Are you brave enough to break your own heart? A letter to myself before I turn 29.

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Dear: Alexandra,

It only seems fitting that you write your last series of blog posts before turning 29 next week in the form of a letter addressed to yourself. This is probably the hardest thing you’ve ever convinced yourself to write, and who knows what’s going to happen after you press the “publish” button here on WordPress and all of a sudden this letter no longer belongs to you. Once you’ve put this letter out into the universe it will be an official letting go of a bunch of shit that you’ve been holding on to your entire twenties. A bunch of shit that no longer serves you, and is in fact weighing you down. I want my last year of my twenties to be of liberation, so that when my 30th birthday rolls around it’s not filled with dread. I’ve never really been afraid of getting older because I’ve never thought of myself as old, and I still don’t feel that way. I feel like my life has only just begun, and there’s still plenty of things to learn, see, and do, which is why I feel like this letter is so important. I have no idea what the future will hold, but I know that if I want my life to be full of happiness, love, and abundance, there’s a lot of shit that I need to let go of. I need to break your heart Alex, and let go of this idea of who Alex is. I need to be brave enough to admit all of my faults; to let myself be truly vulnerable. This is the first step to acceptance and growth. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, you can’t change your reality for the better until you accept it first. You need to be honest about exactly what you’re dealing with in order to make a lasting change.

So here it goes. Ever since I’ve made reading, writing a journal, writing my blog, meditation, podcasts made by people I admire, and yoga more of a regular practice (I pretty much try to do most of these things daily), I’ve made great strides in my own personal self-healing and overall growth. I’ve learned a lot about myself, and the things that I convinced myself were true, but aren’t. I’ve really done my absolute best to dig deep, and to be present. I’ve realized a lot about the language I’ve been using to describe myself, not only to myself but to others. I’ve realized that I am a pretty good story-teller, and I’m pretty good at convincing others of my shit, including myself. However, when I say that I feel like so much has changed in the last two months of 2018, I really do mean it! But if I was truly honest, this wave of change began way before my New Years Eve breakdown. I felt the reckoning coming for a while. The people who know me the best, know this to be true as well. I’ve been saying that I want to change, that I want to be better, and do better for myself ever since I’ve moved to Toronto in September 2016. That is when I would say that I was asking for change the most. Even in my blog posts at the time, if you read them, there was a promise of change. The problem was, I really didn’t know how this change would look like, or how it would feel. Or I knew how all along, I just wasn’t open to the idea just yet. I was still very much trapped in fear, trapped in my own Ego. If you want me to get super real, I haven’t been as happy as I thought I was when I was attending school at Laurier. I convinced myself that, that was the happiest time for myself, and so I’ve held on strong to this version of Alex for a long time. Until now, when I’ve finally realized that this version of Alex no longer serves me. She never really existed. Well she did, but not as how you would like to remember her, and so here is the breaking of your heart Alex.

This past Tuesday you did a Yoga with Kassandra video in your Toronto home, and it was a Yin Yoga meditation focusing on the Sacral Chakra of Creativity and Sensuality. This is the third chakra video that you’ve followed made by Kassandra, and every time you have discovered something new about yourself. Generally, in these video she has come up with a mantra pertaining to each chakra, or if you’re focusing on one particular chakra all of the mantras said throughout the practice deal with the different aspects of that chakra. When you did this particular video, the mantra “I am open and receptive to connection and intimacy,” didn’t sit right with you because you knew that you’re weren’t ready for connection and intimacy just yet. If anything you had no real desire to talk to men in a romantic way at all because you felt as though you didn’t have the energy for it right now. Which is all really true, and totally okay. But why? Especially when most people know that what you want most in the world is true love with a romantic partner. You want a family of your own and someone to fight alongside you through life. So why do you feel as though you’re not ready for this right now? Well, you’ve told your friends that you want to focus on yourself, your finances this year, and your business. This is true, and you are already doing this to better all these aspects of your life, but why aren’t you ready to for romantic love?

