Forgiveness

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You’re looking for the explanation, the loophole, the bright twist in the dark tale that reverses your story’s course. But it won’t reverse – for me or for you or for anyone who has ever been wronged, which is everyone. Allow your acceptance for the universality of suffering to be a transformative experience. You do that by simply looking at what pains you squarely in the face and then moving on. You don’t have to move fast or far. You can just go an inch. You can mark your progress breath by breath.

Cheryl Strayed

Ever since I got into fitness, I’ve thought about how much it relates to real life, and this quote above explains both life and your workout. Working out hurts for EVERYONE! No matter how much you workout, or for how long, workouts will make anyone sore (if you’re doing it right). Life just like your workouts don’t get easier, you just get stronger. No one chooses pain, of course! But you have the power to choose how long you will suffer. Everyone is going to experience pain at some point in their lives. No matter your walk of life, we are all human beings and because of this we all hurt and we all love. Life, just like your workouts, you can only mark your progress breath by breath. You cannot workout for long if you’re not breathing just like you can’t be living for very long if you stop breathing. It’s so easy to see the negative when you’re hurting, it’s so easy to see all the places you’ve “failed” in life. “Failed” relationships, “failed” career attempts, I can go on. There are twenty-four hours in a day. That’s a long time you can spend focusing on all the things you can’t do, or don’t have, or will never have, how little you have, etc. “Worrying never changes the outcome.” The only thing that brings about change is action. Just like in life, you need to MOVE in order to bring about change in your physical body. You need clear and concise actions geared towards your success, both in the gym and in life. Your lifestyle needs to support your efforts in the gym, and your efforts in the gym need to support your lifestyle. That’s balance, that’s happiness. Everything is connected. Just like Lauryn Hill says, “everything is everything.” Now you might be thinking, what is she rambling on about?

Well, I realized this year that fitness has always been a guiding light for me. No matter how bad things got in my own life, I always knew just how much taking care of myself was important. Fitness taught me that. It taught me about the importance of taking care of myself. This is the greatest gift that God has ever given me. I’ve forgotten that for a bit while I was busy trying to figure out why God was punishing me so much. So busy wondering why I deserved the things that happened to me, but at the same time pretending that they didn’t cause me pain. Trying to be normal, happy, because I realized that no matter how much I tried, there was no one that I knew personally who could help me. And looking back, it’s unfair that I would expect that. How could anyone I knew personally help me? Most of them were going through the same things I was. They couldn’t possibly give me the things I needed because they were busy trying to figure it out for themselves. It’s no surprise that I found myself in this unhappy place earlier this year, or that I’m in the place of healing that I’m in right now. If I was so busy trying to help and take care of all the people around me, hoping that they will do the same for me, who was around actually taking care of me or my needs? Plenty of my loved ones have found the professional help that they needed, and they are where they are in their lives because they got the help they needed. It just took me a little bit longer. I had to tire myself out first by focusing on everyone else except myself; I can be a prideful stubborn little Bitch! Once I exhausted myself, I had no other choice but to put myself and my needs first. I needed to heal myself, I needed to take care of myself. I needed to go back to my roots and figure out what makes me, me. What speaks to my soul, what is my truth.

A big part of doing that, is letting go of my losses, and the stories I’ve told myself about those losses. These stories only created fear and unhappiness in my life. It’s hard to see your light when all you can see is darkness. You can’t possibly be genuinely happy until you learn how to accept your past, forgive, and move on. “When you recognize that you will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows, but because of them, that you would not have chosen the things that happened in your life, but you are grateful for them, that you will hold the empty bowls eternally in your hands, but you also have the capacity to fill them? The word for that is healing.” (Cheryl Strayed). I realized this year through finding professional help, that I needed to let go of my childhood. I needed to let go of the pain that my family had caused me, especially the pain from my Father’s side of the family. The thing is, the same people who caused me the greatest amount of pain, have also given me the greatest gifts. There was only a tremendous amount of pain because there was also a tremendous amount of love. I loved everyone who has caused me the greatest amount of pain, that’s how they were able to cause me such pain in the first place. These things still weighed heavily on my life because I was never able to really come to terms with the things that happened to me. I never understood them. I never understood why it happened? Why I deserved the things they did? The thing is, I may never fully understand what happened. I loved them, they loved me. In our own way we were doing our best to love one another. We are human, and we make mistakes, it hurts the most when these mistakes are so close to the heart. But it’s the fact that we are all human that I was able to find a way to forgive the people who’ve hurt me in the past. I had to remember that even though I loved them, they were human beings who are imperfect. They will make mistakes, and they will most definitely hurt us. They will hurt us when they themselves are hurting. When we are in pain, we end up causing others pain. Especially if we haven’t been able to find a healthy way of dealing with our pain. Denying your pain will only postpone the healing process. Eventually your pain will become unbearable. I know, because I’ve been there. I had to let my pain literally kick me down for me to realize that I can no longer pretend I’m okay. I needed to heal.

I learned about forgiveness as a child. Jesus taught forgiveness, and I was taught the teachings of Jesus growing up. However, there are examples of forgiveness all throughout my life. Life gets harder as we grow older, and so does forgiveness. The more we repeat the pain of our childhood, the harder we become, and the harder it is for us to forgive ourselves and others. A lot of the most powerful/influential people in our world teach forgiveness. Buddha, Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Beyoncé!!!! We put these people on a pedestal, as if they are an exception to the human race. They’re not human, they’re superhuman! But that’s not true. Beyoncé is a human being! An exceptional human being, no doubt. But she’s human. She gets hurt. I think that’s why so many people like to cut other people down. Especially people who seem to “have it better.” It seems like we enjoy reveling in the suffering of others, because for once someone else seems to be hurting more than us. However, that’s not how we should be treating ourselves and one another. If you want to find suffering it will find you! You will see it in other people’s lives because it exists in your life. Soon, your entire life will be surrounded by suffering. Other people who are suffering, who complain about their suffering and you won’t grow. You will shrink. You become small when you think small. Instead, think of the bigger picture. If Beyoncé can survive a very public and humiliating affair, and still find it in her heart to forgive the love of her life?! Well, that’s just beautiful. And it turned into some of the most beautiful works of art too. Like I said above, the greatest pain in our life comes from our greatest loves. That’s why it hurts so much. Jesus suffered and died on the cross out of his love for humanity. He loved us, and because of this he suffered. Some of us did not understand him or his message. Instead we caused him a long and painful death, however, he still found a way to forgive us! While he was dying he asked God to forgive us. We are all human beings, we are all made in the image of God. We all have God within us. We all have good within us. Remember that when you hurt the most. You are a good person, and bad things happen to everyone. The bad things that happened in your life don’t make you a bad person. You don’t need to continue to punish yourself anymore. You can do the best for yourself because you deserve the best. Show the people who hurt you the most compassion, and you will be able to give yourself the same. It is through the most trying times in our lives that show us what we’re made of. We’re made of love and if you can find that within yourself, you can find it in others.

YOU WILL LEARN A LOT FROM YOURSELF IF YOU STRETCH IN THE DIRECTION OF GOODNESS, OF BIGNESS, OF KINDNESS, OF FORGIVENESS, OF EMOTIONAL BRAVERY.

BE A WARRIOR FOR LOVE.

Cheryl Strayed

I became a warrior for love, for myself. Eventually this love for myself, grew to love those who’ve hurt me. One day my love will grow to more people outside of myself. The more I love myself, the more love I will have for others. That’s how it works. You only get what you give. It is the same in life as it is in fitness. The more you give to yourself, the more you will receive. Eventually you will have a surplus where you can then give to others without having to sacrifice yourself. That is the goal. Through the love that I was able to show myself so far this year helped me to see through my pain. It helped me to realize that my Father’s side of the family, even though they may have caused me the most pain, they gave me the greatest gift. They taught me the gift of taking care of myself. In more ways than one! My grandparents took a lot of pride in themselves. They always looked nice. My Grandfather used to dye his hair! I know where I got my vanity from LOL I’ve always admired him. He took care of himself first, so that he can then take care of his family. He’s worked out and has been highly active my entire life. He took care of his health and his body. He is turning 88 this September but you wouldn’t know. He has arthritus in his knee and a pace maker but he doesn’t have a cane. He still gardens, and goes for walks. He is the primary caretaker for my Grandmother who has dementia. I’m inspired by him every single day. He is a good person, who has a tremendous amount of love to give. I know that because he gave it to himself first, and then it spilled over into his life. He’s been living a long and healthy life because he took care of himself. If you take good care of yourself, you will be better able to enjoy life! And that’s really why we’ve all been so blessed to be on Earth! We were put on this Earth to enjoy this world and all it has to offer. The only way to do that is to love yourself, honour yourself everyday by doing good things for yourself, the more you do this, the better your quality of life. When I was writing the “Remembering Who You Are” pieces, I guess you could say this is the final chapter (for now). My past and the people in it have all contributed in a huge way to the person I am today. When you go through shit you learn how to either kill yourself or how to take care of yourself. So far, I’ve chosen to take care of myself. I chose love.

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Trust Yourself, Trust the Process, the Results Will Come

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Originally I wanted to talk about my fitness career and how it has evolved over time to the place where I am now. However, once I started writing this piece I realized that really it’s about how I equated my career with my self-worth. I have never truly admitted this to anyone, and it’s funny how I’m posting it online, but for some reason this just feels right, so I’m not going to question it. I’m sure some of my loved ones already know what I’m about to say because I’ve been circling around it for a while now, but I have been dealing with depression. Tears are streaming down my face as I write this. It’s been really hard for me to admit, and I’ve been trying to fight it as hard as I can on my own but I know now that, that isn’t getting me very far. I do believe that depression is a very personal battle, one that you can only truly overcome on your own. However, not talking about it, or not talking about your fears only makes things harder. It’s like trying to climb a mountain with rocks in your backpack instead of food and water. And man, I’m tired. I’m done fighting alone. I think I knew that this piece was coming, I think I knew in my heart I had to write this, but I could only write it when I was ready. Hence the almost two-week break from my last piece.

