I’m coming clean. Foggy, disconnected, and lost is how I spent a solid 10 months. This post is not a woe-is-me pity journal. This is a story of resilience and life-lessons that tie back to weight loss, confidence, and reality.
Around the end of 2015, I gave up on my own revolution. Yep, the very one I started…this one! In the fitness world, I’m an albatross. I don’t have the great sick pack everyone seems to seek. I don’t teach women how to abuse their bodies with food restriction and rigorous workout plans. Instead, my voice is one of reason, self-compassion, and nourishment. It’s not sexy, flashy, or catchy. My approach is quiet, thoughtful, effective. Even though I’m fine with being “different,” let’s face it: the cold, hard truth is that it is exhausting to continue to walk uphill against a stream of in-your-face marketing for quick fixes that deliver repeat failures, especially when you feel like you are marching alone.
To make my own disposition worse, I continued to compare my business “success” to those who operated differently than I did. I got caught up in likes, shares, follows, and dollars. Ouch. I equated “not enough” of all of those metrics with no impact, so I went into hibernation mode. It was easier for me to stick my head in the sand than it was to look for a solution and face the fact that it was GOOD to be different. It was scary to think I wasn’t making an impact with the biggest passion of my life: helping women feel at home in their minds, hearts, and bodies. I quit on myself and the revolution.
So I decided to get a job. For those of you who are fellow fit pros, this will probably make your skin crawl. I went to work for others, on their terms, at their speed. Being an entrepreneur to the core, I justified it because of the nature of the job. I worked for a publishing company and helped people write and publish their books. Hey, I love to write and read, I love to help people, and I was helping others make an impact. Win-win? For a while.
Over time, the demands of the job slowly zapped my spirit. As much as I loved who I supported, the culture and company fit about as well as an itchy sweater that’s far too small. But I plodded on. Because quitting didn’t feel like an option. Even though I tried my best, I was fired. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it say it actually was a shock and a relief. And it was just what I needed. (It has taken me the better part of 2+ months to actually admit this in a public forum. Getting fired is a huge embarrassment to me and a jolt of shame.)
I will probably call this period in my life the semi-dark one (pre-job to post-getting-fired). I teetered on the edge of not-good-enoughness from “the job” and almost let it spill into the rest of my life. It took fortitude to keep me from assuming that I wasn’t a good enough mom, wife, daughter, friend, and more simply because a job wasn’t a good fit. I withdrew from relationships that I should have worked to maintain. Friends who texted me got delayed responses. Emails went unanswered. Quality time with people I love continued to shrink. I stopped blogging, emailing subscribers, and I barely added new podcast episodes.
Getting fired allowed me to take a step back, learn some valuable lessons, and finally pinpoint trends that I’ve had my entire life.
Here are my main “life themes” as I call them:
- Numbers really aren’t my friend! I’ve spent years of my life focusing on pounds, pants size, calories, barbell size, followers, likes, shares, dollars, authors, hours worked, and more. Now many of the numbers don’t bug me anymore (especially ones related to my body), but it’s important for me to realize that numbers are a theme for me. It doesn’t mean to stop counting. It means to be aware.
- Those numbers translate into me proving I’m good enough. It used to be that if I weighed a certain amount, that would make me good enough. If I lifted enough, I was good enough. If I supported enough people I was good enough. Chasing the good enough trail is freaking exhausting.
- Seeking approval is something I do automatically. Looking a certain way, coaching a certain way, succeeding a certain way, working a certain way are all things I subconsciously feel bring approval from someone outside of myself. Some less than others, now that I’ve been practicing for a while. I seek to the be the “good girl.” I don’t need to be publicly recognized, but I do need to achieve.
So what the heck does all of this mean?
I’ve found my way back to me. I’m out of the semi-dark, and I’m ready to get back to this revolution…our revolution. How did I do it? So glad you asked!
Back in 2011, I spent a year losing 70 pounds, I created a 15-minute exercise for my mind, and I did it daily. This is truly the only reason I’ve kept the weight off and how I’ve managed to create many kinds of healthy relationships in my life (including ones with food and exercise). Silly me forgot that we rarely master these kinds of things, so I stopped practicing. I swept it under the rug. Well, the semi-dark period required me to bring it out, dust if off, and get back in the swing of 15 minutes for me every day. And I was able to find these themes in my life and create steps to deal with them.
What am I doing about these themes?
- remaining aware
- reducing self-judgment
- increasing self-love
- no longer trying to “let it go” but rather “move it aside”
- owning my place in the world, which is helping women
- continuing to be committed to my health and growth
These 15 daily minutes helped me create a Fit Mind, and I’m feeling more aligned with who I am as a person and how I interact with the world.
I’m a mom, wife, daughter, friend, coach, business owner, HUMAN. I’m sick of the glossy life that’s portrayed by the masses on social media. I’m over the “I’m only posting pics of my abs for accountability.” I’ve had quite enough of the silent dogma of the fitness industry. And I’ve decided that life is lived in reality of NOW and not in the would be, could be, should be.
This revolution is ready to ROAR, baby! It feels good to be “back,” to feel like myself, and to be connected with other women again. It feels right to “come clean” that I still have challenges. Some are very personal, but all are universal.
My goal is to continue to be open and honest with myself and with you. I aim to shed light on how our mind plays tricks on all of us but that we can change the course and move forward. I hope to remind you to live in the reality of now, to treasure the present, to hope for the future, and learn from the past. I hope to make an impact, one woman at a time, no matter how long it takes.
Make the commitment to yourself and get the support of a community.
Thank you for being you and for being here. We’re in this together!