We know it’s not because you’re incapable of love, because you have many loving relationships with your friends and family, but for some reason you’re constantly experiencing a Ground Hog Day scenario when it comes to your boyfriends. In many ways they all seem to be similar versions of the same guy, you’re only truly conscious of this fact now through your own self-reflection and meditation. But why are all these guys so similar to one another? Well, that answer came to you as clear as day after you reflected on your conversation with your roommate about her sister’s manipulative ex boyfriend. She was telling you how her sister was finally being honest about how terribly manipulative, and emotionally abusive her boyfriend really was, and that she had no idea that this was even happening. In fact, your roommate had believed that this guy was really great because on the surface he seemed great. You said that you could relate because your university boyfriend turned into a manipulative, and emotional abusive ex boyfriend. You went into detail about the shitty things he said and did during your fourth year of university, that I don’t need to repeat in this letter. However, after you left that conversation on Thursday night, you meditated on what you said and realized that every time you brought up the terrible things your university ex boyfriend did, you only talked about the things he did post break-up. If anything you never, admitted to yourself, or to anyone else that he was actually not a great boyfriend either. And if you did, you didn’t fully believe it. Sure, you both were very much in love with each other, but that love did blind you to the toxicity of that relationship. There were warning signs, and you know it. You knew it all along, but why was it so hard to admit that he wasn’t a good boyfriend? He was your first true love, but he was also a big lesson as well. He used you as an emotional crutch because he had a lot of his own shit that he was going through that he was never able to be honest about with you, or anyone else, including himself. That doesn’t make him a bad person, though this is something that you’ve told yourself ever since you broke up because it helped with the pain. He did a lot of hurtful things to you, he would guilt trip you, he cheated on you, and he would constantly depend on you for almost everything. It was exhausting and yet you still loved him. I know you felt stupid after the breakup, and after you saw just how terrible he was treating you post breakup. You were so upset with yourself for not knowing that he cheated, and for allowing him to manipulate you and make you feel bad for him as a means of keeping you around. But even still, you had and always will have love for him and THAT is even harder to admit.

For a while you hated him. You hated him so, so much. Now he doesn’t really seem to affect you, or so you thought. Yet here we are. It’s okay Alex that you loved him, that you still have love for him, and that he hurt you terribly. It doesn’t make you any less of a person. It doesn’t make him a good person, or a bad person, just human. You are both human. You were also very young. He made mistakes, he was in pain and unfortunately there was nothing that you could do to help at the time. He would never have been able to be the guy you needed him to be, and the love that you had for each other was real but it no longer serves you. It is not the love you need, nor is it the love you deserve. Whether or not you find true love, even though it is a wish of yours, may never come true if you don’t acknowledge the process healing you had to endure during your twenties. This is your final goodbye to your university ex boyfriend, who was in fact not a very good boyfriend to you at all. It was a toxic relationship when you were together and it was even more so when you were out of it. You loved him, you hated him, and now you have forgiven him. Now you know that he had his own pain that he unfortunately was inflicting on you because he did not know at the time what to do with it. That sucks. It’s not right, it will never be right, but it happened, and it’s going to keep on happening until you realize that it has nothing to do with you. This bullshit happens to many people all of the time, but it doesn’t have to define you either. Let it go. It’s over, and now you can truly move on in a very real way. You may have thought you’ve moved on but you didn’t. It wasn’t until you woke up after that conversation with your roommate where you realized that you’ve only been speaking about the negative aspects of your relationship with him from the breakup onwards, but your rarely ever speak about the hard times when you were together. That’s when you knew that he wasn’t his best self with you as much as he should have been. Nobody is perfect, but we can strive to be our best selves the majority of the time, especially when it comes to those we love. And for whatever reason he just could not do that for you. That’s hard to admit, because you loved him so, but it’s the truth. Now that you know all of this, and you have put it out into the universe, it no longer has power over you.

It’s weird to finally realize that by trying to not let it have power of me, it actually had power of me all this time. Pretending that it wasn’t there only made it more present in my life (all the boys I’ve dated who were just not right). Now that I’ve realized the power of presence and meditation, I can finally free myself of the burdens that I’ve been carrying through out my twenties. Goodbye university boyfriend, goodbye forever. Now that this part of you is gone, you can now be fully open to the possibility of true love, the love you’ve always wanted for yourself but could never figure out why it wasn’t happening.

You’re welcome.

Alexandra Rinaldo

love quote

Quote by Cheryl Strayed. I want to love myself and everyone else for real and to do so I must be real. I feel compelled to write these letters because I do believe in health and wellness. Healing both physically and emotionally is a big part of that.

How Not Sleeping Properly Can Increase Your Pant Size

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Sleeping Beauty was definitely on to something, and I’m here to tell you why! I have touched on the topic of sleep and stress management in one of my previous articles called Day 5 of the 12 Days of Fitmas: Sleep and Stress Management During the Holidays. It seems as though the times when we need sleep the most, we actually sleep the least. It is when we are the most stressed out, with the biggest to-do lists in the world, that we tend to run ourselves on empty, and then pay for it big time in the long run. Not getting enough sleep can be quite dangerous! You could burn yourself out, and cause yourself to get seriously ill.However, sleep deprivation is not just bad for your overall health and well-being , it can actually dull your brain activity. This causes you to make bad decisions, because your frontal lobe (which is in charge of decision-making and impulse control) is deeply affected by lack of sleep, it’s kind of like being drunk. Sometimes lack of sleep can be worse than being drunk! We shouldn’t drive, or operate any sort of machinery drunk, so why is it so common that we force ourselves to drive, or go to work when we are sleep deprived? That can’t be safe right?! Safety aside, if you’re drunk (or just overtired) you are more likely to over eat, and eat take out food. You are also likely going to skip out on exercise as well. All of these activities, and drinking excess amounts of caffeine only exacerbate the situation, making you feel more tired, stressed out, lazy, and just not good.