I’ve realized that my biggest fears and my greatest joys surround fitness and my career (my career is in fitness) so really they are one in the same. It is very much my personality to always want to be surrounded by loads of people. I am highly extroverted and I’ve never really liked being on my own, until recently. I also have a tendency to respond more readily to outside expectations rather than expectations that I have placed upon myself. I am always the dependable friend who you can call on any time of day and I will be there for you 110%. I think that is why I love my job so much. It is so easy for me to think of others first, and to readily respond to their needs first. This is not to say that I don’t ever do what I want, but for the most part what I want is what others want. These are some of my greatest strengths but they have also been a hindrance for me, because they were always the easy thing for me to do. These things made it easier for me to pretend that everything was fine in my life, and to not tackle the things in my life that worried me the most. It was easier for me to focus on others, a coping mechanism if you will. I knew and/or believed that others needed me, so therefore I had to be the “strong one.” At least this was the expectation I placed upon myself. I didn’t want to burden others with what I was feeling or going through so I didn’t talk about it much, or at least not to the detail I would have liked. I am the type of person that feels this need to be brutally honest about everything. I need to talk about everything, but for some reason there were many things that I had a very hard time talking about. This was foreign to me and it never really made me feel good. But now the “strong one,” feels left behind. It’s no one’s fault, and that I guess is the hardest pill to swallow. It’s really hard when you’ve found yourself in a bad place, a place that you never thought you would be, and then to look back on your life and the decisions you made without shame, guilt, or regret. It’s really hard to not punish yourself, and make yourself feel small. However, what I do know for a fact is that when you find yourself in this place, a place that you no longer want to call home. A place where your fears are big (real or imagined) this is the time where you need to build yourself up. This is the time where you need to be brave. Because you will never free yourself of the regret, guilt, and shame if you don’t forgive yourself first. You did your best with the knowledge you had. Now you know better because you are in a place you never wanted to be in the first place. It is really hard to not take this personally because it is very personal. It’s your life!!! But crying, wallowing, and making yourself feel small will not make these problems go away. If anything they will continue to fester and grow.

I made the decision to be brave this past September. That is when it truly dawned on me that I can no longer live my life the way I was, something had to change. I realized that the way I was living was bringing me nowhere near the life I always wanted. I needed to take a step back and refocus myself onto myself. I needed to take the time to heal, and to realign myself with my core values, with the things that brought me the most joy, with the things that made me feel the most like myself. It started off small. I started to cut out habits that I had formed as a way of distracting myself from my worries and my pain. I then started to get myself to do more fitness classes with my friends, and I even started running outside (in the winter) with my friends. A task I truly hated because I am a terrible runner, let alone running in the cold. But I also enjoyed it because it got me moving. I felt great after every run, and I was so proud of myself for even trying. I also started to really clean up my diet during this time. I really started to eat more vegetarian. I don’t know it just feels right to me.

Eventually, my healing process lead me to make a soul map. This was a powerful tool for me, and it really helped me to put a lot of my thoughts into perspective. My weekend in Collingwood for New Years with my closest friends was the tipping point for me. It was the point where I could no longer hold my bottled up emotions in and they spilled out uncontrollably. Not my finest hour, but I’m so glad it happened. Because it opened up the flood gates and it was really the catalyst to my healing. Ever since that day I have been making a conscious effort towards my healing every single day. I journal, read, meditate, sing and dance, listen to podcasts, do yoga, eat the best I can, and so on every single day. It is because of all this I have been able to face my fears, to be honest with myself, and ultimately honest with everyone else. It is a big reason why these past few blog pieces have been so deep. It just feels right. I’m doing this for me, putting it online, and into the world is so therapeutic to me because the second I hit the publish button it is no longer in my control. By posting it I am surrendering to whatever happens. Not only is that super scary but it is also so comforting too. It’s weird. I’ve noticed that with my last two pieces, yes they drained me emotionally, physically, and mentally to produce, but at the same time they gave me so much energy and happiness. I have not reread them. I might one day, but for now I don’t feel the need to. Also, the song I’ll be missing you by P Diddy and Faith Evans no longer makes me cry. I know that talking openly about my depression will free me from it. Maybe not right away, but it no longer has so much control over me anymore. Even just typing about it at the beginning of this post was such a release. So much so, that I’m not emotional anymore about it (right now at least). I do feel that I can now speak in person to people about my depression and actually call it what it is. It doesn’t scare me anymore because now it has a name.

It has been really hard for me to allow myself to feel the things I need to feel. I’ve been fighting it for so long. I’m naturally an annoyingly positive person and I guess part of me thought that if I allowed myself to openly feel the negative things I was feeling I would no longer be that positive person. I now know that, that isn’t true. How do I know that? Well for starters, just because you aren’t being completely open about your pain doesn’t mean that other people can’t sense it, and no matter how fast you try to outrun your feelings they will always be there. Because you can’t outrun your feelings. If your life is out of alignment with who you truly are (and not who you think you are aka your ego) the universe will constantly remind you. The universe will keep smacking you down until you’ve finally had enough; until you can finally surrender and let it be.

I always knew that fitness and the gym was such a great metaphor for life. It really, really is and I don’t care about how corny it makes me sound. First of all, one phrase that my coach would always say to me when I was training for my bodybuilding shows was “trust the process.” I will never forget it. I fully trusted the process when it came to my bodybuilding training and I followed his guidelines to a tee! I did EVERYTHING HE SAID AS BEST I COULD and I knew that the rest would follow. I knew that if I put in the work, the results would show, and well… It worked! Man, I went from 8th place Bikini in November 2014 to second place Figure in 11 months! I look back and it makes me laugh that I had so much trust in myself, my coach, and the process when it came to bodybuilding but I had a hard time applying that trust to myself when it came to my career. It makes me sad that I allowed the negative experiences in my career that I came across post university to have me questioning myself, and the process. It’s a trap! It’s really hard to not take events that happen in your life, especially negative events, personally. It’s really hard to separate yourself from the bad job, or bad boss, or the fact that you’re not making any money. I’ve experienced all of those things trying to “make it” in the fitness industry. I always knew this was my calling, but I didn’t realize how challenging it was going to be. Instead of taking these experiences as lessons, and motivations to work harder to get past the grunt work and into the light, I allowed myself to become arrogant. I allowed myself to become a victim of circumstance, and because I was thinking of myself as a victim, all the terrible things were happening to me. In my mind, I wasn’t doing it to myself but rather life was doing it to me. I was thinking that I should be farther along in my career, not realizing just how much work is involved to really “make it” in any career, let alone my own. For some unknown reason I thought I deserved more than what I was getting. I’m re-learning that things don’t just come to you. I’ve always known that, but sometimes when you think that life has gotten the best of you, it’s hard to see through the fog of your own mind. Like I said before, put in the work and trust the process, the results will come. The more clear your are with your outcome, and you have aligned everything in your life with that outcome, eventually you will succeed. I’ve been there, done that, and here I am doing it again. I’ll be doing this process again and again for the rest of my life. The only positive is that I know what it’s like when you don’t trust yourself and the process, and I don’t ever want to feel that again. I can’t promise that I never will, but because I’ve learned it once before, it will be easier in the future to keep the faith.

The second major gym metaphor/lesson that I’ve learned is that failure is good, and if anything its welcome. The only difference is, failure in the gym doesn’t hurt as much. I mean it hurts! But in more of a physical sense, it BURNS!!! But it doesn’t have a lasting emotional and mental pain that failure can have in real life if you allow it to. Failure is essential to your physical fitness. You need to fail in order to fully understand where your fitness ability lies. You will never know how much you can physically do until you do it until failure. That’s when you know where your physical breaking point is, and you can only build from there. Literally, your muscle’s potential for growth if you do an exercise to failure is exponential! Getting to failure in the gym is HARD! It hurts A LOT! And the whole time your brain is screaming MAKE IT STOP FOR GOD’S SAKE!!! Man, I remember my coach would make me do bicep curls until I physically couldn’t curl anymore. Then he would help me get to a static bicep curl hold and make me hold the bicep curl until my arms fell limp. Like noodles. They would just fall and I couldn’t stop it. He was like “you’re not done until you can no longer physically curl your arm.” Damn… most people don’t get there. I did, several times. It hurt so much, but at the same time it felt oh so good! Why? Well, first of all it was over! Thank God! The pain was over, and all the was left was this feeling of exhaustion and accomplishment. Holy shit! I’ve never pushed myself so hard in my life and it feels so good! Now, apply that to your life. Sounds simple right? Nope it’s not. It hurts a lot. I would argue that it hurts more. If you fail in real life it’s not just you who may feel the impact of your failures and that sucks. However, what I’ve come to understand is that failures and obstacles are brought into your life because you were meant to overcome them. And they will keep manifesting in your life until you learn to overcome them. They are lessons. It is when your fighting through the pain, the fears, this is where you have the highest potential for growth. Failure informs you of what you’re capable of, the same way failure in the gym does. It took me some time to really understand this. The more you push yourself out of your comfort zone and risk failure, the more potential you have to grow. I see that now. It’s hard, and I’m still working through it but if you truly want to have an exceptional life full of purpose, you need to fail. Failure is good, and it is welcome, a new mantra to live by.

There was a full paragraph that I edited out where I was outlining the points in my life where my depression was the most apparent. I was describing the times where I wasn’t writing my blog regularly, working out regularly, etc. I’ve realized that no one cares, and I don’t need to prove to anyone that I am no longer living that way, so I deleted it. Happiness, success, love, they all speak for themselves. These are all the things I will forever be working towards. To me happiness is balance, and what I’ve learned recently is that balance is a verb and not a noun. You must always practice balance, because the second you think you have balance, you’ve lost it and you need to find it again. I’m proud of myself for the progress I’ve made, and I know that my depression does not define me. I know that even though I’ve been suffering from depression, I’m still a positive person. I’m still here, fighting through the pain, and trusting the process, the results will come.

 

 

 

A letter to One of My Biggest Heroes; A Warrior for Love <3

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Dear Nonna Battaglia,

I think this will be the last blog piece that I write in letter form (for now) and it’s to the most influential person in my life. I never fully understood just how powerful of a person you are for me, my Mom, and so many other people. As you know, I have been doing a lot of self-healing lately through various practices, music, meditation, yoga, journals; you know because you’ve been there with me the entire time. I don’t need to tell you, but I will anyway. Last Wednesday I was listening to Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations Podcast with Cheryl Strayed. For some reason the title and description of this podcast struck me, and that’s how I started my day while I made breakfast. Last Wednesday also happened to be the anniversary of your death. Cheryl Strayed is a New York Times Best Selling Author who had lost her mother at a young age to cancer. My Mom also lost you at a very young age but I didn’t think too much about that when I decided to listen to her podcast with Oprah. While listening Cheryl said something that for me was so powerful, I had to pause the podcast because I was overcome with emotion. It was as if she was speaking to my soul when she said, “are you brave enough to break your own heart?” Immediately after I was finished listening to her podcast I decided that I needed to buy all three of her books that day, and that my mother had to listen to this podcast as well. That’s how moved I was. I called my mother in that moment and told her that on our way to the cemetary to visit you, we needed to stop by the bookstore so that I can buy some books. Coles Notes: once I got into the car with my mom at the train station I put the same podcast on and I made my mom listen to it, then we went to the bookstore where I bought the books Wild, Brave Enough and Tiny Beautiful Things. I gave the book Wild to my mother as a gift, and I kept the other two to myself.

