live your life with purpose
It was hot. The wedding was at a farm near Clark, South Dakota, a special place for Ryan. It was a small wedding and the wrestling coach officiated. There was a mix of blended and unblended families. Ryan is our nephew. He grew up with …
Tomorrow is June 3rd. Tomorrow is the day my dad died. Tomorrow it will have been 17 years since he passed. Tomorrow will be a hard day. I have to say when I went to the cemetery today, and as I sat there listening to …
Why are bad habits so much easier to maintain than healthy habits?
I would rather sit down and plow into a bag of chips and guzzle a bottle of wine, than prepare a nice healthy meal EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT.
It’s a dilemma, for sure. Healthy habits can be scary. Bad habits are easy as pie (see what I did there).
It’s our mind science. When we think of healthy habits and think of having to do these healthy habits all the time, we feel deprived. We become completely preoccupied with food, which leads to overeating, which leads to us feeling like shit about our bodies. Because we feel like we have to be so compliant, pretty soon here comes the “screw it,” “this sucks,” “this is stupid,” “why would anyone want to do this?” We become so focused with “doing things right” that we take away from the whole process of changing our habits. We just get pissed off. Restriction is a recipe for disaster. We hate following rules. Food rules especially. We can’t sustain it. We don’t want to.
The bad habits make us feel like we are being defiant, sneaky if you will. We feel like we are getting away with something. It’s kind of exciting. Until it isn’t. We start to feel like crap, our daily life begins to suffer. We become crabby. We yell at our kids. We don’t sleep well. We just feel crappy overall. We can’t sustain it. We don’t want to.
So what do we do? How about we work towards a healthy mix. What’s a healthy mix? This is where you need to experiment. You need to explore. You definitely shouldn’t deprive yourself. Take one day and have some wine and chips. Don’t feel guilty about it. Give yourself permission. It’s okay. Change your thinking. For instance, if you are telling yourself it’s okay to have the wine and chips, a lot of times, just changing that little piece of the puzzle, makes us not even want the wine and chips. We can sustain it. We want to.
Behavior goals can come into play here. Start practicing consistency. Start showing up. Keep learning and improving. Lighten up, relax and have fun. You will keep learning more and more about yourself. Never stop experimenting. Never stop discovering.
My approach is different and I like it. I think practicing the good habits is being defiant. I think practicing the good habits is gutsy, sassy and daring. Be sassy AF!!
I get writing inspiration from my clients all the time. This morning one of my clients and I were talking about things. We always talk about things. A full range of things. I love talking to her. She’s one of my favorite people in the …
Do you ever listen to song lyrics? I mean reeaaalllly listen. The kind of song and lyrics you can’t get out of your head. No, not Row, Row, Row Your Boat (you’re welcome). This week I have been listening to a song. It has …
Do you ever wonder what happened to people in your life? More specifically, people you grew up with. When I was growing up and we moved to the Prospect house, there was a family who lived literally a half a block away from us. The Klein family. Tony and Lavern. They had a daughter my age and another daughter my younger sister’s age. We played with them all the time. They also had other siblings, but they were older, Chris and Cathy, and one younger. Her name was Amy. Barb was my age and Cindy was my sister’s age. They were a strong hard working family with great values.
The house they lived in was really cool. It was green on the outside and you had to walk up about 20 steps to get to the front door. If you went around the back though it was level to the ground. It was an old house with a lot of different rooms. There was even a secret basement. I remember we could go through the kitchen down some secret stairs and then there was a door in the wall we opened to get to the basement.
I spent a lot of time at the Klein house. They had such a cool family. Tony and Lavern were awesome parents. They made those kids work. I remember them having to do the dishes before they could play or go do something. I remember learning a cool trick about dish soap bubbles in the sink. If you used cold water it washed the bubbles down really fast. Hot water made them worse.
I also remember there was kind of a porch room. You had to go through french doors to get there. Right before that was a winding narrow staircase that went down to the basement. The normal people way, not the secret kitchen way. If you went to the left there was a small TV room. That’s where you would find Tony most of the time. I can picture him sitting in his chair, watching golf, drink in one hand and a smoke in the other. Tony was cool. Seriously.