In addition, if you’re overtired, and you can no longer control your impulse to grab McDonald’s instead of making yourself something nutritious for dinner, your brain’s reward system is revved up when you’re overtired. So, now you have a craving for McDonald’s that you can’t control, and once you eat that McDouble sandwich, because it’s comfort food (high fat, high carb, lots of salt), your brain’s reward system is going crazy! This makes it even more difficult to not eat take-out again, or to resist grabbing desert after your McDouble, and grab a snack size McFlurry. Basically, being impulsive and caving into your cravings for comfort food because you’re so tired, and your reward system being heightened only perpetuates the issue. You’re tired so you need energy, and comfort food is high calorie aka high energy, so once you eat it, you feel awesome, and then you don’t. Your insulin level spikes, and then falls drastically making you feel like a slug. Supper tired, and fat. Generally, you want to pass out right after you eat these things, which is probably one of the worst things you can do. If you can’t go to sleep after eating a high calorie take-out for lunch, then you’re more likely going to pick up a coffee of some sort, which will affect your ability to sleep well that night. This is because it takes about 4-6 hours for the effects of caffeine to ware off. This all depends on how much coffee you drink after lunch, how fast your metabolism is and so on. If you are a smaller human, the effects of coffee last much longer, than if you were a larger, more muscular human. These high calorie, and highly caffeinated diets only make you feel like an empty shell of a human that is just going through the motions. Who wants to live like that? You feel awful, and you will never look your best if you keep that up.

Moreover, people who lack sleep, are more likely to indulge in late night snacks. These snacks also tend to be high carb and high fat, like cookies, or chips. It’s so funny when clients tell me they don’t have a sweet tooth, but they love chips. I think people forget that just because it doesn’t taste sweet, does not mean there’s no sugar or carbs in it. Potato chips are high carb, high fat, and high salt, which will only have you retaining water. So you’ll wake up looking and feeling super puffy and fat. No one likes to feel bloated, and fat! Even if you’re doing a good job of trying to avoid eating junk food, when you’re tired, you are more likely to just eat more food in general. This is because your body is lacking energy, so it’s going to try to eat energy (calories is energy for the body). So, you will start to eat more calories in general if you’re not getting enough beauty sleep, to try to make up for the lack of energy. Maybe that’s why they call it beauty sleep? Either way, we all feel better, and look much better when we are properly rested.

Sleep is like nutrition for the brain, and most people need at least 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Getting less than that can cause the most determined dieter to reach for the pint of ice cream. If weight loss is a major goal for you? Then your first goal should be to get on a regular sleep schedule no matter what. No matter how stressed out you may be, or how much work you may have to do, you cannot perform properly if you’re not sleeping. Even if it seems counter productive to quit working late nights, because you’re trying to “get ahead,” how much quality work are you actually getting done? I personally find that I am the most effective and productive during the day. I feel the best when I have gone to bed early, gotten 8 hours of sleep, and I have started my day early. I love starting my day early and ending my day early. It makes me feel so productive, and I also feel like I have enough of my day left to rest and decompress before I have to go to bed again and start over the next day. Believe it or not, your workload isn’t going anywhere, and you can walk away from it, then come back to it the next day well rested and better able to tackle it. I know there are times where you may feel like you can’t just “walk away” from your work, but you’re going to be working for most of your life anyway, so is it worth sacrificing your well-being? Maybe that’s something you have to ask yourself? I actually think that you would be able to get much more done during your regular work day if you sleep well, eat well, and exercise on a regular basis, and you won’t have to let your work life encroach on your home life too much. How about that? Sounds lovely right? I’m sure most of us know that we need more sleep, and we need to eat better, and exercise, but far too many of us don’t do these things enough.

