Last week I was on a walk as part of a cardio requirement for the challenge I’m currently participating in at my gym. Normally I listen to music to pass the time and to help me stay motivated, but this time I decided to go into Audible and download a book to listen to from my library. The book I chose to read is called “Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts” by Jennie Allen; and I’m so glad that I was led to start this one because it’s been really good so far, it’s an easy book to listen to (this book is read by the author, and I find her voice pleasant to listen to), and there are a few parts that I can relate to already (and I’m only on Chapter 9)!
In the first few chapters, Jennie talks about the scripture Psalm 139, and how God used it as a reminder that no matter where we are or what we’ve done, He will be there for us. I went to my own Bible and read this passage for myself, and received a few much needed affirmations about God and how He feels about me.
Have you ever had those moments where the Spirit is trying to tell you something, and you’re only kind of listening so He continues to impress onto your mind to LISTEN to what He has to say, and also write it down so you can go back and read it over as a reminder when needed? I had a moment like that a day or so after I started reading this book.
I was finishing up reading my devotional for the morning, when I thought back to Psalm 139 and the verse that says, “Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?”. A thought occurred to me that I tried to push away, thinking it was a distraction. However as the thought revealed itself more, I realized that God was trying to tell me something and so I listened. Then He told me to write it down, to which I said no at first (I know, I know…). When you hear “No, you NEED to write this down” in your head…You write that thought down no questions asked!
Here is what God had to tell me, which further affirmed that He IS here for me, NO MATTER WHAT, WHERE, or WHO I try to use as an “escape” because I didn’t believe that I was enough or deserved anything good:
I’m sharing this because we all have dark parts of ourselves that we believe can’t be reached or healed by God. We’ve done things we’re ashamed of and don’t believe that God will love us because of them. I’m especially sharing because of the last few phrases; let these serve as reminders and affirmations for you whenever you because they ARE true!!
I AM WORTHY
I AM LOVED
I AM WANTED
If you can, read Psalm 139 and allow God to speak to the broken parts you keep hidden from Him. HE IS THERE FOR YOU!
I hope this message blesses and encourages you 💜 Feel free to comment and share with someone else who needs to hear a few words of affirmation and encouragement!
Can you believe we survived the disaster that was 2020 and made it into 2021?! Whew, talk about a whirlwind year! I hope this New Year is finding you guys okay, and that despite all the negative that seemed to be prominent everywhere, there were some positive things that happened for you last year even more so.
Last year I bought my first house! I can’t even believe that I did that; I used to always believe that I couldn’t buy a house until I was married, but here I am a single mom with a house! Next month marks our first full year living here as well (another BIG shocker)!!! I have no idea what we’re gonna do to celebrate that yet…
Another exciting thing I did last year was start a Holistic Health Coach Training Program through IIN (Institute of Integrative Nutrition). Our graduation date is in a few days, and I have started this program before but stopped, but I’m proud of myself for sticking through it this entire year! I fell behind and so I still have a few modules to catch up on, but aside from that I’ve met all the other graduation requirements so pretty soon I will be a full on Certified Holistic Health Coach!!!
I also started (more like voluntold to start, heh) a group exercise class at the gym where I workout with another awesome girl. It’s been pretty good for the month or so we’ve been running it! It’s something that’s totally out of my comfort zone, but so far, the reviews have been really good so I’m excited to see how it goes this year! Oh, and I also helped train in our gym’s Burn the Bird event by leading some exercises of my own- that was a TON of fun (and also wore me out hahaha).
The last MAJOR thing that I did for 2020 would have to be one of the LAST things I ever expected myself to do and will completely take me out of my comfort zone- I applied to be a Tech School instructor in my field AND GOT SELECTED!!! Next year we’ll be in Texas, and I’ll be doing something else I didn’t think I’d ever do, and that is teach others!
So those are a few of my 2020 Highlights, and I’m pretty excited to see what highlights I’ll have for 2021!
There is a woman I follow on Instagram and her name is Alexandra Elle (@alex_elle). She’s written an AMAZING book called “After the Rain”, and today I was reading her email newsletter about journaling our intentions for 2021. A friend of hers shared a question- How do I want/intend to feel in 2021- and she shared her list in her email. I took some time this morning (after the gym and taking care of my morning devotional) to journal my own response to this question, and I wanted to share my list with y’all below:
How Do I want/intend to Feel in 2021?
