I am learning every day
to allow the space between where I am
and where I want to be
to inspire me and not terrify me.
-Tracee Ellis Ross
You will get there when you are meant to get there
and not one moment sooner.
So relax, breathe, (pray, wait on God)
and be patient.
-Author unknown
HOPE is an anchor for the soul...Hebrews 6:19
I am not hoping to take better care of myself, I am planning on it and HAVE hope that God isn't finished with me just yet!
Waiting is not my cup of tea. Planning is not my cup of tea, and I LOVE sweet iced tea.
I am easily distracted, impatient, procrastinating, and anxious. Down time is uncomfortable. Could this be why we live in chaos? Deep thoughts...
I am excellent and filling (wasting) time...everyone has a gift:-) Completing tasks and staying organized are difficult for me. Writing here=my accountablility!
Self care: Body, Mind, Spirit, and additionally, FUN!
STARTING WITH BODY-
Eating healthy is difficult.
Why can't I stick to healthy eating? Everything that is bad for you is ready quickly.
So this three weeks in my self-care plan, I plan to intentionally eat well starting today with:
DETOX DRINK: lemon, cucumber, and mint; 24 hour waiting period
Made it Sunday, woot woot:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/142004194475874120/
Fix it and Forget it Chicken Fajitas:
http://www.stacymakescents.com/fix-and-forget-friday-crock-pot-chicken-fajitas
Other planning ideas:
http://www.pinterest.com/macck95/favorite-recipes/
http://www.pinterest.com/macck95/whole-30/
SOUP DE JOUR:
saute' carrots, onion, fresh garlic, tomatoes, celery in olive oil til soft
add to organic chicken broth
add spinach and zucchini
cook til done
garnish w/ fresh parmeasan
I knew all that time-wasting on Pinterest when I should have been writing papers would pay off!
Other self-care strategies can be found:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/08/20/3-self-care-strategies-to-transform-your-life/
No better time than the present...
Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching...
-C.S. Lewis
Monday, August 11, 2014
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Living Life: Self Care
Living Life: Self Care
So far, in my blog life, I am averaging one post a year...it looks like I may be overdue for a post. I crack up, because I realize that mostly, I write for myself. It is hard for me to believe there were 260 views of the past two blogs...that made me feel extremely vulnerable, by the way--especially because there was not one comment! Perhaps the lack of commenting spared me from the criticism that I may have deserved? Who knows! (I write for myself, yet, who am I talking to? Strange...) If you know my personality, this makes you laugh. If you don't, you think I am crazy. I can live with that.
What is going on with me...
Since August 2011, I launched into a new phase of life through a part-time position as a School Social Worker. This was a dramatic shift from coordinating Mother's of Preschoolers and pouring into the lives of my household family members. I started my Master's in Social Work at George Williams College, mostly three weekends a month, year-round in order to maintain an educational license to keep my job.
Living on the edge of busyness and chaos...it is what me and my husband of 19 years appear to continuously strive for...why? Personality? ADHD? An odd love for self-inflicted chaos? This one stumps me as it carries baggage for sure. Yet, grace has always prevailed in our crazy endeavors and we continue to trudge on!
Having said all that...I move on to the reason for this post...THE NEED FOR SELF-CARE!
The next three weeks I am chronicling my journey of self-care. My heart is longing to rekindle the relationships that I have sacrificed to this "careerish" journey, my 40 year old body is longing for healthy meals and exercise, and my soul is longing to rekindle connection in my walk with God and allow him to center me in his will.
This blog will be my accountability and my journal for me. If you happen to stumble across it, I would hope that you would feel a spark for self-care as well, as this is the only life that we have and it is important that we get it right.
I love themes so...I think I will sum my thoughts up in quotes:
Feed your faith
and your doubts will starve to death...
-Author unknown
Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.
Truth and courage aren't always comfortable,
but they are NEVER weakness.
