Envision, create & manifest our best selves with the help of friends on the same path; to hold each other accountable, to encourage, to inspire and to celebrate.

When things don’t seem to be going my way (which is very often) I tend to withdraw from friends and family. I know there are several reasons behind this. Mostly it’s because I don’t want to be a downer or a “pity-party”. Especially when my loved ones are doing well.

I feel bad for creating such a great goal here and just letting it sit on all of our lists. I haven’t been the friend I know I can be nor have I allowed you guys that privilage either. Thank you shortstack for the invitation. I really needed a kick in my ass!

About a month ago, I logged into my account here and I just felt totally behind and overwhelmed. I had so many goals- BIG GOALS – and friends that I hadn’t been making time to keep up with. I felt kind of stuck and thats when I decided to clean up here and also create a new goal list for my new self(mmmber). There isn’t a whole lot going on over there but it feels homey already. I hope by the end of the year to make a complete switch. I guess I’m just tired of being BeautifullyAmber(my moniker of several years now) without actually believing it anymore.

So here are my two biggest goals as of now:

1. Allow myself to open my wings and Move to Portland.

2. In this time of transition and uncertainty, allow 43things to propel me further and keep me on track as it once did instead of getting myself sidetracked and overwhelmed. Do at least one thing a day that will help me reachmy goals.

I have a lot of catching up to do around here. =)

“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with friendship.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

A week ago today, I was sure I would be moving out. Not having friends or family (my dad does NOT count) in this city, I figured I would be heading off on a new adventure. To a friend’s place in Seattle or San Francisco? By my uncle in Colorado Springs? Back up to Bullhead? To Madison, WI on my own?

Things are not fully right between K and I yet. There is that tension still. No kissing and way less touching. Our knock-down drag-out fight last weekend really did some damage. And while we have been having spurts of conversation about all of this, I think we’re both standing in the same spot. We both love each other SO much and we want this to work so we’re willing to give it another go. We want to learn from this. We want to grow. And yet we’re afraid we crossed some boundries we shouldn’t bounce back from.

I don’t know what is in store for us but I want to stay in the moment and listen to my inner-most self.

Is it possible for two people to be madly in love and yet just can’t seem to make things work?

I’ve got another stretch in me. We’re young. We’ve already been through so much together and have grown tremendously. We’re approaching 5 years and while neither of us are the people we were 5 years ago, we still have that bond and drive.

I appreciate all of your encouraging words, thoughts and prayers. I have a pretty nasty habit of withdrawing from the world when I feel down but being able to come here helped. Thank you, friends.

I’ve sat down and tried to meditate a few times in the past but I never gave it the time and dedication it deserved. More and more, I want to find this peace. So, here’s a basic meditation “guide.” It seems like a good start and so I post it here to serve reminder & reference. If you have any guidence to share, I would appreciate your thoughts!

Stolen from ivilliage.com

Basic Meditation
Time Needed: 15 minutes
Materials Needed: Loose, comfortable clothing; a quiet place

The Basics:
This is a basic still meditation technique, meaning that both your body and mind are at rest. Any directions other than breathing are to be followed mentally. You should not be moving during this activity. While we list the time needed as 15 minutes, this same technique can be used to meditate for as little as 5 minutes or as long as you wish.

Instructions:

Find a quiet place. Meditation, especially for beginners, requires a quiet place free from the distractions of our busy lives (cell phones, traffic, family, etc.). As you become more comfortable with meditation techniques, you will learn to tune out such distractions, leaving you open to meditation at any time, in any place.

Get comfortable. Put on loose, comfortable clothing and get into a position in which you feel at ease. Because this is a still meditation, it is important that you are in a comfortable position (you cannot find stillness in your mind until you have stillness in your body). Whether you are sitting, standing or lying down, make sure you are comfortable before beginning.

Find your inner eye. Close your eyes and imagine a dot in the space between and slightly above your eyes (with your mind only, do not strain your eyes or tense your forehead). Now imagine a line from that dot extending in front of you for 8 to 10 feet. This is the path of your inner eye.

Gaze into your path. Mentally, look along the path of your inner eye with a peaceful, sweet, loving gaze. These mental images will help you to concentrate during your meditation. Focusing on the "expression" of your mind as it gazes on this path will help you to achieve and maintain a relaxed state of being.

Quiet your thoughts. When your body is relaxed and you focus on your inner eye, your mind may interrupt your concentration with thoughts about work, families, tasks that need to be accomplished, etc. When this happens, imagine the thought is written on a piece of paper. Then fold the paper and tuck it away, bringing your mind instead to the present, the here, the now and back toward the path of the inner eye.

Find your inner light. As you focus on your inner eye and free your mind from thoughts, you begin to concentrate on your inner light. This is not a search. There is no effort involved. Rather, as your body and mind are relaxed and free, the light begins to gather around you. You may mentally see this light as a variety of colors or patterns as it comes to rest in the space behind your eyebrows. Concentrate on the middle of what you see and allow the light to fill you.