The porch room is where they kept the piano. I always wanted to learn how to play piano. Barb had to practice so I would sit and watch. There was a metronome on the piano, to help keep the rhythm. I used to pretend that I could play. I pretended I could read the music. I may have mastered Chopsticks. That’s the extent of my piano playing.
We used to play outside all the time. The yard was full of fruit trees. Apple and cherry and I think maybe a peach tree too. We used to listen to music and then make up dances to the songs. I’m sure we were amazing.
We were so innocent and we were so allowed to enjoy our childhood. That is called great parenting.
Barb had the prettiest golden blond hair. She was kind of like Skipper, the barbie doll. Skipper was Barbie’s younger sister. Anyway, that’s who I think of when I think of kid Barb.
When I saw adult Barb today, she looked as beautiful as ever. She commented about not having any makeup on. My thought was who cares. She looked great. She looked happy. She looked like Barb. She told me she is living overseas now. She said she quit her job last year and moved. I admire that courage. I love it when people follow their hearts.
I did learn a bit of sad news about her dad. He is struggling with some health problems. Barb was back to help take care of things and for a family visit. It is kind of sad when the tables turn and we, now adults, turn into the caretakers of our parents. Things come full circle and sometimes it really sucks.
So many memories of that family came flooding back when I saw Barb and her mom today. That family helped to shape me and I will be forever grateful for them. They are a beautiful family.
Thanks for the memories Barbie Doll.
Every once in a while I like to share an email that I send to my list of subscribers. I share this because I feel it is an important issue and also that I received a lot of feedback about it. That shows me it …
I am not even going to label my food style. It’s what I choose. It’s how I choose to eat. My eating style has changed in the last year. It is customized for me. I used to eat paleo pretty strict most of the …
I went to Lincoln Elementary School. It is apartments now. It was on Prospect Street. When I was in second grade I had the best teacher. My most favorite teacher ever. Her name was Mrs. Eklund. She was a tiny lady and seemed old, although I doubt she was. She always wore a dress with a belt and nylons. I guess the technical term is pantyhose. I hate that word. It sounds super weird to me, so I’m calling them nylons. She always had her hair pulled back in a low bun. Super professional and such a nice, caring lady. She was such a good teacher and I remember always wanting to please her, and always wanting to do the best I could for her. Something in the way she taught made me feel special. She made me want to work hard. I was just in awe of her. She made every single kid in that class feel like they were the most important kid EVER. I remember being so anxious for Halloween, because her house was where I couldn’t wait to go. She lived on Grand Street. To this day when I drive up that street I always look over to the right and remember Mrs. Eklund.
One day we were doing some sort of project where we had to put everything in alphabetical order. I can’t remember exactly what it was. It seems like it had something to do with Abraham Lincoln. Anyway, instead of listening intently, I rushed through the project and just wrote the words on my tan paper, with the light blue lines and dashes, with my big fat second grader pencil. No alphabetical order for me. I’ll show you how great I am. Look at how fast I am doing this project. Aren’t I great? I just wanted to please her. Once I realized my mistake, I was so mad at myself. My heart sank. Filled with dread. You know the feeling. The one where you kind of get butterflies in your stomach, and the fast heart beat thing going on, because you know you messed up. Sinking, sinking feeling. Because I was too focused on pleasing Mrs. Eklund, I totally forgot to focus on myself. Oh my gosh. I was totally going to disappoint her. I was devastated. I remember being able to fix my mistake, but I wasn’t the first one done. She didn’t care. That’s how she was. Nobody was more special than anyone else. That’s why she was such a great teacher.
I think everyone should have a role model. I think it is super important for all of us to look up to someone and want to have that healthy relationship with them. I believe we all need that. Because human nature.
Buuuut, we should also be able to focus on ourselves and be able to differentiate between ourselves and that special person. Don’t focus so much on someone else and want to please someone else that you lose sight of who you are. Make your own noise. Don’t try to please someone so much that it becomes your be all and end all. We are all unique individuals. God made us that way. Find the balance. It’s there. You just might have to uncover it.
Tomorrow (April 21st) is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 77. Hard to believe. I wonder what he would look like today. My boys looks like him, I think, especially my oldest. My dad was very athletic and super cool. I looked up to …