When we arrived at the cemetery to see you, the mausoleum doors to your crypt were all locked. It was weird because it wasn’t closing time, but there was no one around so we got back in the car and went to my mother’s house. My client had canceled her session with me, so I decided to start reading Brave Enough and I was encouraging my mother strongly to read her book Wild. So much so, that eventually she got upset and said, “What? You want me to read this book because you think I have a problem?” Immediately I realized my own arrogance and I apologized, “Mom, I’m so sorry that I gave you that impression. I only want you to read the book because I was so moved by the author in the podcast. And I thought if Oprah who seems to ‘have it all’ can get something from this book, and Reese Witherspoon, who also seems to ‘have it all’ can make a movie about it because she loved it so much, then there must be something in it for us. Especially since the book is about this woman’s healing process after the death of her mother. I thought you would be able to relate to the author and therefore finally find a book you’d enjoy.” She agreed and we ended up watching the movie Wild that night on Netflix with my Dad. My mom even start reading the book too!

That day I started and finished the book Brave Enough and then I began reading Tiny Beautiful Things. However, ever since that day the words “are you brave enough to break your own heart?” Were burned into my brain, and I could not let them go. Something changed for me that day, because it is a big reason why I wrote my first heart breaking letter this past Saturday and it is a big reason why I have been reflecting and meditating on this letter as well. This letter is the heaviest for sure. I think after I send this out into the universe I will feel so very light, and I can ride that high during my entire birthday weekend. So here it goes, some painful heart breaking truths about your life, death, and the legacy that you’ve left behind.

First of all you knew that you were going to pass, you knew in your heart; because you said it to my mother many times in the coming days before your death. You knew that your younger sister was very sick, and you did NOT want to be around to watch her die. You made that very clear to my mother. You also attended someone’s else’s funeral two weeks before you died and you said to my mom at the funeral home, “I like it here. Bring me here when I die.” Obviously, my mom would respond just like how most people would respond to something like that, in complete disbelief that you would even think about something like that. Fast forward to the night you went to sleep and never woke up. Here’s a rendition of what happened that night written by my mother in her own words (I only fixed most grammar errors and spelling):

MY LAST CONSERVATION WITH MY BELOVED MOTHER!

So it was Thursday February 20, 1987 at 11:30 as ritual I would give a good night call to my mother.

My mother would often call myself during the day to check up on her grandchildren if they were fed, loved and taken care of. These things were extremely important to her.

That evening the phone rang are little longer than usual. Her tone was mean and angered as she was not feeling well! Every winter especially in February she would come down with a horrible cold due to the fact that she was highly subjected to bronchitis!

Knowing this ,I was always cautious and reminded her to be careful not to catch a cold.

She told me how rude & disrespectful I was for calling so late! She states that she was in a deep sleep and she is not feeling well!

I could sense something and not knowing well what I was sensing made me uncomfortable!

My mother asks me the following,

-what time is it?

-how are my babies? are they sleping?

-where is your husband Norm? 

My reply ,

-11:40 by now cause cp24 was doing the weather

-the kids are fine, they are sleeping

-norm is in bed- sleeping

now at this moment she instructs me the following:

Go be with your husband, your place is next to him! I will not need you anymore and don’t worry about me and just look after your kids!

I started to cry since I got frightened and uncomfortable! I told her I shall be over right after I drop off Alexandra at kindergarten! 

NO, DON’T BROTHER ! I’M NOT GOING TO NEED ANYTHING! 

GOODNIGHT!

our phone call was over by 11:45-11:50

the corner called the time of death around 11:45-midnight

That good night was GOOD BYE FOREVER!

You knew that your job as a mother was over, and so, you could leave this earth in peace and die in your sleep. You have been in a way training my mother for this day your entire life and you didn’t even know you were doing it until that day came. In a way you broke your own heart by realizing that truth. You broke your heart because you knew that your death would break your daughter’s heart. However, you had faith that in that process. She would become the woman you had always raised her to be. I do believe that the power of mothers can transcend generations, for better or worse. Your power as a mother has transcended generations and I’m going to explain how. Without you, my life wouldn’t exist. Not because you birthed my mother, but because you chose my mother and gave her a life she never dreamed possible. You and your husband immigrated to Canada and came to the harsh reality that you were not able, for whatever reason to bear your own children. I can only imagine the pain and guilt associated with that as a very traditional Italian woman. However, you decided to be brave. You knew your soul’s purpose was to be a mother, and so you became one anyway, and adopted my mother. You were your highest version when it came to being a mother to my Mom or at least you did your very best to be. You did your very best to love my mother with deep compassion, generosity, and integrity. The biggest secret that you ever kept from my mother was the fact that she was adopted. I’m sure that guilt must have weighed very heavy on your heart, and that cross became too heavy to bear the day you died. I’m sure you never wanted to tell my mom that she was adopted while you were alive, because you never wanted her to doubt that YOU were her mother. I’m here to tell you that she always had an idea that she was adopted and she may have questioned things, but in the end she always came back to the fact that you ARE in fact her mother. You’re the woman who raised her and made her into the strong woman that she is today. She honors you as her mother by holding on to all of your most prized possessions, all your lessons, your hand written recipes, and your memory.

My mother talks about you often. She talks about all the things you used to do for us, for her, and for our family. It was through your bravery that you inspired two other women in our family to become mothers as well through the process of adoption. It’s strange but for one of these women, their first adopted son just so happens to be born the same day you died. February 21st. This could mean nothing or it could mean everything. I definitely see this as a sign from the universe or the divine, and you Nonna are a part of the divine. You transcended into the divine when you died, and you became a guardian angel to my mother, and to me. I’m beginning to really understand our connection more now than ever before. Through your death my Mom realized who she always was. She realized the harsh truth that she was not really your daughter, but she was also very much your daughter at the same time. Even though this truth broke her heart, she decided to be brave and become the mother to her kids the way you taught her to be since day one. You taught her to be the type of independent woman who worked through out high school at a grocery store. Who learned to drive. Who bought herself a car. Who put herself through college, and who helped take care of you when your husband died (my mom was 21). She was also the type of woman who found her life partner, made her own family and became the best Mom she could be. ALL BECAUSE OF YOU! THANK YOU NONNA! GRAZIE PER TUTTI!!

In university, I found my lifelong friends. I found a family outside of blood relation and I would always say that family does not include only the people who are related to you by blood. In fact, your family is anyone who loves you unconditionally, and encourages you to be your highest version. Now I know that in reality, I first learned that lesson when you died. You taught me that lesson. Because when you died my mom learned about her adoption, but she also learned that, that doesn’t define her. In fact, you were her family. She knew in her heart that she was an Italian Canadian, and the family that surrounded her; all her cousins were her brothers and sisters. This was her tribe. This is where she has always belonged. I will never forget that. I know the importance of family, of finding your tribe, and blood relation has absolutely nothing to do with that! So THANK YOU for teaching me that!

Another indirect lesson that I’ve learned in the wake of your death, is the power of music. I’ve been raised Catholic, but to be honest my family almost never went to Church unless we had to. However, I realized that music was my religion, and it was music that was always the thing that brought me and my family together. Especially my sisters and I. Some of my happiest memories involve music and my sisters. We would scream sing lyrics in the car, we would have dance parties ALL THE TIME in our massive foyer. We would put on dance productions for my parents. All our lives we’ve shared music, and we will always have a passion for music. Now, let me make this clear, I do believe in God. However, I consider myself more spiritual than religious. Church never felt right to me. But I would always pray, and now I pray through meditation and music. You died on February 21st 1997 11 days before my 8th birthday on March 4th 1997. The Notorious B.I.G died 5 days after my birthday on March 9th 1997. Later that same year the song inspired by the death of Biggie Smalls, became the song that would ALWAYS remind me of you. That song is I’ll be missing you by Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112. EVERY SINGLE TIME I WOULD HEAR THAT SONG I WOULD CRY BECAUSE IT REMINDED ME OF YOU. It reminded me of the grief I felt, the grief my mom felt, the grief my sisters felt, even though my sisters and I were all too young to fully understand it. One of my favorite quotes from this song will always remind me of some of my fondest memories of us shopping on St. Clair Avenue in Little Italy, Toronto for dress shoes and clothes. “Us in the six, shopping for new clothes and kicks.” Whenever this song would come on I would sing it and cry. These past few days I listened to it over and over and over again until I was no longer crying. I know all the words to that song. In fact, I know a lot of the words to many, many songs, but none are as important to me as this one.

I love all types of music. I’m very open-minded, but nothing speaks to me more than hip hop. I LOVE hip hop and this song definitely ignited that passion for me. I now understand on so many levels why this song and this type of music means so much to me. Hip Hop has spiritual importance to me because it talks about pain, suffering, grief, sin, violence, and turns these negative things into art. Hip Hop artists, the ones who are most profound are the ones who can speak about their pain and suffering so candidly and not only make something out of it but inspire hope for a better future. A lot of hip hop also has many references to God, heaven, forgiveness, love, compassion, and generosity. They teach us to reach deep within ourselves to look past our pain, to see the lesson in our suffering, so that we may be able to become higher versions of ourselves. I know Nonna that you don’t particularly understand hip hop because you were of a different generation, but I do know you understand it’s importance to me and my healing. I’m grateful for this song, and for my love of music. Without it, I don’t think I would be the same person.