Collect your inner power. When you are ready to complete the meditation, collect the light and power you have accessed. Feel it energize your body and mind with any activity you later pursue. Take a few deep breaths and commit the feeling in your mind and body to memory. It will help you access your inner light more easily in future meditations.

Tips:
Ignore your breathing. While you may want to take a few deep breaths during steps one to three, eventually, you want to reach a point where your breathing becomes automatic and natural, not rhythmic or controlled.
Relax your muscles. Your body should be relaxed and soft. To help you achieve this, wiggle your fingers, wrists, neck, shoulders or anywhere else on your body that holds tension. As you do this, feel the tension leave these areas and your body soften. “

I’m lucky enough to live in the beautiful Arizona desert and the days have been sunny and clear and warm lately. The hills are so green since we had a lot of rain last month and nature seems to be perking up all over. The official start of Spring is less than 2 weeks away and there’s something about it that just has me smiling. I’m pretty much a broke bum right now but even that can’t bring me down. I don’t know if it’s because I’m excited to see Matchbox 20 on St. Patricks Day or if there’s a Lent mood about March that I haven’t picked up on before or if the sun is calling me but it just feels like growing time.

I weigh 215lbs. I’m 5’7” and I’m 24 years old.

I don’t care how healthy I think I am, with those numbers I am asking for trouble. I’m not old by any means but I am already starting to feel like I am. Like I said to our friend GazeboGal: I can feel my excess weight jiggling and holding me back when I want to run on my hikes and I realize that this is NOT the body I am meant to have.

I realistically need to lose 60-70lbs. Wow. That’s like a large dog living inside of me. I just walk around with a Collie on my ass and think its pretty? 70lbs is equivilent to what, a 5th grader? An 8th grader? I don’t know but I know that I carry 70lbs of shame and regret and pain. When I was 12, my world came crashing down and I decided to hide and I think its time to let that little girl free.

Okay, okay… so what is all of this rambling about? I obviously have food/image issues that I am diving into.It turns out that GazeboGal has about 60lbs to drop as well. Bless her soul, she feeds her family incredible meals and won’t give herself the same love. So we’re going to do something about this. Knowing is half the battle and we are well aware of how unhealhty we are and how it will hurt us and our loved ones later, if not tomorrow.

And so I come to you all, my friends and inspiration, and ask for your help. If there is anyone else who has a weight loss or fitness goal that you are READY to embark on, join us! Based on our individual goals, I would like to set up group goals to rally behind. We can become familiar with each others challenges and motivations and we can choose the best way for us all to reach our greatest goal of being healhty.

For those of you who don’t have significant weight loss goals, I ask for your love and patience. I wonder if you could stop by and say hey, what the heck have you done today to make this goal a reality? Hold us accountable! Yet forgive our downfalls and encourage us to just move along.

I know a lot of us prepare our meals and home and we try to use fresh ingredients that are good for us. Some of us even have recipe goals such as trying new recipes or making/keeping a recipe book of favorites. Today, I recieved an e-mail that cirlulates around with instructions on who to send a good recipe to and then others send a recipe to you. How exciting, right! (Leave your e-mail address here if you want in on that and I’m sure either GazeboGal or I will send it to you.) But it got me thinking about doing some recipe exchanges through this group or 43T. Maybe some others have already blazed that trail and we can join in but I would love for us to try out healthy recipes and share them with one another and offer feddback, etc. Tell me what you think!!

So for all of this stream-of-consciousness rambling, what I’m saying is: I’m setting a health challenge for those that need it and I know that together we can make our vision a reality.

I look forward to anything and everything you all have to say about any of this. =)

Tuesday, Feb 12, 2008

Today’s a good day for taking an honest look at your own attitudes and behaviors and trying to discover some new truths about yourself. By learning to understand some of the more hidden aspects of yourself, you could completely change how you think and operate right now.

You could encounter someone today who causes you to take a much closer look at yourself, or you might even end up having that kind of effect on someone else. You could also end up having a few new ideas about how to better handle your whole financial picture today.

I don’t know what to do about my job, guys. In some ways I enjoy it tremendously but in many others I feel drained, over-worked and under-appreciated. I am a team player and always have been and often put myself in positions where because I know I can do more, I do.

At this point, I am pretty much the full-time assistant to one of the attorneys. What’s the problem? Well, I’m suppose to be the receptionist for BOTH attorneys, who have their own assistants. But, unfortunately, one of the assistants, the one who helps the busiest attorney, is useless. She’s always late, takes long lunches, disappears on the phone constantly and leaves early without saying anything (and this is nearly every day). She’s rude, she won’t acknowledge anything you say to her, e-mails, or messages. She drops the ball often and just blames everyone else, usually me.

