We need to quit stirring the pot and wash and put away the dishes instead!

It has been almost seven months since my last post. Can you tell that I've been busy? There are many days when I will write something down with all intentions of putting it all together for a new post but it just hasn't happened. I also feel like I use social media to let you see into my daily life that I sometimes I feel like their isn't anything going on that is worth while to post about that you have already seen via FB or IG.  I really don't even know where to start.

So far 2013 has proven to be a year that I have finally decided to stop cheating myself. Cheating myself out of education, health, happiness, and just life in general. For so many years I have played the victim in my own life. The word in that sentence being "I". I have been moving forward with my life, yes but I have still allowed the dark cloud of pain and self pity  to hold me back from a life worth living. I am still on my journey to health and loving it more than ever. No big changes there except I have finally learned to love exercise and all the benefits it has to offer. I no longer view it as torture but as a tool for helping me maximize my effort towards physical health, mental health and emotional health. Yes, it does help in all of those areas. I am back in school, ten years later. You have all herd me say that I would be back in school by the time Brooklynn started kindergarten and guess what.... I am! I am in a good place in my life. There is enough struggle to keep me learning and enough goodness to make my heart swell.


execute

 

Verb Carry out or put into effect (a plan, order, or course of action). Produce (a work of art).

Synonyms perform - accomplish - carry out - implement - fulfill What does the word execute mean in your life? In mine, it means just this. There is no better word or definition to describe what I have learned by applying this to my life. Execute. If I want to be healthy then I have to execute. If I want to further my education then I have to execute. If I need to get things done then I must execute. The saying "knowing is half the battle" has never been more true for me. I look back at the time I wasted "knowing". I think back to things I knew or acknowledged in my life and I'm appalled that I thought that was enough. Just to acknowledge them was enough for me. To consciously know something needed to be done and just not doing it, was how I lived. Failing to execute but gave myself props because at least I knew it, even if I didn't do anything about it.  Cheating myself and then having the audacity to play the victim. Hello, reality check!! This was a horrible habit that lead to a vicious cycle of self sabotage. The simple things I wanted in my life were not there because of this very problem, because of ME! For me, it is safe to say that the things I wanted in my life were very attainable and have always been. I just didn't execute. I wallowed. I lied to myself. I disrespected myself. I wasted time and the list goes on of my own behavior that actively prevented me from having the things I wanted in my life.  I think humans as a whole have a real hard time being honest with themselves. I know I had major issue with this. Are you honest with yourself? Stop right now and think about the last time you were really honest with yourself. Do you reflect on your life, your choices, and where your going in an honest way? I'll share some of the things that I had to be honest with myself about. My weight. Lets just get real for a few minuets. When I was honest with myself about my weight and my health, the end result was like a no brainer for me. Of course I topped the scale at over 330 pounds. That wasn't surprising to me when I was honest with myself  about how that number got so high. I ate fast food almost every day and sometimes multiple times a day. I would binge eat. I would sit for hours at night and snack. I didn't participate in ANY kind of exercise. I only drank carbonation. Food ran my life. The majority of my day was spent thinking about what I would eat next. Yes that sounds disgusting but it's honest. Now lets reflect back to "knowing is half the battle". I knew what I was doing. I knew the results I was getting from this horrible behavior. I knew I was cheating myself. I knew it.. but knowing it was only half the battle. It was time to execute and that I did! The first step is being honest with yourself and the second is execution. Lets talk about education. Ten years have passed since I first started Jones. Ten. TEN! Every year that rolled around, every single year, I knew what I needed to do and guess what.. I didn't do it. I was lazy. I didn't want to try. I settled. I was okay being less than what I'm capable of being. I was okay "knowing" what I needed to do and not doing  it yet I wanted to feel sorry for myself and poor mouth. Um Hello! I have all the same opportunities as everyone else. I may have a little more to work around at this point but none the less, the opportunity was still there and I was still cheating myself from it. I had to be honest with self. I already knew what I needed to do, hell I have known that since the day I quit. Knowing isn't enough. We must do! Going back to school has taught me a lot about myself. It has made things that "grown ups" have said to me my whole life, make sense. Why do we do this? Why do we stir the pot of the misery that we claim we want out of so desperately. Do we really want out of it? Are we scared that we might actually have to put forth some effort. Are we afraid that we may have to let go of some things that we enjoy that have become attached to that misery? Are we afraid that we wont be right all the time? Are we afraid to be humble? Do we think our PAST pain and struggle was so bad we shouldn't have to push through anything else that is hard? Do we think we deserve better than the hand that has been dealt to us? Then why do we sell ourselves short on the very things we have the power to change. Why do we belly ache and woe is me when we choose to stay in the misery. We know what has to be done, we know the things we need to stop doing but we do them anyway. The way I see it.. we deserve the misery. If we love it that much that we choose it over happiness and the gratification that growth and hard work bring to our life, then we deserve it.  Everyone always wants to know "what is your secret" or we all want to take the easy way out. We don't want to grow. We don't want to move one. We don't want to mature. We don't want to learn from our mistakes. We don't want to be satisfied and we are ruining the happiness that is waiting on us. And that my friends, is what I had to swallow when I was completely honest with myself.  We are warriors. “Whatever you are physically...male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy--all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside.” ― Cassandra Clare I love this quote so much. Why would we want to live our life being the victim when we could be warriors. We have all these unfortunate circumstances some which are a direct reflection of choices we have made that surround us but they do not define us. They do not hold us back. We hold ourselves back.  We need to quit stirring the pot and wash and put away the dishes instead!! My challenge to you my friends, this week, is to do just that. Be really gut wrenching honest with your self. It could be small things like your job, a friendship, your relationship with your spouse, you responsibility as a parent, or  any number of things. Knowing is half the battle, be a warrior and execute. Our happiness is waiting just on the other side of our self sabotage.