If I still haven’t convinced you to get more shut-eye, or to take a nap here and there, then did you know that lack of sleep can affect your hormonal health as well? If your hormones are out of whack it is much more difficult to resist cravings, and cravings come much more frequently. This doesn’t just effect women, if effects men as well. However. ladies, you all know what it feels like when your hormones are out of whack and all you want is chocolate by the truck load! Lack of sleep impacts your leptin and ghrelin hormones. These hormones signal your brain to let you know when you’re hungry and when you’re full. Ghrelin tells your brain when it’s time to eat. When you’re sleep deprived, your brain produces more ghrelin. Leptin on the other hand tells your brain when to put your fork down. When you’re sleep deprived, leptin levels plummet, which only tells your brain that you need more food. If you put all of this together, it’s pretty obvious how sleep deprivation can lead to weight gain. The stress that you’re putting on your body now from lack of sleep, a high caffeine/high calorie diet, plus all the stress you’re putting on yourself from work, your home life, your finances and so on, only signal your body to produce more of the stress hormone cortisol.What is cortisol? It is one of the steroid hormones and it is made in the adrenal glands. Secretion of this hormone is controlled by hypothalamus, the adrenal gland, and the pituitary gland. Because most cells in the body have cortisol receptors, it affects many different bodily functions. Cortisol can help control blood sugar levels, regulate metabolism, help reduce inflammation, and assist with memory. It can also control salt and water levels in the body, as well as blood pressure. People with high cortisol levels tend to gain weight rapidly in the stomach, chest, and face. Often doctors will notice this because the person will have slender arms and legs, and most of their weight gain is centered in the middle of their body. There are several more negative effects of high cortisol levels, including an increase in anxiety and depression as well. Now, sleep deprivation will have you eating more, more often, and it will reduce your body’s ability to metabolize all of this extra food. This will only have your body gaining weight and hanging on to fat. If that wasn’t enough, like I mentioned before, sleep deprivation will cause your body’s ability to process insulin ( a hormone needed to convert sugar, starches, and other food into energy) to go out of whack. This is bad because, if your body is having trouble responding to insulin, then your body will have trouble processing fats from your bloodstream, and will therefore store them as fat.

I’m not saying that if you sleep, you will lose weight (it is possible though!), what I’m saying is that not enough sleep hampers your metabolism and it can lead to weight gain. Also, getting adequate sleep will have you feeling much more motivated to not only tackle your work day, but to exercise on top of that! You be much more productive at work, and in your life in general! This will only have a positive effect on your overall well-being. Your mood will improve, and so will your energy. Proper sleep will have you making better food choices, which will give you the fuel to power through your day, and your workouts. Regular exercise will have you getting more quality sleep, and the circle continues. As you can see, everything is connected. Nothing in life is every separate from another. Better sleep positively effects your diet, workouts, and your diet and workouts effect your sleep. If you feel like everyday you’re just going through the motions. Like you’re surviving life, rather than living life? Then maybe you need to take a step back, and re-evaluate what you have going on. Take more time out of your day to take care of your basic needs, this includes proper sleep, exercise, and nutrition. Even if you don’t think you need to lose weight, exercise is not meant just for weight loss! We all need to keep our bodies strong so that we can conquer the crazy things that life throws at us. Life is too short to not be able to enjoy it fully, and no one is having fun if they feel tired all the time! So, if getting enough quality sleep seems to be a consistent issue for you? Then here are some tips on how you can begin to improve your sleep schedule:

  1. Shut down your phone, laptop, television, basically all your electronics a half hour to an hour before bed. The blue light that is shines from those devices negatively effects your REM cycle. Plus, reading a stressful text, or email can have you up all night when really there’s not much you can do about it until the morning anyway. So, I put my phone on do not disturb before I start to brush my teeth and such before bed. It helps a lot!
  2. Do your best to leave the bedroom for just sleep and sex. Think of your room as a place for relaxation of release, rather than a place for work and entertainment.
  3. We all have morning rituals, things we do every morning before work, do the same for your bedtime. Have an herbal tea, read a book, have a bath, anything that you find relaxing. Have some YOU time, you deserve it! 😉
  4. Try to wake up, and go to sleep at the same time everyday, even on weekends! This is something that I have a hard time doing, and it really does affect my Monday mornings… I’m sure many of you can relate!
  5. Avoid alcohol, and heavy meals close to bed time. This will cause you to have a restless sleep. Also, make sure to not have caffeine after 4 pm because like I mentioned above, it can take up to 6 hours for you to metabolize all the caffeine.
  6. Lastly, make sure your room is nice and dark! Darkness tells your body it’s time to sleep and it helps your body produce melatonin, which is the sleep hormone. Light on the other hand suppresses the release of melatonin.
babybelle

Princess Belle has the idea! Taking a cat nap all snug in my sister’s drawer next to a dream catcher, nothing but sweet dreams for Belle ❤