Lastly, I want to thank you Nonna for my Mother. Without her, there would be no me. You left a legacy in her that is now being passed down to me. I was in your presence for just about 8 years of my life and I learned so much from you. I learned about what it means to love. I also learned that being so much like my mother is an honor. My entire life I’ve been told how much I look like my mother, how much I act like my mother, how much I sound like my mother, I can go on. I used to get so frustrated by this, and I would try to deny it. Now, I know that you didn’t birth my mom, so I did not inherit my looks from you, but everything else was passed down from you onto her, and then onto me. My mother and I are both excellent cooks, and bakers because of you. We are both strong and independent women who are honored to be in the service of our loved ones because of you. I now know even more so than before, how important it is to honor where you come from because it informs us of who we might then become. I am a proud Italian Canadian but I never forget that my mom was adopted. That cross that you bore as a mother who could not bear children was passed down to my mother who found out she was adopted, but neither of you let that define you or stop you from following your soul’s purpose. One day I know that I will be ready for that call to be a mother and I do believe that is my ultimate purpose. I do believe that I will also build a career and a life for myself outside of motherhood, but being a mother speaks to my soul more than anything else in the world. It broke my heart to pieces when I came across the opportunity to be a mother, but I was not ready to answer the call. I had to break my heart and accept that it wasn’t the right time. I then understood that I had to kill the parts of Alex that were no longer serving me and my soul’s purpose of becoming a mother if I ever want that part of me to be realized. And so here I am. I know that I need to be able to become the highest version of myself and then strive to be that person everyday so that I then therefore be ready for the highest honor of motherhood. With your guidance and strength I know that I can be just that. I have seen it happen for two of my closest friends who have been through similar experiences, just like me, they have both been training to be mothers their entire lives. One of them has already realized this dream, and another will someday soon (she literally talks about her burning sensation to be a mom every time I see her). I don’t know when this will happen for me, but I do know that if I continue on this path of love, compassion, generosity, and gratitude my soul’s purpose will someday be realized. I know I have a purposed in fitness and wellness, as well as motherhood, and I do believe with all my heart that they are connected. If I hold the same values that a mother should hold to her child; love, understanding, generosity, compassion, and integrity to my clients and everyone I come across, then I would be able to create a truly holistic approach to health and wellness.

Thank you Nonna for absolutely everything. My life would not be my life if it wasn’t for you and the woman you raised to be my mother. Now I also know why my birthday has always meant so much to me. It’s because you would always make a big deal about our birthday. You would buy us our birthday dress. You and my mom would make all the food for the party. You and my mom would invite anyone who loved us to our party and make it a celebration to be remembered. My Mom continued these traditions in your honor. She bought us birthday outfits every year for our birthdays up until our early twenties. She would always make a big deal about our birthday, and make a point to celebrate it each year. I carry out this tradition as well. I never forget the birthdays of my loved ones and I do my best to honor their birthday just like you have always honored mine.

Love you and Thank you!

Alexandra Rinaldo

"Seven Year Old Girl's Family Birthday Photo"

Are you brave enough to break your own heart? A second letter to myself, a new beginning….

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Dear: Alexandra,

Wow! I’m so fucking proud of you! Honestly, the first heart breaking letter that you wrote and shared with the world this past Saturday was a huge shift for you in the right direction. As I’m sure you know, writing that letter felt bad; it was super scary and uncomfortable to write let alone put it on the internet. It felt super fucking good at the same time. It was also so liberating! Which is why it felt right. Abuse of any kind is really hard to talk about, however, I’ve been realizing just how important it was to talk about. Not only for yourself but for women, and people anywhere who’s found themselves in a toxic situation. You were able to write about your experience in such a candid and fair way because you were far enough away from that part of yourself that you were able to see it clear as day. You were able to see the bigger picture, you were able to accept it, forgive your abuser, and let it be. That part of yourself no longer serves you, you recognized it and you let it die. YAAAAAAAAS GIRL!!!

But here I am again about to break your heart yet again and let you in on some news that I know you know deep in your heart; this isn’t over. In fact, it’s only just begun. This isn’t going to play out how you originally thought. You’re not just going to write one or two heartfelt, painful letters to yourself. You actually have so, so many letters to write. You have to be brave and fight for yourself, and for what you believe in. You know that you have to anchor yourself in your dreams, values, and beliefs but you must be flexible in how you achieve them. You may not have thought at first that maybe this would be an avenue for you to live out your dreams, and yet here you are doing it. When you wrote your first blog post for 2018, you felt a burning sensation that just wouldn’t go away. You knew that it was important to write about your experience and to put it out in the universe. That was the beginning of your powerful and necessary journey to rediscover your power. You even wrote in that very blog your intention for this year was to find your power. Well bitch, this is your power. You’ve been told your entire life how you’re so loud, that your voice carries. Your voice has always been, and will forever be powerful. You know that. Which is why you know that you have to keep using your power, using your voice to fight for yourself. Your own wellness, and well the wellness of others as well.

You are a strong, powerful, opinionated, educated, able-bodied woman who has a talent for writing. You’re a storyteller. This has never been new to you but I’m here to remind you of this power. Words have always held power for you. Ever since you were a part of the “writing club” in elementary school. Why do you think you like writing this blog in the first place? Why has using a journal been so helpful? Why do you think you’ve fallen deeply in love with reading again? It’s not a coincidence. It’s a calling. A call that you now must answer. If you believe strongly in health and wellness then you need to use your ability as a story-teller to help convey that message to as many people as possible. You know that wellness is holistic. You know that mental health, physical health, emotional health, and spiritual health are all important. They must all be balanced in order for you to be the highest version of yourself. You must always strive to achieve this balance for yourself and part of doing that is writing your pain for others to see. For whatever it just feels right. It’s scary and it’s hard but you know you have a voice and you must use that voice to speak about things that are difficult to talk about. Pain and suffering is part of the human condition. Bad things happen to everyone, good or bad, rich or poor, it really doesn’t discriminate. But wellness can also be had by all. Wellness is something that you must always be working towards. You are the happiest, most positive, most loving, most powerful person when you’re working everyday at being the highest version of yourself. You have always seen yourself as a leader, but now you know that in order to be a leader you must always do your best to BE a leader. A leader in the wellness community. A leader that brings love, compassion, and integrity to EVERYTHING she does. Your writing, your classes, your private sessions with your clients because at the end of the day this is bigger than you.

By breaking yourself down in front of the “world” (the people who read your blog) you are not only able to build yourself back up, but maybe someone else as well? I’ve realized that there is power in making yourself vulnerable through these letters. Every time you write about your own experiences, and the lessons you had to learn, you are stepping more and more into the light. And when you step into the light, you will look over your shoulder and see that you’re not alone. That there are actually many people who know your pain too. People who are working through their own turmoil. Pain is relative. Everyone experiences pain in their lives, it is through your courage that you face your fears, your pain, and therefore let them go.

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As the author Cheryl Strayed has said that quotes are little instruction manuals for the soul and I have to say that I agree. Like I’ve said above, there is power in words and your voice is powerful. Use it to regain your power, to be more in alignment for what you believe is your soul’s purpose. I know that you know, that you were made to serve others. You were put on this earth to do everything you can to lead people to bettering themselves and therefore bettering the world. But in order to do that you must do that for yourself first. You have to continue down this path of vulnerability to reach a higher version of yourself, and when you are at your best, it will encourage others to hopefully do the same. The best in you will therefore inspire the best in others. You need to believe that and keep fighting. Fight for your wellness, and the wellness of others. I know you believe that this is your soul’s purpose, but it’s going to be hard. Exposing yourself in this way, is painful but it’s powerful. You know that there’s great opportunity in candidly sharing your story with others. It’s a big part of who you are, how you came to be, but letting it go and putting it out in the universe also frees you to be whoever you were meant to be. Your highest version.

Keep fighting, use your power.

Alexandra Rinaldo

Do you ever feel inadequate?

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I’ve realized that feeling inadequate is a perfectly normal and a very human thing to feel, even though many of us are not able to easily admit to feeling this way. The reality is, we have all felt inadequate in some way. We may not feel this way all the time, or we are unconscious to how inadequate we actually feel; but at the end of the day, at some point in our development we have felt like we just don’t quite measure up. This may be in one specific area of your life, or in more of a general sense. The point is, no matter how much we try not to compare ourselves to other people, we just can’t seem to help ourselves. You will do it less often when you’re generally happy with how things are going in your life, but at some point you will do a check in to see how other people are doing just so you can get a sense of where you are in life… Whatever that’s supposed to mean. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with wanting to know how people are doing, it can be a very positive thing, when you genuinely want to know how things are going in someone’s  life and THAT’S IT. The thing is, you need to be mindful of your intentions behind checking up on someone. You need to be mindful as to WHY you care about whatever that person is doing right now in their lives.

Generally speaking, if you truly cared about someone and how they were doing, you would most likely ask them directly. Whatever we see on our social media platforms only gives us a small idea of how people are actually doing. We all know that whatever most people are posting, are either their ideal selves, or the parts of themselves that they are most comfortable sharing. Social media was meant to connect us, but in a lot of ways it has been used to separate us from one another. Instead of having more genuine conversations with one another, where we talk about what’s really going on in our lives, we look to social media as a way of finding that information out. It takes a lot less effort to scroll through your Instagram or Facebook feed to keep tabs on the people in your life, then to engage in a meaningful conversation. It is much easier to watch someone’s “story” Snapchat or Instagram. If we know for a fact that most people are only sharing parts of themselves on social media and not the whole picture, why do we constantly look at our “news feeds” on these platforms as a means of measuring our own personal success? Why do we punish ourselves like this, and feed our feelings of inadequacy? Even when we are talking with our friends and family, are we really being honest about our fears? Are we secretly afraid of being judged? Or are we afraid of becoming someone else’s problem? I know a lot of us never want to feel like a burden to someone else. This is a big reason why it is so much easier to pretend on social media, and have superficial connections. The nitty gritty isn’t pretty, and it doesn’t feel nice. It’s also very hard to admit. It is very hard to admit to yourself that you are deeply afraid, let alone to anyone else.

Where do these fears and feelings of inadequacy come from? From my experience it comes from a lack of trust. It comes from a lack of trust within yourself, and a lack of trust in God/the universe, whatever you want to call it. Because of this lack of trust, you therefore become hyper aware of the supposed “success” of others. Their lives seem much easier, happier, and more fulfilling than your own. You don’t actually know this for a fact, it’s a story that you have told yourself to explain your own unhappiness. For whatever reason, you have chosen to believe that you aren’t enough (good enough, smart enough whatever), that you don’t have enough, and you are aren’t doing enough.  There never seems to be enough, and therefore you are never satisfied, and you are never happy. Instead of living a life of abundance and gratitude, you end up living a life of scarcity. In our egocentric, capitalist society, there is always an element of scarcity. You can never have enough things, enough money, enough fame, enough success. There’s never enough. This is a story we tell ourselves, and it leaves us feeling left behind. What about me?! Well you wouldn’t be worried about that, if you felt as though you would be taken care of; if you felt as if you could take care of yourself, and that the universe or God was always looking out for you.

The person asking the question “what about me?” Is your ego talking. It is the small me. It is the small version of ourselves that we sometimes confuse for our actual selves. It is the part of ourselves that is always measuring up to others. It is the part of ourselves that is always trying to define itself by separating itself from others either in a positive light, or in a negative light. It is the part of ourselves that doesn’t see past our own self, it is the part of ourselves that is only truly concerned about ourselves. Our ego may trick us into thinking we aren’t selfish because we seem to care about our friends and family. However, a lot of times these people are seen as an extension of ourselves. If we stop concerning ourselves with ourselves, we might actually be happier. If we stop worrying about our lives, and start living our lives we would be a lot happier.