When she isn’t here, who is stuck doing her tasks? And when she won’t speak to clients, who does? Me.

Now last week she pulled so many shenanigans, I thought surely she was done for. But, no. I think everyone would rather just put up with her than find someone else.

I know for sure that I cannot continue like this. I know the job market is slipping and I know that I would hate to leave the legal field because I am very much so enjoying it, but I can’t handle her. I don’t want to walk around with a locked jaw because I’m ready to snap at her. I don’t want to dread walking past her desk (which I must do about 100 times a day as she’s right in the middle) and I’m tired of the “quiet game” she seems to like to play.

I can’t focus and do a good job for the other attorney when I’m always so wrapped up with Dean’s clients and I don’t want to potentially lose my job because I can’t work enough hours to do it all.

And, of course, the other attorney has noticed how much I do for Dean, so instead of confronting the situation, I heard from his assistant that he wants to try to give me more things to do like dictation tapes and whatnot so his half of my paycheck is worthwhile. I understand that completely but I already work late every day and come in MOST weekends. Where am I suppose to find the time?

And I’m just a receptionist making $11/hr.

It seems suddenly urgent for me to purge my 43T list. I feel a bit overwhelmed. My list is completely full and of great goals that I don’t want to give up on. I cannot focus on 43 things at a time- not when most of them are large goals. I need to prioritize and stop feeling suffocated.

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is a process; working together is success.”
- Henry Ford

This quote popped up just now on 43T and, per usual, it’s a great fit.

I feel like I’m coming out of a bit of a slump. It’s been cold (I know, I know, I live in Arizona…) and my job has been tough in a lot of different ways and my home life has been a little off-kilter. My health in December was terrible and I still feel a bit drained from it all. It’s taken all of this month to find my light again.

I decided to stick it out with my job AND to let myself look elsewhere and submit resumes if I feel inclined. In the meantime, my benefits will be in effect in a matter of days and and many aspects of my job are becoming more familiar. And while this thought isn’t very motivational and really goes against most of what I believe: the country is in a bad state right now and jobs may become scarce. I don’t want to be hopping around looking for the best job when a recession hits. Plus, half of my paycheck is paid by a bankruptcy attorney and, unfortunately, there is job security in that.

So, my next best option is doing what I do best- filling my “off time” with things to look forward to. I need to keep myself in mind most. I easily let work take over or decide to just be lazy with Kasra. Love him even though he’s perfectly content in front of the televizzle, haha. I secretly hope as well that as he watches my activity level rise, that he’ll want to follow suit (or, compete, whatever it takes =) ).

Of course my health is very much so on my mind right now. Not eating so much meat has been a tremendous improvement in my energy but I still feel exhausted when I get up in the morning and that’s an hour after I would LIKE to be up. I REALLY need to start taking a class of some sort. Something that gets me pumped because I really do feel great when I exercise. It’s too bad I can only hike on the weekends because nothing beats that feeling when I jog around the base of the hill at the end on my way back to the car… I always feel like I could do it again. =)

I also found FLYlady.net today. If you haven’t been there, go. It’s more than just getting your house in order.

So I suppose right now what I need to focus on most is the moment. I forget often to tune in. To look him in the eyes, to actually listen to the songs play as I drive, to find a way to wake up with a smile. And focus on setting mini-goals that work towards the larger ones. I also need to start reaching out to others because I’m beginning to feel somewhat lonely and friendless. I have aquaintances but I’m higher maintance than that. =)

Thanks for allowing me to ramble. You all rock my socks. =)

Happy New Year friends!! I hope you all had a fun, safe holiday and that you have been particularly open to inspiration lately.

I have declared this year my personal Year of the Green! I am ready to tap into 3 major aspects of my life: finances, enviornment/giving back and living vegetarian/cleaning up my health.

I am so excited to have a partner in Kasra who is willing to try to better some of his habits as well as encourage my goals.I’m lucky to have 43T and you all here in particular to inspire me with your everyday awesomeness. I’m also proud to know that I am always stronger than I think.

I wish you all the best year yet- and not in a lucky kind of way.I mean in a real tackle your goals, surprise yourself, keep your ass moving and your eyes open kind of a way. The rest will show up. I hold you in my heart and can’t what to see what greatness we come up with in 2008!

Hello!

I just want to take a moment to say that things are finding their way in my world. My book group is flourishing and I occupy most of my time away from work with a book. I’m adjusting well at work. I feel more comfortable by the day and our christmas dinner helped last weekend. Not that it was perfect, quite the opposite, actually, and I think it bonded us all a bit. I’m recognizing more of what I need to keep me going- space, exercise, organization.And I’m learning to ask for it. I’m trying to be patient. I hiked 2 miles up and down a mountain on Sunday and said mantras the whole time. I felt amazing after- and can’t wait to go again.

I miss you all.

I keep you all in my heart and hope you all are doing well and smiling lots!