January Review

I keep going back and forth about what I want to do here, if I want to write at all, what I want to document, because it still feels like another chore, and I've decided that at the bare minimum I can document my goal/word of the year/etc progress month by month. So here we go.

Word of the year:
Listen

Intentions/Goals:
Reach out /// Manage money
Cook new things /// Create more
Scroll less

My word of the year is working well even when I forget about it. As I mentioned probably numerous times to people around me and on here, I have been going to a counselor and working with her has been so phenomenal to the way I process my thoughts it's life changing. I still get lows and I still spiral from time to time but it's not nearly as much as now I have set an automatic habit of questioning certain thoughts as they pop into my head and thinking about why I feel crabby or sad or anything else and what negative beliefs about myself I am holding on to when I'm feeling low. My spirals are more shallow than they were before, I can snap myself out of some of them, I can figure out what I need to do next, I can explore what triggers that specific feeling and I also have this awesome sense of confidence growing. I have new positive messages to be replacing the old negative ones with and I am so grateful. Life. Changing. My hope is that by the end of the year I will be even better at managing my lows and spirals not just through thought practices but also better eating and exercise. With that I really look forward to the positive inner mentor showing up more. I'm looking forward to getting a sense of who I really am underneath all these things I've held myself contained with. Some hard work is being done and it's so worth it.

Intentions and goals:
I have been reaching out here and there pushing myself beyond my normal boundaries and comfort zone. I am taking more dance classes because I love them and while that may not seem like a reach it really is. I am allowing myself to not be as good as I want to be, to show up and practice and embarrass myself in order to get to where I want to go, and to do what I love to do.
Managing money has been going really well. I have a goal of how much I want to make in the next year, I am listening to a lot of podcasts about it, I'm keeping positive thoughts around it, I am writing down my credit card balance weekly and watching it shrink little by little. I'm liking the process, the shift from thinking of money as a drag to something exciting is a journey for sure, but I can't want to see what it brings.
I do this in waves. Sometimes I just get in a cooking mode and make 4 new things and other times I do the same old same old. I have been incorporating kale into some of my meals, tried different kale smoothies and kale and quinoa mixes and haven't been too disappointed yet.
I don't know that I've been creating all that much. I'm still figuring out my schedule of taking care of my big goals and creating doesn't have a good spot quite yet. But I'm working on it, always on my mind.
Scroll less.... well, I can't say I'm as good at this as I want to be yet, but I did mute a lot of people on my FB feed, I added a couple groups that were about goals and community and I have been paying more attention to when I get glazed from scrolling and reading too many things. It's in motion, I could do better, I'll get there sooner or later.

What else has been going on? Well February 1st I started Chalene Johnson's 30 day challenge and it has been pretty awesome so far. I will probably be sticking with her goal achieving process for a while. Through her program I have figured out 10 goals that I am working on, one of which is an overarching Push Goal which helps a lot of the other ones fall into place. I was going to wait for my birthday to start really laying down my measurable goals for the year and beyond but this came at the right time and now for my birthday I'm just going to have a list of fun/silly things I want to do in my 30th year. Pretty pumped about all of it.

Other goals and things:
Started a plan for drinking more water. It's going really well for the first time ever!
Working out with a trainer
Going line dancing once a week at least!!!
Started really searching for my next job. March 31st is my last day at my current one.

Other things I'm thinking about:
Mindfulness/Meditation and Living in the present
Drinking more water
Eating at least one green a day... eventually one with lunch and dinner (progress is a slow process with me and veggies)
Getting back to the things I love
Intentions and Values

In less than a month I'm going to be 30!!! Crazy. Awesome. I'm ready for the next decade.

///

It's Okay

I've been taking pretty good care of myself lately by getting some counseling sessions in, doing some horseback riding lessons, signing up for a personal trainer to kick my butt and binge watching all six seasons of Parenthood in a little over a month. But I know that sooner or later there will be something that makes me sad, and tears will come. Part of the reason I've been feeling so good lately is that when those times come I don't get mad at myself anymore.

We've come to a place in society where we don't want people to feel sad so we try to bully or "inspire" them to choose happiness instead. Happiness can definitely be a choice, and sometimes you really do just have to keep pushing on, but I think that in pushing on all the time and "choosing happiness" we have forgotten how to acknowledge, respect and process all the other, less pinteresty emotions. Those emotions are just as important, they are just as necessary and they are just as valid as happiness or joy.

Bullying people or glossing over that they don't feel good isn't getting us anywhere. Reminding a friend or a loved one that other people have it worse than them doesn't make the pain go away. I searched on Pinterest for anything that bucked the trend of "I choose happiness" but there wasn't one thing, so I made it.