Below are some questions that I found in this book called Big Magic, that really got me thinking about what speaks to my soul. It got me thinking about the things that bring me such joy. The kind of joy that makes me want to shout from the hilltops and share it with the rest of the world. That feeling, is the feeling that you need to chase, no matter how challenging it may seem, because it’s not always going to be easy but it will always feel right. A quote from the happiness project, “happiness is feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right.” You need to know what it feels like to feel “bad,” so that you know what to avoid so that you feel good, but sometimes even the things that make you the happiest don’t always make you feel good, but they always feel right, and that’s super important. When things feel right, they are in line with your values, they are in alignment with your purpose, and ultimately they are in line with your being. You just need to trust in that feeling, in things feeling right, even though it may be difficult at times. Keeping all of that in mind, reflect on the following questions and how they relate to you. What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail? What do you love so much that the words failure and success eventually become irrelevant? What do you love more than you love your own ego? Why should I go through all the trouble to make something if the outcome might be nothing? Well the answer to the last question should be, because it’s fun right? What else are you going to do with your time here on earth, not make things? Not do interesting stuff? Not follow your love and curiosity?

Think about all that and how it applies to your life. We don’t know how long we have on this earth, and we should never take that for granted even though most of us do, because literally anything could happen to you. So with that in mind, how do you want to spend your time here on earth? How would you fill your life with happiness? You know the answers to these questions deep in your heart, you just need to quiet the thoughts in your mind long enough so that you can come to understand it, and believe in it.

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My Quest For Happiness; A Reflection of The Past Month

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About a week ago was February 1st, the beginning of the month, and it was also Groundhog Day. You might be asking yourself, who cares? Trust me, I feel you; who cares about Groundhog Day? It does seem like a very pointless holiday, however, it helped me piece together all of the things I’ve been learning this month through practicing mindfulness, or presence if you will (yoga, meditation, and writing a personal journal), and through my quest for happiness, which I will now change to my quest for balance. How did this holiday inspire my writing of this piece? Well, I remembered the movie Groundhog Day (1993) starring Bill Murray. This is a very funny movie, that I watched a long time ago with my Dad. I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it, but basically the take away lesson of the movie is this; if you don’t learn from your mistakes you are doomed to repeat them. As they say, history always repeats itself, but I’m here to say that it doesn’t have to. In the movie Bill’s character gets stuck reliving Groundhog Day over and over again, and he is the only one conscious of this phenomenon. So he is stuck in his own personal hell, until he finds a way to break free of this cycle of it always being Groundhog Day. This is a very good metaphor for your everyday personal life, because if you think about it, we tend to make the same mistakes over and over again. If you reflect on your life I’m sure you can think of the many times you have lost or broken your phone, or the countless partners you have chosen who were never quite right, or just about anything in your life that you just can’t seem to get right. Why is that?

Well, first off, you can’t fix anything that you can’t see. If you’re not aware of this pattern, and I mean fully aware of it, then you can’t possibly fix it. There’s a difference between what you think you know, and what you actually know. You may “think,” you know why you keep doing the things you’re doing, but from my own personal journey, I’ve realized that thinking alone isn’t going to fix the problem. A lot of times, your thoughts are what stop you from being fully present in the moment. Your thoughts aka your fears are what cloud your judgement, and have you in this endless cycle of unhappiness; because what you end up doing is playing out your thoughts in your life, and therefore your fears end up becoming your reality. How do I fix that? How do I escape this “Groundhog Day” cycle of history repeating itself, and of me having a hard time being completely happy? The answer: 1. You need to work on being present in EVERY situation, or at least as much as possible. The more aware you are of your surroundings, the people in your life (good or bad), the opportunities around you, your thoughts, your feelings, the better you’ll be able to make healthier choices for yourself, and the better you’ll be able to find balance and/or happiness. 2. Once you are more present, and aware of yourself, the better you’ll be able to understand your past choices and accept them for what they are. You first need to accept the reality that you are in before you can change it. You MUST be honest about your reality, and who you are NOW in order to make a positive lasting change. If you’re always thinking about the person you should be, or the person you used to be, you will never be happy with the person you are now. You will never be able to change the things that are stopping you from being the person you know in your heart you could be because your head is telling you all the reasons why you can’t. “You can’t run like you used to, so why bother trying.” “You’re so fat, you need to be more like so and so, they have the life that you want.” Your thoughts or your Ego is what is stopping you by telling you stories about who you are, and what you can and cannot do. Even if you “try” to accomplish something in your life, like working out regularly, if you keep calling yourself “fat” for example, if you fail, the blow is easier on you because you have already told yourself you’re fat and so therefore you aren’t capable of regular workouts. You have told yourself this story about how you’re a fat person, and most likely you’re not even aware of all the choices you’ve made in your life that fulfill this story of you being a “fat” person. This is how you get stuck in your own personal hell, or Groundhog Day, and you can never escape it until you realize how you put yourself there in the first place.

It’s so funny, because in a way by writing this article, I’m also repeating some of the words I’ve said in articles that I’ve written in the past about chasing your dreams, letting go of your ego etc. I’ve touched on this subject many times, and each time I have learned something new, but not enough to break through the cycle. Life really does come full circle all the time, it’s as if a kid was scribbling a circle overlapping another circle over and over again. Even this article is coming full circle from the article I wrote at the beginning of 2018 about Resolutions. The only way to not repeat this circle, and to break the cycle is to pay attention to the lessons you face each and everyday. You may have a moment of clarity where everything makes sense, and you feel as though things are finally got things right, you’re on the right path, and then for some reason you lose it. You fall back into old habits. Maybe not to the same degree, but you still aren’t as far along in your progress as you would like to be. The key here is to not let this idea slow you down, because that is all it is. Only you have told yourself that what you are doing, who you are right now etc. isn’t enough. That is your Ego talking. Your ego is the voice in your head that is always talking to you, your ego is your thoughts, and your thoughts cause emotional responses that only reinforce your original thoughts. Both your emotions, and your thoughts will then dictate your choices, and your actions. You need to be mindful of this. This is the first step to breaking through a Groundhog Day scenario.

This may seem simple enough but it’s really not. The Ego does a really good job of convincing you that it is who you are. It convinces you that you are whatever you call yourself, fat, skinny, fit, pretty, ugly, old, poor. It also convinces you that what you “have” is a part of who you are. If you have a spouse, you’re married and that has a status, or if you own a house you are a homeowner, and again, that has a status. These ideas only feed your ego. Your ego will feed on anything in order to help define itself. I have cancer, I’m sick, therefore some people may use that to define themselves as a victim. Either way, having cancer is your reality, whether or not you are a victim is up to you. The situation which is cancer is neutral, it neither makes you more or less of a person. However, the stories that you tell yourself, about yourself do make you feel more or less of a person, but that doesn’t make it true. Also, the situation of cancer isn’t permanent. You can either overcome it, or succumb to it, again this does not say anything about you personally. It just means you’re human. Another example, what happens if you lose the house? Do you lose who you are too? Does it make you less of a person? For your ego, it does. Your ego will have a hard time with this loss, and it will therefore redefine itself through your thoughts and emotions maybe as a victim of loss. Your ego will separate you from the present, it will cloud your judgement, and make this loss a personal loss. You are not your house, your body, your career, and so on. Why? Because none of this shit matters when you die. All of these things are temporary, and when they’re gone the world still turns, and you are still you. All of those things can be taken away at any minute, and so you shouldn’t limit yourself to these things. They have value for sure, and they are a part of your life, but they aren’t who you are. They are a part of who you are, but they are subject to change, and when they do, for good or for bad, it shouldn’t change the person you are.

The problem is, to do that is difficult. You cannot simply remove your ego from yourself, it is a part of you. Especially when we live in a very egocentric world, it can be difficult to break free of this cycle of constantly needing more things, more money, more status, more of everything because your ego is never satisfied with the now. Once you have achieved a goal, or something good has come into your life, it is very easy to then slip back into the cycle of looking forward to the next big thing instead of being appreciative of what is happening now. This is unconsciousness. Never being present. Always looking to the future for more, or dwelling on the past. You are never satisfied with who you are now, because who you are now is never good enough. You are living in a constant state of scarcity or lack. And social media feeds your ego even more so than almost anything else we have in today’s society. It is a big reason why so many of us feel unhappy. First of all, most of us only post photos of the things we’re proud of, the things that make us feel good about ourselves. This boosts our ego, “look, I’m fit,” or “look I have a new house.” Then other people feed our egos by liking or commenting on our photos. This approval makes us feel good, our ego needs that and will then post more photos like it to get the energy it needs. However, as most of us know, none of that is real. A lot of it is filtered and it is only a fragment of our lives, so why do we put so much emphasis on it? Why do we care so much? Simple answer, our ego. Even negative feedback is still a reaction, your ego is still getting attention and will then fight back in order to reinforce itself. Either way your ego gets stronger. Basically, there is nothing wrong with wanting to share things on social media but be mindful of why you’re posting it in the first place. Do the likes and comments on your photos matter? Is it ever really satisfying? Because if it was, then we wouldn’t always be on it, always posting, always seeking more attention. Even if you don’t post much on social media, a lot of us use it to measure ourselves up against others. Again, this only keeps you in a state of lack, and it never moves you forward. You never grow, and you never end up where you want to be because you’re so focused on what you don’t have.