Inspired
Led by God
Fearless
My version of healthy and happy
Truly alive
Whole emotionally
Present
Imaginative/creative
Free from my negative thinking
Uplifted
Glorious
Connected wo what matters/is important to me
Brave
Loved unconditionally
Warm
Peaceful
Intentional
Purposeful
Meaningfully productive
Open
Grateful
Aligned with God and my purpose
Closeness
Community
Free flowing
There were other questions as well in the newsletter, but I wanted to share this question with y’all because I suppose these would be considered my intentions for this year. I encourage everyone who reads this post to take some time out of your day (whenever that may be) to sit down with a notebook or a piece of paper and answer this question for yourself: “How do I want/intend to feel in 2021?”
Whenever I would sit on the couch and turn on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, I would always find myself craving a snack while watching a favorite show or a new show that I’ve discovered or was recommended by a friend. And of course, it wasn’t a healthy snack, it was usually chips, ice cream, cheese toast, or some other random concoction that tasted good but wasn’t overall good for me. In the end, this habit became automatic, and eventually, I didn’t even have to be watching anything on my computer! Sitting in my favorite spot on the couch almost ALWAYS led to me snacking on something, whether I was hungry or not.
I came to this realization the other day, that my brain had reprogrammed itself to correlate sitting on the couch with eating, and a result of me doing this while watching a show led to me being unproductive, I wasn’t reaching my goals (personal, professional, and health wise), and on the weekends I was often sleeping my entire day away!
Is this something you can relate to? Is there an unhealthy habit that you have that you might not have noticed is triggered by a certain action? Let’s take some time to really think about it…
What is an unhealthy habit that you want to break? What activities are linked to this habit? Are these activities good or bad for you? For example, me sitting on the couch isn’t necessarily bad, but my sitting on the couch and watching binging shows for hours knowing that it will lead to a habit I’m trying to break is bad (for me, anyway).
Now that I noticed how these two activities are linked, I’ve been more mindful of it and started to come up with ideas of how I can reprogram my brain to correlate sitting on my couch with doing something that I both enjoy doing AND is good for me! Some ways that I’ve started reprogramming my mind include:
Sitting in my favorite spot with a book instead of my laptop
Watching a show, but when that craving for food hit, get up and make a cup of tea or drink some water
Just getting up and doing something else around the house
Creating and keeping a routine that keeps me off my couch (because when I sit on this thing, 9 times out of 10 I wasn’t just “relaxing”, I was procrastinating!) until it’s time to take a break
Reminding myself that I’d either just eaten and can wait a few hours, OR if it is time for me to eat, grab something HEALTHY instead of junky
Now, let’s look at the unhealthy habit you want to break, and the activities that you find yourself doing that automatically end with the habit you want to change. What are some things that you can do or tell yourself to help reprogram your brain and associate those activities with the healthy habit you desire to create? Spend some time with a pen and paper and write it out! I think you’ll be impressed by what you can come up with J
If this post spoke to you, please leave a comment below and share with a friend (or a few)!!
Growing up being “unnaturally tall” (something I would jokingly tell myself and others sometimes), it was hard to accept my body and my height. It was bad enough that I started wearing glasses in the 1st grade, but add to that my long legs? Cue ALL the “how’s the air up there” and “hey 4 eyes” jokes and comments you can think of. It wasn’t fun being the tallest person (and girl) in school all the time… When I got to high school, I was STOKED to see people taller than me- there was a WHOLE BOY who was 6ft10 and towered over EV-ER-Y-ONE! I finally felt okay with being tall, despite still being awkward with my long limbs (I fell a lot when I first started playing basketball, ha-ha).