-Brene' Brown
So far, in my blog life, I am averaging one post a year...it looks like I may be overdue for a post. I crack up, because I realize that mostly, I write for myself. It is hard for me to believe there were 260 views of the past two blogs...that made me feel extremely vulnerable, by the way--especially because there was not one comment! Perhaps the lack of commenting spared me from the criticism that I may have deserved? Who knows! (I write for myself, yet, who am I talking to? Strange...) If you know my personality, this makes you laugh. If you don't, you think I am crazy. I can live with that.
What is going on with me...
Since August 2011, I launched into a new phase of life through a part-time position as a School Social Worker. This was a dramatic shift from coordinating Mother's of Preschoolers and pouring into the lives of my household family members. I started my Master's in Social Work at George Williams College, mostly three weekends a month, year-round in order to maintain an educational license to keep my job.
Living on the edge of busyness and chaos...it is what me and my husband of 19 years appear to continuously strive for...why? Personality? ADHD? An odd love for self-inflicted chaos? This one stumps me as it carries baggage for sure. Yet, grace has always prevailed in our crazy endeavors and we continue to trudge on!
Having said all that...I move on to the reason for this post...THE NEED FOR SELF-CARE!
The next three weeks I am chronicling my journey of self-care. My heart is longing to rekindle the relationships that I have sacrificed to this "careerish" journey, my 40 year old body is longing for healthy meals and exercise, and my soul is longing to rekindle connection in my walk with God and allow him to center me in his will.
This blog will be my accountability and my journal for me. If you happen to stumble across it, I would hope that you would feel a spark for self-care as well, as this is the only life that we have and it is important that we get it right.
I love themes so...I think I will sum my thoughts up in quotes:
Feed your faith
and your doubts will starve to death...
-Author unknown
Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.
Truth and courage aren't always comfortable,
but they are NEVER weakness.
-Brene' Brown
Friday, January 4, 2013
Backwards Design
I remember being a child and idealizing adulthood. "When I grow up...I will...drive a Porsche...or stay out as late as I want...or have 20 children...go to Disney every year...or have ten puppies..."
Abruptly you realize that:
8Your red minivan "loser-cruiser, grocery-getter" is not a Porsche.
*Staying out late is overrated and create bags under my 40 year old eyes.
*Three children sometimes feels like three too many.
*The lines at Disney are killer.
*One dog gets on my every last nerve (especially when the snow starts to melt...)
In the midst of a normal day-in-the-life of overwhelming adulthood, I yearned for a simpler time when laundry was magically done and meals were provided. (Could jail be an option?) I realized that I was a cranky, unhappy adult. I was not behaving like a loving, blessed mother and wife. Reality hit me~the grass really isn't greener on the other side~now I get it! There was something in my reality- tv life that was way outta whack...I was not loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, or full of self-control.
Much to my dismay, I figured out, it was ME! I wasn't congruent~what I believed on the inside was not what I was living on the outside! There was a gap between whom I was and whom I should be.
2 Timothy 3~describes the terrible state of the human condition:
In the last days, with strong language~consumed with self, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient, ungrateful, loveless, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, rash, conceited...having a kind of godliness, but denying its power~have nothing to do with them.
OUCH! That hurt.
Solution? Backwards design ("Understanding by Design~Wiggins and McTighe, 1998). It is an educational term, but I think it applies...(my husband is an educator, so I know many million dollar words and acronyms!) It simply means:
~BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND.
I don't want to have regrets or waste my time pining for what I do not have, not an easy task...
So, upon this new year of new beginnings, Ralph Waldo Emerson says it best:
Abruptly you realize that:
8Your red minivan "loser-cruiser, grocery-getter" is not a Porsche.
*Staying out late is overrated and create bags under my 40 year old eyes.
*Three children sometimes feels like three too many.
*The lines at Disney are killer.
*One dog gets on my every last nerve (especially when the snow starts to melt...)