Like I said in my first article of 2018, “there’s no such thing as a life that’s better than yours,” Love Yourz by J.Cole. There is always going to be someone out there who seems to have more, who is more, but you will never know what you have unless you stop looking to others as a measure of your own success. “There’s beauty in the struggle,” again a quote from the same song. Basically, there’s beauty in the present, you just have to wake up and smell the roses. Be grateful for what you do have, appreciate the love in your life, and then share that with others. These are the things that are pushing you forward. The more you open your eyes to the things, the people, and the opportunities around you the happier you’ll be. It is so much easier to see the ego in others, and therefore it is much easier to pass along good advice. However, a lot of times those same people are a reflection of the ego in you. You tend to gravitate to the people who share the same thoughts and opinions as you, so a lot of times, those people also share a lot of the same fears as you. The ego that you see in them you can also recognize in yourself, that is why it’s so easy to see it in the other person. Hence the Alice in Wonderland quote from my first 2018 article “I give myself very good advice but I very seldom follow it.” Usually the advice you give to others is the same advice you need to hear yourself, the problem is you were to blinded by ego to see it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we all need to pay more attention, or else our egos and life in general are just going to get the best of us. I know this, because ever since I’ve made a conscious effort to be more present, I’ve realized how much of my life I haven’t been present. Always in my own head. I used to joke about it with family and friends that I sometimes live in La La Land. I never really thought of it as a problem, I just thought it was who I was. Alex just lives in her own world sometimes. But that’s not true. I’m not the only one who does this, and it doesn’t have to define me. Because living in a dream state, worrying about the future and fretting about the past alienates you from the present. Your thoughts can consume you and take you to a different place, and sometimes when you realize that you’ve left this planet for a second it’s too late. Something usually negative has happened to shock you awake, a fender bender, dropping your phone, breaking a glass, all usually occur because your head wasn’t in the game, you were distracted. More and more people are no longer living in the present. Distracted driving is a real thing. Our phones, social media, only feeds our thoughts, and fears. They help in keeping us distracted from the things happening right in front of us, instead we are worried about our next meeting, a deadline; constantly fixated on the things we need to do, to have, or accomplish. Fender benders, breaking your phone are just small examples, but a lot of the things that go wrong in our lives are because of us, whether you’re ready to admit that yet or not. Obviously, you don’t have control over everything that happens to you, but if you look back and you’re really honest about your mistakes, a lot of the time, it had nothing to do with you skills, or knowledge, it was mostly because your head wasn’t in the game. The moment you realize that “you” or the person who you think you are isn’t the problem, but the thoughts and fears that you constantly replay in your life are, that is when you can really make positive and lasting changes in your life. Why? Because the choices that you make out of presence, and mindfulness will come from a place of love and not fear. Presence allows you to separate your fears from reality, it stops you from personalizing everything in your life as a reflection of who you are for better or worse. Good things will happen, and bad things will happen, and only you can control your reaction to those things. However, the only way to make a positive change is to first take a moment, take a deep breath, try to calm yourself down, relax your mind from spinning out of control, and follow your heart. You know what to do, you know who to be, it’s your head that’s trying to tell you “protect” you with fear, but only your heart truly knows pure joy. Fear and joy live in the same space, the key is to live a life with courage. What is courage? Courage is accepting your fears, knowing that they exist and doing what makes you happy anyway. The more aware you are of your own thoughts and fears, the smaller they become, until they fully disappear. You can be and have whatever you want, you need to fully believe this by acknowledging and overcoming your fears. This is what I have been learning, and this is what I’ve been practicing and will continue to practice. This is something that you must strive to do always, if you don’t ever want to live in a Groundhog state again.

 

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Sir Winston Churchill

How to make your goals a reality

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Last week I wrote a piece about New Years Resolutions, and how you should pick your goals not based on what you think you should do, or have, but based on what makes you happy. If you haven’t read that piece yet, I highly suggest that you do; because in a way this is a part two to that article. New Year’s Resolutions should be based on what makes you happy, and not based on what you think you should have… However, if you’ve read that piece? Awesome! But either way, I’m sure you will find this second article helpful. It has been just over a full week into 2018, and I have to say that I have never felt more productive! I haven’t taken so much time to focus on myself and my happiness in a really long time! Even though it’s been just over a week, I feel like I’ve already accomplished so much, even if it doesn’t really show on paper. How can that be? Well that’s basically what this article is about. So far, I have laid down the foundation to turn my goals, intentions, and resolutions into reality, and now I’m going to show you how you can do the same!

First of all, in order to make your goals and intentions for 2018 a reality, you must first figure out what those are. You need to set some time aside to reflect and do a little soul searching. Over the Christmas Holidays and into the New Year, I have done a lot of soul searching, I literally did a Soul Map. The blog where I found the Soul Map was recommended to me by a very close friend of mine, it’s called Love Warrior by Catie Fenn. The Soul Map was an excellent way to get me thinking about 2018 in a very productive way. It forced me to really reflect on my current life, the life that I wanted for myself, and the gap between the two. It was definitely an intense and emotional experience, but it was well worth it. It is really hard to be completely honest with yourself. We don’t really take the time to self-reflect and to be alone with our thoughts because we’re afraid. We’re afraid of the truth. It is in your own heart where you will find your own truth. You know yourself, and what you need more than anyone else, and you know how to get those things. The problem however, is trusting yourself. There are quite a few of us, myself included, who have lied to ourselves about who we are, and what we are capable of. We have told ourselves false stories to “protect” ourselves from failing, but that never moves us forward! And that, in itself is failing!

Now, some of us have been telling ourselves lies for so long that we don’t know what the truth is anymore, and no matter how much other people try to remind us of that truth, it’s really hard to believe, and it’s really hard to accept. It’s funny, this is a direct quote from me to a close friend about 3 years ago, “I wish you could see yourself, how I see you…” Oh how the tables have turned! If you are having a hard time being positive towards yourself, there is no shame in asking for help! Another thing I have learned personally. This is me finally taking my own advice… Self reflection is very important to setting your goals and intentions, however, your self reflection cannot be self-destructive! That is counter productive. There is nothing wrong with admitting your faults. In fact, it is quite healthy. The key is to not dwell on your mistakes. Forgiveness takes time, especially when it is towards yourself, but the only way to get to a point of acceptance, is to understand that whatever mistakes you have made in the past happened for a reason. For whatever reason, you weren’t ready, and that’s okay. Now, you know where you went wrong, and that is the first step in making it better for the future. You can no longer focus on the what ifs, or should haves, you need to focus on the present moment. This is a lesson I’ve learned over the Christmas Holidays, and more importantly, on New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Eve was when I let go of the tremendous amount of guilt I was feeling. I was feeling guilty about the mistakes I’ve made in the past, and how dishonest I’ve been to myself, and those around me.Letting those feelings go has been a major step for me to start thinking about the future. What can I do today to move towards happiness, self-acceptance, and forgiveness? These are the questions that you should be asking yourself during your time of reflection.

Now that you have done the Soul Map, or whatever form of self-reflection that you find helpful, you can start to form your intention for 2018. What do you want to see happen for yourself in 2018? Your intention will help you figure out your goals for the year to come. Your goals will reinforce your intention for the year, and your intention for the year will reinforce your goals. Your intention is your “why” behind your goals, it is your purpose. We all need a purpose or a reason why. It is our purpose that gives us meaning in our lives, and helps us to discover why our goals are so important to us, and therefore, will help us to carry out these goals even when it gets tough. For me, my intention for 2018 is to “rediscover myself and my power.” My ideal self is someone people can rely on. I get so much joy in helping others. I have realized though, that I can’t help anyone until I am able to help myself. Hence my intention, rediscover myself and my power. It is when I feel the most powerful, that I can do the most good for others.

How do I get myself feeling powerful? This is where I developed a to do list for 2018, as well as concrete goals and action steps to help me live out my intention of re-discovering my power. A tool that really helped me with this, was from this workshop that I did this past Saturday; we did this chart where we placed our “life buckets” career development, financial health, emotional and mental health, physical health, relationships, and intentional living in order from what we think needs the most focus in 2018 or what we think is the most important to us in 2018. Then we set an intention for each of our life buckets. Since I already thought about a lot of these things, it was a lot easier for me to order my life buckets and for me to set an intention for each of them. After we set our intention for each bucket, we then set a S.M.A.R.T goal for each bucket for next week, then next month, then a goal for the next 6 months, and finally next year. What is a S.M.A.R.T goal? It is Specific; meaning it is well defined, and it is directly related to your intention. It is Measurable; you need to know when you’ve reached this goal, so you should have a framework of some sort in place to keep track of your progress. Achievable; you need to figure out how you’re going to achieve this goal? What are the action steps you are going to take to make this goal a reality? Relevant; this is the why to your “how.” Why is the action you’re planning going to bring you closer to your intention? Time bound; it is important to set a deadline for your goal. Make sure you give yourself enough time, but not too long, that you forget about it. Looking at the goals and the to-do list that I’ve made already and adapting the S.M.A.R.T formula to them, really helped me gain focus. It also made me feel so much better about being able to complete my goals for 2018. The workshop that I went to was FREE (awesome!) and it was called How to: Ditch the Resolutions & #livealittlextra in 2018 by Brittnei Gaudio, who is the founder of #itsalifestyle. I would definitely check her out if you live in the Toronto area and you would like a little help mapping out your year. It can be very overwhelming thinking about all the things you want to change in the New Year, but by breaking your goals down into smaller goals, with an action plan, and timeline to complete them, makes everything seem so much more manageable!

Another very helpful tool that I was given by Brittnei Gaudio, was Gretchen Rubin’s Quiz: The Four Tendencies. This quiz was based off her book The Four Tendencies. I’m currently reading Gretchen’s book The Happiness Project, and after taking this quiz I have put this book at the top of my reading list! Once you’ve completed the quiz, you will find out what your tendency is, and you will be given a free detailed report on your tendency as well. After completing this quiz and finding out that my tendency was “Obliger,” (not that this was a surprise to me) but it really got me thinking about how I have used this to my advantage in the past, and how it has been a hindered me as well. The Four Tendencies best describe how we respond to expectations. As an obliger, I tend to be better at meeting outer expectations, than inner expectations. This makes a lot of sense to me; I have a really hard time saying “No” to people and it is also a big reason why I have become so unhappy recently. It is so much easier for me to take care of others, and to meet their expectations of me, then it is for me to do the things I know I need to be doing for myself (especially if these things seem daunting or hard).”Obliger: I do what I have to do. I don’t want to let others down, but I may let myself down,” quote from my free tendency report. This may seem pretty terrible, but it doesn’t have to be. I like helping others, but I also know that I need to be able to help myself first so that I can better help others.

Now that I know my tendency, I can better motivate myself to do the things that I want to do. As an obliger, no matter how badly I want to do something for myself, it won’t happen unless I adapt an “accountability strategy.” When I look back to times when I was most successful at following through with my goals, I was very aware of my tendency, without having put a name to it. For example, when I competed in bodybuilding, I had a lot of external sources of accountability that kept me on track, and eventually got me to my second place win! I had a coach who checked in with me every week. We both posted photo updates of my progress on social media, so I had the online community holding me accountable. I also expressed my wishes to compete to all my friends and family. I constantly reminded them of my show date, not only because I wanted them all to be there to cheer me on, but because it also helped me stay motivated. I knew that all the people who matter most were going to be there, and I had to win! Not only for myself but for them as well (I wanted to give them something to celebrate). I literally let anyone I possibly could know about my intentions to win my bodybuilding competition, I wrote about it on this blog, I talked about it with my clients, my group fitness classes, anyone who would listen. This all helped me do the best that I possibly could, because in my mind all these people cared about my competition. In reality, they probably didn’t (at least not everyone cared), but that really doesn’t matter. To me they cared, and because I thought they were watching, I was diligent about doing everything possible to be successful. I even went to the Wayhome Music Festival and packed all of my competition diet food! I was so proud of myself the day of my show, I already felt like I won, and after prejudging, I knew I was between first and second place. I was over the moon because I set my sights on something, and I obsessively worked towards it until the very end. For me, I need to talk about my intentions with others ALL THE TIME. I need EVERYONE to know exactly what I plan to do, and how I’m going to do it. Then I go out, and do the things I told everyone I was going to do.