Sometimes we really just need to cry. Sometimes things don't feel good and we aren't ready to feel better about it. Sometimes we wallow, and the better we are at accepting, feeling (not feeding) and allowing the emotions the space to exist, the better off we'll be. That can seems scary, sometimes it feels like looking into a black hole***, sometimes it feels plain lazy and lame... especially with these perky, "I am in charge of how I feel..." memes popping up all over the place... but I have found that the more I acknowledge and accept, the more I allow and don't fight, the easier it is to choose to be happy another day.

So if today just feels like a huge suckage and the guy (or lady) you like looked at you funny and your soup tasted like crap and someone cut you off and all you can think to do is cry, go ahead. Or even worse if your pet is sick, or something you tried really failed, or if your world really feels like it's falling apart despite your privilege of not being a starving child in China, choose tears. I don't blame you at all.

///

***if it really does get too scary and you feel like facing it could be detrimental to your health or living, please, please, please reach out, there are options other than hiding/ forcing or ending. Get a helping hand to guide you through.

Nashville: One Year

I can't believe I never wrote this, okay I can. I hesitated. I started and then I deleted. I started again. Then I deleted again. It's now been a year and three months. Am I ready to jump in to what the first year was like yet?

I'll give it a shot.

Disclaimer: This isn't actually a post about Nashville, it's a post about me and what I have learned about myself in the past year of living here.

My first year in Nashville was a mix of findings, feelings, and emotions. I came here with a pretty specific kind of life in mind. Wide open spaces, people that loved and rode horses, country music, huge trucks, country guys like the ones you see in movies and well, everything you think about when you listen to a country song. Bonfires, dancing in dirt by the light of pick up trucks, lots of laughing and love and southern drawls.

Sue me, I was living in a romantic dream of pop country songs when I came here. Unfortunately, when it came to those dreams, Nashville did not deliver. I'd love to say that I got over it real quick and figured out what else was here, but instead I spent a lot of time wondering what the heck I was doing. I didn't want to move home really, but I wondered if there was somewhere a little better, a little closer to the movie montage, country soundtrack my idealized dreams were.

While that inner struggle was happening I made some friends, I found a couple of people that were willing to go to a line dancing bar about once a month, I found people that loved taking pictures of where they lived and finding new spots to explore, I found a couple of jobs, and I found myself with a lot of time alone. My unhappiness and frustration got worst before it got better and in that I finally really learned the lesson I hadn't been getting for years: Happiness is not solely decided by where I live. Nashville was not my knight in shining armor waiting ready on gallant stead to sweep me away from my dissatisfaction with myself. I did not leave the things I did not like about myself in San Diego or in Portland, they came with me, somehow they fit in between me and the cracks and crevices between all that I owned in my car.

So what then? Looking back I think I bounced my way through the stages of grief. It wasn't just that Nashville was completely different than what I had wanted it to be, it was mostly that I was not magically altered into what and who I wanted to be when I moved here.

I came to a place of anger, frustration, sadness, and sometimes tiny moments of content when driving through a really gorgeous place. I felt like a hot mess. That place wasn't new for me, I'd been there before, in San Diego, in Portland, in San Diego again, in Portland again...back one more time to San Diego, and then Nashville. I don't know if I've just gotten a little more tired in my old age or I'm finally ready to start being more financially stable, but I knew this time that moving wasn't an option (or the answer). The only way out of the hot mess of emotions was through. And I needed help that I hadn't been able to find before.

Almost exactly twelve months after I moved here I started seeing a counselor. It has been the best decision I have made. While I haven't given Nashville much credit for a lot of things I will give it credit here, it was the place I found a counselor that worked, it was the place I was ready to really start doing some deeper work, and it was the place I stopped paused in running from myself.

So where am I at now with Nashville? Well, I'm exploring again, I'm accepting that stores and fancy food places are not for me but that museums, parks and events are. I'm blogging for a local real estate company about a town just a few minutes north of where I live. Another thing to credit to Nashville, it was here that I started getting paid to write and explore!

I'm working on strengthening friendships and going to events that will put me around people in similar situations with similar intentions and goals and I'm doing my best to see the good and accept the rest.

I've gone home a few times since I moved, and while I miss it like crazy and In Cahoots makes me consider moving back home, I still have a lot of work to do here, and while I know that no place was going to make me happy, I do wonder if maybe the distance gave me the room I needed to start making some changes, and facing what I had tried to squash for so long.

I'm not yet convinced that Nashville is the place where I will finally settle down, but it's where I am at for now. And if/when I leave, it won't be running.

