgering Mom hard enough to make her snap, I would like to be able to focus on my business for more than 30 minute blocks of time.  Just once in a while.

I need to figure out some solutions so that 2014 can be even better than 2013.

you attract what you put out there

If it is true that you attract what you put out there, I need to seriously look at what I am putting out there!

Since I have been single, I have been on many dates.  Only a handful of them interested me enough for second dates.  None of them turned into a viable relationship.

One theme I have noticed is that I tend to attract emotionally unavailable men.  They seem normal enough but eventually the unavailability becomes clear and they disappear.

I learned while doing my coaching certification is that my top values are humor, playfulness, connection, emotional intimacy and positivity.  I need to be able to honor those values in my daily life, as a mom, with my family of origin as well as in a romantic relationship.

I'm doing pretty good at honoring them now in my life.  I wasn't when I was married, that became clear quite easily once I realized what my values actually were (sad that I didn't know until I was 35!).

I have not been able to honor these in a romantic relationship yet.  No one has been the right person.  I tend to attract very serious, emotionally unavailable men who have a hard time having fun.  They are attracted to me because I am fun and I have a great sense of humor.  I need to stop attracting these types of men! I tell ya, it's like bees to honey.  Yuck.

I am excited at the possibilities this year of determined singleness will bring!  I finally have given myself permission to give up for a year.  It is such a HUGE relief that I really can't express it in words.

My hope is that as I continue to figure out myself and my needs as a 36 year old single mom, I will begin to attract the right kind of man.  A man who loves the Lord.  A man who is wickedly funny and cracks me up.  A man who is up for adventure.  A man who likes to camp and take road trips.  A man that sees my kiddos as blessings.  A man who wants to spend time with me like it is going out of style.  A man who desires an emotional connection.  He's out there.  I just need to work on myself before I can find him.

Why I am not dating for the next year

As I've been mulling over what it means to be healthy, I realized that for me, in this season of my life, being single is being healthy.

I've spent my whole life trying to be something that someone wanted.  I thought that "love" and attention would somehow validate me, make me realize that I am worth it.  It hasn't worked.

Since my divorce, I have had a love/hate relationship with my singleness.  When I was first divorced, I was on a near frantic quest to find someone.  I didn't really want all the relationship stuff--I just wanted to feel wanted.  As if knowing that someone wanted to be with me would be enough to make me believe I was enough.  Didn't work.

A recent strange little attempt at a relationship ended.  Instead of feeling sad, I felt relieved.  I don't really want to deal with a relationship at this point.  I was pissed though, that this little failure made me feel lonely again.  I had done a good job for many months, letting the loneliness come and go without killing me.  It had just become a thing in my life, instead of crushing thing that I obsessed over.  This person had me believing it could be something special and in the end, it was the same old crap.  So I was pissed at myself for falling for it.

So where does that leave me?  Alone.  Single.  I am okay with that.  In fact, I think I NEED this.  So I am committing to no dating for at least one year.  I don't need it.  It stresses me out and puts my head in a place that I don't like.

No online dating.  No seeking guys out.  If Mr. Wonderful happens to wander into my life organically, I will build a friendship with him and nothing more until my year is up.  

This isn't a fear based decision.  It is a FREEDOM based decision!  And coming from a recovering codependent, that is powerful.  

I am too awesome to waste myself on people that don't appreciate it.  :)