My advice to you is to is to find out what you want for yourself this year. Create an intention for yourself, and then use that intention to figure out what your goals are for this year. Make sure that your goals are S.M.A.R.T! Once you have your why, and your action steps for the year, figure out what your tendency is, how do you respond to inner and outer expectations? Once you know what your tendency is, reflect on that. Try to remember times when you were most successful, what did you do then that got you to your goals? What strategies did you implement for you to be successful? Now that you know what you want, what you’re going to do to get what you want, and how you’re going to do it, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be successful! I have come to realize that your greatest strengths aka tendencies can also be your greatest weakness. The key is to understand this, and use your strengths to your advantage. I know that I am an obliger, and as such, I have created a large network of people who I can rely on. They are the same people who I have told my goals to, and have asked to check in on me regularly to make sure that I achieve these goals in 2018. I need to be held accountable to myself, and I need help doing that. This is another reason why I’m writing this blog; so that I may be able to help someone else while also helping myself.

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Quote from Oh The Places You’ll Go ❤ So many nuggets of truth in that book! 

https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3706759/Gretchen-Rubin-s-Quiz-The-Four-Tendencies

New Year’s Resolutions should be based on what makes you happy, and not based on what you think you should have…

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Happy New Year! It’s officially 2018 and many of us have done some reflecting on the year past, and I’m sure many of us are now looking forward to the new year and all the possibilities that it brings. You don’t really need New Year’s Eve to decide to make a change in your life, but since many of us have decided to at least think about some of the things we want to see in 2018 (many of these things being fitness related) I decided to write a post that may help you with some of your fitness resolutions or your resolutions in general.

Over the past few months, but especially over the Christmas Holidays, I have been doing a lot of reflecting myself. I have thought a lot about the things that I want in my life, how I am currently living my life, and the gap between these two things. My intention for 2018 is to close the gap. However, I have also realized that if happiness is something that you ultimately want to achieve, losing 10 lbs, or getting that new job, won’t necessarily bring you the happiness that you desire. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more for yourself. You should always strive for personal growth, but it is the growth itself that brings joy, not the tangible goals. This is something that I’ve been learning, something that I couldn’t get out of my head last night. The lyrics from the song Love Yourz by J.Cole, “no such thing as a life that’s better than yours, no such things as a life that’s better than yours, no such thing, no such thing…” kept playing in my head over and over again. I literally had to apply some meditative breathing to slow down my thoughts so that I could actually get some rest. J.Cole is one of my favorite rappers. I love his music and his message, and I especially love this song. I think it’s such an important message, one that I think we need to keep reminding ourselves of. Most rappers flaunt all the things they have, as if that is important, and then you have J.Cole telling you that none of that really matters, because there’s always going to be someone out there who seems to have more than what you have. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and you’re never going to be happy until you love and appreciate the things you do have. When you are unhappy, or if you feel like you could be more happy, it’s easy to look to social media and think about all the things you don’t have. This will only keep you unhappy. “Comparison is the thief of joy,” as they say.

Social media only shows the glamour, all you see is “success” but you rarely see the struggle. You rarely see the journey that it took to get to that point. Referencing the same song Love Yourz “there’s beauty in the struggle…” This may seem hard to believe because so much of us are so focused on the end goal. We are so focused on having the perfect body, the perfect partner, the perfect life. It seems like we are always looking to others to fulfill ourselves, as if someone else has a better idea of how we can be a better/happier person. When you look at Instagram for example, it seems like these people have perfect lives, and perfect bodies. All you see are these beautifully presented dishes of healthy food, with these beautiful backdrops. It all looks so good! Who wouldn’t want that?! But no one ever really questions whether or not they really need those things to truly be happy? Instead, we are constantly focusing on the things we lack. I’m not saying that social media is all evil. It certainly is not! It’s a great place for us to connect with one another, to share ideas, and to lift each other up. It all depends on how the platform is used. It’s not the tool itself that’s bad, but it is how we use this tool, our intentions behind it. Constantly looking at your phone at beautiful images of other people is not going to change your life. You can most definitely learn from other people, but they cannot fix your problems, they can’t make you a happy person. Also, posting images of only the beautiful parts of your life is not going to mask the things that you are not happy with. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t celebrate the positives in your life. You most definitely should! All I’m saying is that running away from the things that scare you will not make them disappear. It’s very easy to pretend on social media, but what happens on Instagram or Facebook really doesn’t matter. For the most part, what we see on social media really doesn’t change our lives, only we have the power to change our lives.

It’s funny, I recently started reading this book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and on the fourth page I already found a nugget of truth that really spoke to me, “they say that people teach what they need to learn.” I read this line on the Go train yesterday and had a moment of realization. I am constantly teaching others to love and accept themselves. I’m constantly motivating others to be the best version of themselves, when I should really be doing that for myself. I’m always seeing the potential in others and doing all that I can to help those people realize that for themselves, but what about me? A quote from Alice in Wonderland, “she gave herself very good advice, though she very seldom followed it.” Here I am at the brink of 2018 feeling a huge amount of guilt because I know that I haven’t been the person I know I am. It was a huge weight sitting on my chest, it felt as though I couldn’t breath. Literally, just before midnight I had a breakdown. Thank God for my friends who were there for me, who helped me realize that I need to let this all go. I need to forgive myself for my mistakes, and I need to move on in order to be happy. I need to trust myself more. I know all there is to know about being happy because I’ve experienced it before. I know what makes me feel the most fulfilled. I know myself through and through, and I know that lately I have been lying to myself. So much so, that I’ve learned to not trust myself anymore. Now I find myself in a place where I don’t recognize who I am anymore. My intention for 2018 is to rediscover myself and my power, because I know that I am a strong and powerful person.

Now you may be asking yourself, why is she telling me all this stuff? What does any of this have to do with health and fitness? What does any of this have to do with my own resolutions and goals? First of all, I’m telling you all this because I felt like this was a big step in me being honest with myself, and being honest with the people who care about me most. I have not been as happy or motivated as I have been in the past. My life isn’t bad, but it’s not where I want to be, and I’ve come to realize that, that is okay. I may not be the person who I aspire to be yet, but that does not mean it’s impossible. I am everything that I need to be right now, and once I believe that completely there is nothing that I can’t do. I hope that this helps some of you realize the same thing. You are smart enough, strong enough, pretty enough, you are enough, and your life is enough. You have everything you need to be happy, and if you don’t, then you have the ability to change that.

What does this have to do with health and fitness? Your health and well-being is linked to your overall happiness. You will never have happiness if you don’t take care of your needs. Everyone has different physical, psychological, and emotional needs that need to be met on a daily basis in order to be happy. So, if happiness is the ultimate goal in life? Then you need to choose your fitness goals accordingly. Looking “perfect” won’t necessarily bring you happiness. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve done two bodybuilding shows, and at my second show I won second place. Looking back, I realize that it wasn’t the show itself that brought me happiness, or the body that I had. I mean I looked awesome, and that made me feel good, but, I didn’t love the things I had to do in order to achieve the condition I needed to be in for the stage, which is probably why I don’t plan on returning to the stage any time soon. But I did love all the things my body could do. I loved the challenge of prepping for a show. I loved the fact that I was taking time to take care of myself everyday. I wanted to win! And in order to win, I had to make myself a priority. I had to have all my meals prepped, I had to workout twice a day, and in order to do all of that I had to make a schedule and stick to it. This got me to be more organized, and productive. I loved that my show was an excuse for all my favorite people to come and support me, and celebrate with me. Even though they would have done this regardless of what I was doing. So, if you think about it? I loved all the byproducts that came from doing a show, not necessarily the show itself. The lesson that I’m trying to share with all of you is this: when you make yourself a priority and you take care of your needs first, you are more likely to be happy. And when you’re happy, you are better able to help make others happy as well.

This is a lesson that I am re-learning. I have allowed life and circumstance to get the best of me, and because of that I haven’t been meeting my needs in order to be happy. I haven’t been working out everyday. I haven’t had all my meals planned and prepped. I haven’t been as organized as I normally am, and therefore I haven’t been as  productive as I could be. The list goes on. However, I know how to do all of these things. I have done them before, and I know that I need these things in order to be happy. I need to feel productive, healthy, strong, and accomplished in order to be happy. I need to be around friends and family. I need to have fun, and let loose. I can go on and on, but basically for my New Years Resolutions this year, I do still have tangible goals that I want to achieve, however, I’m focusing more on my intentions for this year. What do I want to see happen for myself this year? Like I said earlier, I want to rediscover my power. Working out everyday, eating food that I’ve prepared that is healthy, setting a schedule and sticking to it, getting enough sleep, challenging myself in and out of my career, being with my friends and family, all of these things make me feel powerful. When I feel powerful, I feel like myself, and that is when I am the most happy. I like to think of myself as a fighter, and that is what I intend to be by the end of 2018. Best of luck with your own personal goals and intentions, but my advice to you (and to myself) is to love yours. Love yourself, love your life, be grateful for all that you have and for all that is to come. There’s no such thing as a life that’s better than yours, and you only get one, so once you believe that, you can be happy.

 

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Crossing over into 2018 with some of the people I admire most ❤

 

 

Challenge Yourself and Stay Motivated this Winter and Holiday Season!

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Winter is coming, we all know it. The days are getting shorter, and colder. It is during this time of the year that I find motivation to do any sort of physical activity other than Christmas shopping or baking, to be at an all time low. I used to work at an all women’s gym, and during this time of year it was basically a ghost town. Especially after work! This was because the majority of the clientele were moms, and moms have the special task of making Christmas happen for their families. I’m the biggest fan of Christmas! However, I do know that it can be a very stressful time of year. This is why keeping up with your exercise during this time of year is so important, and I’m here to give you some ideas on how to do just that!

I do understand that it’s cold outside, there’s less light, and this can all have an affect on your energy levels. However, there is nothing better than exercise to help with your stress, fatigue, and overall mood. Here is an idea on how to keep yourself active during this time of year:

Sign up for, or create your own fitness challenge! 