///

Word of the Year

I've gone back and forth over the past few years with choosing a word. I would think and think and force and force and decide on one just to forget about it or come to hate it. I picked words I thought I should pick, ones that would push me to be better or more. I think that's the exact opposite of what I was needing. Last year I didn't really choose a word, I think if I were to choose one now for then I would say "through." As in, keep pushing through, don't make another big change, don't move because it isn't what you thought it would be, keep going. If you're going through hell, keep going.

It wasn't the most fun of years, and if I had known that was my word at the beginning I might have felt sad about it, but now it's the end and yay, I went through!

This year I wanted a word again, I wanted to find one that inspired and held me but didn't push me rudely. A want and even more so, and intention instead of a should. I thought and though (like years past) and I let a couple sit that felt good, and as the clock struck 9pm on New Years's Eve I thought I had it. There were two words, Reach and Nourish, and they were good. They felt good, but they didn't feel good without the other. I know that with these practices you can make the rules as you go and there was nothing wrong with having two, but it still didn't feel quite right.

I sat down to watch a movie and brainstorm for the new year, I sent a couple texts and felt a little discouraged about something else, and it was in that discouragement, while walking from my room to the laundry (yes I had a wild New Year's Eve) that my word popped in.

Listen.

The discouragement I had been feeling, it was towards an exercise I had tried to do multiple times and couldn't complete. The exercise: a visualization of meeting my inner mentor. I couldn't meet her, I would get to her house and when I would look in her direction it was like a white fog. She didn't tell me her name, she didn't give me a gift, and what was this beam of light shit? I want to meet my inner mentor, I want to connect better to my intuition, I want to move forward connecting better to myself. I was trying to get at that with Nourish. Nourish my body, nourish my mind, take care so that my inner mentor could be seen.

But Listen... man, Listen was even better. That one popped in as the best ideas do. It felt like intuition and not force. It felt right. I put my laundry in the wash and I went back to my movie and felt better. Listen. It's time to listen.

I don't know exactly how I'm going to live that out this year, I don't know what practices I am going to put into place, but I know that when things feel right and when they feel wrong I am going to listen. I'm going to listen to what is really being said by my mentor and my critic, not just the exact words that are played over and over, but why they are being played over and over. I am going to listen and see who's doing the talking, trusting the calm voice over the anxious one.

In 2016 I am going to Listen and in doing so, I believe I will be able to reach and nourish.

Here's to a good year.

///

Lately

I feel like I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off lately and I'm not excited about it. These next few weeks are going to be about making space and time for calm as well as deciding what's coming up next. Changes are on their way, I'm not liking something, so I'm changing it.

Lately I've been...

Listening to /// The newest Mumford and Sons. Nothing much new besides that.

Watching ///
Parenthood - It's the best. I am so addicted and I feel like it's incredibly therapeutic. Life doesn't ever get "easier," it is never without challenges. But that's okay, and for it to feel hard sometimes and to face challenges is absolutely normal, I am not lacking in any adult gene.
Nashville - oh the drama! It's nothing like the city I am a part of, but I am sure me and the singers trying to make it big run in different circles. I did see Deacon out and about a couple weeks ago though. That was awesome.

Reading ///
Big Magic - I have been forcing myself to take a break from self-improvement books but I did allow myself to read this and that was wonderful because it's not like a self-improvement book. I don't feel the need to make a bunch of new plans and then punish myself for not carrying them all out. Big Magic is wonderfully inspiring in the calmest of ways.
See Me - I have been finding myself missing the beginning of this story the past few days. This is a little bit of a who done it which I don't feel like is typical style of Sparks, but it still kept me up reading for hours.
The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe - Fun easy read, wonderful and funny storyline. Chick lit definitely.

Cooking///
Cashew Chicken
Baked Apple Cider Donuts
Chicken Avocado Lime Soup
Pra Ram
Blueberry Muffins
Noodle, egg and spinach soup
M'Jaddarah
Peanut Butter Banana Bites

Thinking about /// How strange people can be to guard themselves. How beautiful life can feel. Also how hard it can feel for almost no reason.

Loving /// Fall weather, changing leaves, you know, the basic stuff.

Looking forward to /// More Fall weather, stick with us please!!!

xoxo

Fixed

Burn out. Burned out. Going through chunks of the day forcing myself to focus, wondering what in the hell I am doing. I feel like I keep pushing with all my body weight but I only get an inch further after hours and hours of exertion. My body isn't fighting what I need it to fight for several months now. Reason: Stress.