One other thing that I struggled with while growing up tall was finding clothes that fit me right. Pants were almost always not long enough, despite having the word “long” in the sizing; shorts and dresses had to be bought in larger sizes to accommodate my long legs; regular sized shorts and dresses were WAY too short on my tall frame. Shirts also had to be bought in larger sizes so that I’d have extra length in the sleeve and midsection area. Over the years, I’ve gotten used to buying clothes in larger sizes, that for a while I didn’t know what my ACTUAL sizes were in jeans, shorts, skirts, dresses, and shirts (my hoodies will ALWAYS be larger, but that’s for comfort reasons)!! Once I was old enough to buy my own clothes and wear whatever I wanted, it was ingrained in my head that shorts, dresses, and skirts had to be knee-length; if it wasn’t I couldn’t wear it because it would show too much of my legs and I couldn’t show too much skin. There were a few times when I went out with friends that I’d wear these items in shorter lengths, but my anxiety about feeling too exposed was on high alert. Eventually I would just stick with jeans, leggings, and yoga pants for daily and workout wear, with the occasional pair of basketball shorts thrown in.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE long skirts and dresses, when they’re actually LONG on me and not stopping just above my ankles (I mean, how can I call that a MAXI skirt/dress if it doesn’t touch the floor??). I would always see cute shorts and dresses, and even rompers; but I would immediately disqualify myself from getting them because “they’d be way too short” and convinced myself that I couldn’t possibly show that much leg in public.
I don’t know exactly when it happened as I grew from pre-teen to teen to now an adult, but somewhere in those younger years my mind was convinced that showing too much leg was inappropriate, and therefore I had to hide them as best as I could. So that’s what I did. Even though my legs are hands down my favorite physical part of myself that I like, I felt ashamed and embarrassed to show them off too much outside of wearing a swimsuit. You’re probably wondering how I could be okay with wearing a swimsuit, but not be okay with wearing regular clothes that show a good amount of leg. Honestly… I couldn’t really tell you aside from that’s just how my brain saw it. Wearing a swimsuit = okay. Wearing short shorts, dresses, and skirts that came above the knee? No ma’am!
I wear shorter shorts in my house, because it’s my house. For the longest time, I didn’t feel comfortable wearing them outside the house, because I felt like EVERYONE would be staring and judging me for daring to wear something that exposed too much. I was super self-conscious about it. It’s taken me up to the last few years or so to be comfortable wearing shorter shorts both in public AND to the gym! More recently, the gym that I go to now has really been instrumental in helping me feel less self-conscious about my body and my legs.
I wear the shorter shorts to work out in, not just because my legs get extremely hot and I want them to be able to breathe, but also because I WANT to! And every now and then I allow myself to believe that they look GOOD on me; I feel that much more CONFIDENT when I wear them, and I’ll admit that there are times where I do like to show off the progress and muscle definition as well (something else that’s taken quite a few years to feel okay doing, showing off progress)! I wear the shorter shorts in public because I WANT to, and the outfit I chose to wear looks better with shorts! I haven’t worn this combo often because lately I’ve been going from work uniform to gym clothes to PJ’s, and on the weekends I’m in comfy clothes, but I LOVE pairing a cute pair of shorts with my gray low top Converse sneakers J
Sitting here thinking about it, it’s baffling to me how, despite the compliments and encouraging words I receive from family and friends about how pretty and beautiful my legs are and hearing how some people even wished they had my legs, I’ve spent YEARS subconsciously shaming myself for having long legs and wanting to wear items of clothing that showed them off. Something that God has BLESSED me with. A basic body part, and I conditioned myself to be ashamed of them based on something that seems so simple but isn’t when you think about it- CLOTHING!
Although I’m not 100% liberated from that uncomfortable feeling, I know that the more I use that feeling as a reminder to step further into what makes me ME (clothing included), the more that embarrassed feeling will go away until it’s replaced by COMPLETE CONFIDENCE in myself and my body. Every time I wear the shorts or the dress and maybe even one day a cute jumpsuit and that small but dominating part of my brain goes “but your legs-!” I will side-eye that part of my brain into submission and go about my day rocking whatever I feel like wearing because I HAVE NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF!
“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”
Abraham Maslow
Pictured wearing a pair of shorts in XS (yes, EXTRA SMALL)! I was convinced that I couldn’t wear them because of their size; I was worried about showing too much leg, but Misha enthusiastically encouraged me to at least try them on…It took a few jumps to get them over my thighs (LOL!) but once they were on I actually liked how they fit (and I was shocked that I was actually wearing an EXTRA SMALL. I honestly didn’t believe that would be possible)!!! I now have another pair that’s in a Small, and I like how those fit as well!!
Not Broken...Becoming 