I have personally signed up for a fitness challenge this Christmas Holiday with two of my good friends from university. I have my own personal fitness goals that are forever changing to help me grow as a person, and as a fitness professional. I also think it’s important to try new things, and to meet new people. Plus, signing up for a fitness challenge with friends holds you more accountable to your goals, and to the challenge itself! If you’re wondering what challenge I signed up for? It’s the BOND X RIDE CHALLENGE. It’s a  5 week challenge that started on December 1st. Basically, you have to complete one 5K run, and one cycle class a week for 5 weeks. Now, this may seem really easy to some of you, and you’re right. It’s not a super hard challenge to complete. However, I personally hate running, and I’ve never done it in the winter. To me, that is a challenge! In addition, I picked this challenge because it’s fun! And because it’s totally possible to complete it during the holidays! There’s no reason why I can’t fit one class  and one run outside with BOND running a week.

So, my advice to you is sign up for a challenge this winter! A lot of gyms and studios run challenges during this time of year to help keep members motivated and engaged. If you’re not a member of the studio or gym, sometimes they have discounts to join the challenge, or other incentives. If there isn’t a challenge available to you at your local gym or studio etc, then create your own! Challenge yourself to attend at least two fitness classes a week for the next 5 weeks, or to go for two runs/walks outside. It doesn’t matter what the challenge is, just pick an activity that you enjoy doing, one that gets you moving, and make sure that you are making it a priority to complete the tasks you have set out for yourself every week. Also, it is much more fun to conquer any challenge with a friend, but if you can’t find someone to commit? Then commit to yourself! Make this a Christmas gift to you! Because you deserve to make yourself a priority!

I’m sure we have all at least thought about our bodies recently, and the effect the holiday season has on it. Or maybe we have fitness goals of our own, and we’re afraid of getting derailed? At the very least, I know that many of us have weight loss goals for the New Year, but why wait until then? Start working on your goals now! If you can commit yourself to your goals now by creating or joining a fitness challenge for yourself, there’s no reason why you can’t achieve those New Years Resolutions! Especially if you complete the challenge! Now, don’t expect miracles for yourself this holiday season. Pick or create a challenge that is “challenging” for you, that is totally possible to complete, and that it is something that you enjoy doing! You will not make time for your challenge if it doesn’t meet these requirements! Also, if you are creating your own challenge? Have a reward for yourself at the end! If you worked hard, and met all the requirements of the challenge, then you deserve to celebrate!

To recap, these are the things you need to motivate yourself to stay active this holiday season:

  1. You need a goal, or a “why.” You need a reason why doing this challenge is important to you. Maybe you have an overarching goal, like to loose 10 lbs and completing this challenge will bring you one step closer to that goal. Or maybe the goal is to keep your sanity this holiday season? Whatever the goal it needs to mean a lot to you.
  2. Pick an activity that you ENJOY! It can be anything! But you have to like it enough to want to do it more than once a week. If you don’t love the activity, you may find things that you like about it. For example, you may like the music the instructor plays, the instructor themselves, or the people who attend the class. Either way, there has to be something that motivates you to do it in the first place.
  3. The frequency and time frame for your challenge needs to be realistic for your current lifestyle. If you haven’t set foot in the gym in months, then don’t think a 30 day challenge where you have to go everyday is going to help. Choose a frequency that is challenging for you, but that you are capable of adopting into your current fitness regiment or overall schedule. I would say you should be doing this activity at the very least, twice a week for about 4-6 weeks. That will give you enough time to maybe see a difference in your fitness or to find yourself a new hobby. The idea is to continue being active once the challenge is over…
  4. Schedule out your activity into your everyday life. You need to make it a priority by adopting it into your current schedule and holding yourself accountable to that appointment. You are far more likely to be successful if you make the time for your physical fitness. Plus the entire holiday season will seem a lot less overwhelming if you set a schedule for yourself, or at least daily tasks to complete.

For those of you who are leaning more towards hibernation this winter season, I strongly urge you to resist! You will most likely regret it. Just because winter invites you to hide behind a frumpy sweater, doesn’t mean you should! Exercise shouldn’t just happen during the months when people are more likely going to see your body in public. Yes it’s cold outside, there’s less light during the day, and this can all affect your energy levels and your mood. But exercise is the best method to combat these issues! Exercise boosts your mood, your energy levels, you will sleep better, and you will perform better during the day. If you’re already stressing out about all the obligations you have this holiday season? Then you need to make self-care a priority, and I am looking at all of those moms out there! Trust me, you will be better able to take care of everyone else once you have taken care of yourself first! But enough ranting, some form of physical activity everyday is important for maintaining or improving your overall well being. Get moving this winter, I promise you won’t regret it!

 

 

You are your own Parent, No one can make you do anything except for yourself!

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It’s ironic that I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about motivation, but could not bring myself to do it until now. To be more committed to my blog this year was one of my New Years Resolutions. I started off writing pretty consistently, but then sure enough I began to lose my motivation. Motivation is a very fickle thing, and it is something that companies, human resources departments, life coaches, personal trainers, and so on are all trying to master and figure out. The thing is, it is very difficult to keep someone motivated, even if it is purely for their own benefit.

As a personal trainer, it has often been assumed by some of my clients, that somehow I will make them want to workout. This however, is far from the truth. In reality, I will be of most use to someone who is already motivated to workout. As the saying goes, you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. There is a reason why this cliche is used so often! If someone is already motivated to workout, the job of the personal trainer is to teach, and perfect that person’s training techniques. Teach them new routines, and help them reach the goals that they were already motivated to reach on their own! The key to any professional who’s job is to help improve the lives of others, like a personal trainer, a dietition, a therapist, and so on, is that they are only of use if that person is already motivated to go through the difficult task of changing their lives! No one can make someone WANT to do anything! Especially if it’s going to be unpleasant! Personal growth of any kind is unpleasant sometimes. It’s hard. It’s uncomfortable. These are what I like to call growing pains. The benefits of growing as a person are tremendous! We are living things, and we are meant to continue to learn and grow! People are the happiest when they feel as if they are living up to their potential, when they feel as though they are living their lives fully. However, this is not the case for a lot of people. Instead a lot of people live a life of complacency, where things are just “fine.” Where they are living on autopilot, going about their daily routines, and nothing really changes. It’s comfortable, but it gets boring, and therefore it gets sad.

This may sound dramatic to you, but it’s really not. If we all took the time to reflect on our lives, there will be something that has always been on your “to-do list” but you can never seem to get around to doing it. This could be finding a new job, loosing some weight, working out on a regular basis, getting out of a unhealthy relationship, going on that dream vacation, the list can go on forever. A lot of times, people live their lives on autopilot for so long, not really taking control over the things that don’t make them happy until their unhappiness is unavoidable. For some reason, a lot of us convince ourselves that we’re “fine,” that maybe having the body you’ve always wanted is not meant for you. That you’re fine with the body you have, or that maybe you can live with the job you have, it’s paying the bills, so you’ll just stay. There is nothing wrong with being okay with your body, whatever it may look like, or for staying in the same position for years, if it makes you happy. But happy, proud, and content, are not the same as “fine.” A lot of times when we avoid the things we know we should change, we lead ourselves to our own “rock bottom.” This is different for everyone, rock bottom for one person could be loosing their job, declaring bankruptcy, having a major heart attack or health scare, divorce, whatever! It may not even be that drastic for someone to realize that something has got to give.

In fact, that is what I’m trying to get us all to realize! When we were children, it was the responsibility of our parents, guardians, and teachers to parent us. Whether or not they were successful at this is another story. Generally speaking, when we were children the goal of our parents and guardians was to nurture us and to force us to do the things we didn’t want to do, so that we could grow into responsible adults. Now, it is our job to be the responsible adults our parents intended us to be, and to take care of ourselves! To make ourselves do the “uncomfortable things” like eat our vegetables, have at least three square meals a day, go to bed on time and to wake up on time (basically set yourself a regular sleeping routine) do your homework aka get your work projects done on time, and the list goes on. In fact, it is quite obvious that now as an adult, your responsibilities have grown. There is more that you are expected to do on a regular basis, but in order to do all of these things successfully, you have to force yourself to do them! No one is going to make you go to bed at a decent hour so that you had enough sleep to tackle your work day, make yourself healthy meals, and to have enough energy to workout, read, or do anything else that contributes to your overall well being, happiness, and growth.

When I was a kid, I lived a very good life. My parents cared a lot about me and my sisters. They put a lot of work into parenting us, because they cared and still care so, so much. I definitely find them to be a little overbearing sometimes, but at the end of the day I know I am very blessed to have them as my parents, because they taught me a lot about being a responsible adult. They would take me to my after school activities like swimming lessons, and dance lessons. They would make me do learning books in the summer, practice my cursive writing, and play educational games like “Jumpstart Grade 3,” all in the hopes that it would help me grow into a better person. Whether or not I always lived up to these standards as I became an adult is a different story. I will say though, that I am the most happy when I feel as though I am being productive. When I feel like I am living up to my potential, chasing my dreams, and kicking butt! When I am going to bed and waking up at the same time everyday, working out everyday, eating well (food that I have made myself too), being fiscally responsible, working hard at my job, reading, writing my blog, and making time for my friends. This is when I feel like superwoman! Like I can do anything, and everything is possible. This is when I am the most happy, the most positive, and the most energetic. However, this is a lot of work. It is a lot of self-parenting, and sometimes I fall off the wagon. For whatever reason, one or two of these items start to slip away, and eventually if I let it go on too long, some other things start to dwindle, and I start to not feel like myself. I start to loose my energy, and my happiness. I start to feel stuck. I’m sure a lot of us know what this feeling is. We have all felt this way when we have stopped parenting ourselves. When we have lost our motivation, and we are no longer forcing ourselves to get uncomfortable anymore. When we stop forcing ourselves to get uncomfortable, we stop growing. Our lives become complacent, and we start to get bored. Your parents aren’t around to sign you up for that yoga class that you’ve been meaning to try, or to talk to your boss about your performance and to ask them for a raise. That is all up to you now. It sucks, but it’s true. If you want something in your life, if you want to be better, or to have more, you have to force yourself out of bed, and to do the uncomfortable work that is takes to get those things.

Believe it or not, eventually the things that you thought we hard or “uncomfortable” will become second nature, maybe even enjoyable? It really is a mindset. Eating well, working out, learning outside of work, these can all be very fulfilling. The only thing is, you have to get yourself to do them. You will never benefit from these things unless you force yourself to do them on a regular basis. Give yourself all of the gifts that your parents (hopefully) gave you growing up. Teach yourself to eat well, sleep well, go to work and be your best, and then participate in extracurricular activities that keep you active, and engaged. This is how your parents tried to make you a successful and responsible adult, someone that they could be proud of. Now it is up to you to do all of those things to make yourself someone that YOU could be proud of!

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Green Kale Smoothie and Coffee to start my day 🙂