When I start to get burned out I try to find answers and solutions, I try to find where I am putting too much in and getting very little out, I try to find where I could work smarter, not harder. I look outside, at jobs (because I often have more than one), relationships, monetary obligations. I find things to blame and then investigate, is that the truth? Or is that just easier to be frustrated with than whatever the truth is.
I was feeling incredibly burned out this past week month, like don't-get-me-out-of-bed-but-wait-I-can't-sleep-anyway kind of burned out. I've tapped my resources, I'm coming up just a little over empty. I thought I knew what it was, I poked and prodded at the situation in my mind, I felt justified and fed up. It couldn't possibly be something in me, look at all that I was doing, making doctors appointments that I had long put off, getting my medications in line, starting probiotics, seeking people in similar situations, finding different options than the dreaded tinder, making plans, reading books, gaining knowledge...it had to be this one thing, right? It just had to be.

And then I was forced to face what I felt so justified against, my scapegoat, the thing I thought was leeching my energy.

I may have been at least partially wrong.

I spent the weekend after asking myself questions, trying to figure out what's really going on and what I want to be asking for. I had more information, but still not many answers. I made sure to take some more time out, got a shift covered so I could go to a dance class I have been wondering about. I agreed to a date, I allowed myself to look for some clothes to add to my limited wardrobe. I added a little bit of fun.
The dance class was amazing, I went into the date with little expectation (necessary when dealing with dating apps) and was wonderfully surprised, made cinnamon rolls for some fellow workers, and still, after those good things, I found myself burned out again yesterday.
I was having a long conversation with a friend covering many topics I don't like investigating, a conversation that, to me, highlighted all my broken parts, all the areas I don't feel sufficient. He was trying to be helpful and offer suggestions and all I could say is, "I've already thought of that" and "I've done/tried that too." I was irritable and sad, burned out on myself and how much there seemed to be left to fix. I felt like I've been working on changing the way I think for years now, that I've been trying to train my brain and wrestle it into submission since I first started battling angst at around 14.
The wrestling, the submission, that's the burn out. The thinking I need to be fixed and there's just so much to do...

It needs to stop.

I left my face-in-hand burn out posture and got in my car to go from one job to the next and I thought about the words I was using to describe myself. I had to be "fixed" in order to be happy. How awful is it to feel constantly broken, in need of tweeks and tape.

I've been able to pretend from time to time that I don't think that I need to be fixed anymore, that I am enough, as is, demon/baggage/perfectionism gone. I've kept this up for months at a time, usually when I move somewhere new. Byeeee excess baggage, you can stay in whatever city I left. But that's just another wrestle. The "you are lazy" plays alongside the "you aren't fulfilling your potential" tape softly in the background, so soft that I don't even realize it's there until I find myself staring at a computer screen, forcing myself to work while holding back tears I don't understand.

I'm tired. I want to work with myself, not against myself. I don't know how people let themselves off the hook. I've tried, I've read affirmations, I've said affirmations out loud, I've talked to people who think I'm pretty decent wonderful, I've thought I was pretty decent awesome for hours at a time. But it still in the back ground it softly plays, "time to do some more fixing if you want xyz".

Despite the burn out I soldier on. My work gets done, I laugh and cry and keep going through the motions. I look for new things to try. Reasons, explanations, and probably quick fixes.

I've sat on this post for a while, I don't want people who are just getting to know me, or who don't know me at all to think that this is all there is. On the other hand I do want to write my truth, I don't like pretending that everything is sunshine and roses when it's really a little gray and tumultuous, and also, I hope that it's helpful for other people in 20's wondering if they are alone in their burn out.
I don't get to hid behind/escape with alcohol and bar crawls, fancy food and laying out in the sun, my body basically forbids it. I've decided that this is prevention for a mid life crisis, that when I really figure out my voice, my needs and wants, and get through the cyclical burnout, that I'll have made a really incredible foundation for the rest of my life. No red corvette needed.

I need to decide what works for me, and stick to that. Is that a start? Can we call it something other than a fix?

xoxo

Golden Coast Road Trip

(pictures lost in blog transitions)

This trip was a whirlwind to say the least. Getting off the plane to light, humidity free sea air, three days home in San Diego saying hi to family, getting meals, spending a night at my favorite country bar, tearing up on the beach at night, and then getting into my rental car to drive up the coast. Stopping in Santa Monica for Pier Burger and some pictures, staying with a friend half way between San Diego and San Francisco, in wine country. Then heading out early to make a pit stop at Montaña de Oro, getting back on the road making slow time to San Francisco. The colorful houses, the Sutro Baths at Land's End... gorgeous places I hadn't explored in visits passed.

Then one of my closest/longest friend's wedding. A beautiful event, catching up with people I haven't seen in years, a little bit of dancing and some donuts. The last day getting up really, really early to see the Golden Gate Bridge from below, walk around Fisherman's Wharf before it really started opening up and then going back to the Sutro Baths one last time to make friends with the crabs and walk across the ruins.

Stopping off for some last minute chatting with the new bride and groom and then getting back on a plane to Nashville.

This time was for adventure and celebration, next time will be for catching up.

xoxo