In the midst of a normal day-in-the-life of overwhelming adulthood, I yearned for a simpler time when laundry was magically done and meals were provided. (Could jail be an option?) I realized that I was a cranky, unhappy adult. I was not behaving like a loving, blessed mother and wife. Reality hit me~the grass really isn't greener on the other side~now I get it! There was something in my reality- tv life that was way outta whack...I was not loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, or full of self-control.
Much to my dismay, I figured out, it was ME! I wasn't congruent~what I believed on the inside was not what I was living on the outside! There was a gap between whom I was and whom I should be.
2 Timothy 3~describes the terrible state of the human condition:
In the last days, with strong language~consumed with self, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient, ungrateful, loveless, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, rash, conceited...having a kind of godliness, but denying its power~have nothing to do with them.
OUCH! That hurt.
Solution? Backwards design ("Understanding by Design~Wiggins and McTighe, 1998). It is an educational term, but I think it applies...(my husband is an educator, so I know many million dollar words and acronyms!) It simply means:
~BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND.
I don't want to have regrets or waste my time pining for what I do not have, not an easy task...
So, upon this new year of new beginnings, Ralph Waldo Emerson says it best:
Finish each day and be done with it
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities,
no doubt crept in;
Forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day;
Begin it well and serenely
And with too high a spirit
To be encumbered
With your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Friday, February 3, 2012
LiVinG OuTsIdE WhAt'S InSiDe
Victim.
We are products of our environment.
Hurt by others.
Emotionally abandoned.
Those that should protect us don't heed the responsibility. Sadly, they don't even realize it.
We are desperate for affirmation from someone, insecurity grows and we are uncomfortable in normal situations. We blame people for their normal lives. There exists hate, jealousy, fear, and obsession over losing that person, even though their perfect lives make us so mad inside.
We are too embarrassed to admit it.
We don't experience our own successes and give into the feelings of worthlessness. We long for the love that they have, but don't accept it.
We victimize, in subtle ways...DARE we admit it? We twinge inside, we are aware something we are doing is wrong, but the emotional need it too great to purge the ickiness we are carrying out.
We punish others for their positives (jealousy) and their resources they have no control over (family and friends).
We create problems and entangle others emotionally so they feel compelled not to leave us.
Unfairness.
Conflicted over guilt of the circumstances we are creating that muddy the waters, fear grows and then we step up our unhealthy game.
But, inside, we live in dark shame. Dare we attempt to overcome this?
***Congruence is the state achieved by coming together, the state of agreement. Wikipedia. Webster's Dictionary says HARMONY.***
I remember the moment in time where it was time for me to end the inner conflict and fess up to the emptiness inside. I stumbled across these words.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Phillipians 3:12-14
You cannot believe something to be true on the inside and live something else on the outside and expect that you will have peace...
We are products of our environment.
Hurt by others.
Emotionally abandoned.
Those that should protect us don't heed the responsibility. Sadly, they don't even realize it.
We are desperate for affirmation from someone, insecurity grows and we are uncomfortable in normal situations. We blame people for their normal lives. There exists hate, jealousy, fear, and obsession over losing that person, even though their perfect lives make us so mad inside.
We are too embarrassed to admit it.
We don't experience our own successes and give into the feelings of worthlessness. We long for the love that they have, but don't accept it.
We victimize, in subtle ways...DARE we admit it? We twinge inside, we are aware something we are doing is wrong, but the emotional need it too great to purge the ickiness we are carrying out.
We punish others for their positives (jealousy) and their resources they have no control over (family and friends).
We create problems and entangle others emotionally so they feel compelled not to leave us.
Unfairness.
Conflicted over guilt of the circumstances we are creating that muddy the waters, fear grows and then we step up our unhealthy game.
But, inside, we live in dark shame. Dare we attempt to overcome this?
***Congruence is the state achieved by coming together, the state of agreement. Wikipedia. Webster's Dictionary says HARMONY.***
I remember the moment in time where it was time for me to end the inner conflict and fess up to the emptiness inside. I stumbled across these words.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Phillipians 3:12-14
You cannot believe something to be true on the inside and live something else on the outside and expect that you will have peace...
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