Answer of the Day: Keeping Boundaries is Easy, but Not Really.

I've been thinking a lot about boundaries lately.  Literally, like fences, that are intended to keep IN the things you want and value, and keep OUT destructive or predatory factors. 

I've been struggling somewhat with both of these issues for a long time.  And as a result of all the work I've done in the last part of 2013 to really begin to deal with regaining my happiness, I feel like I need to be absolutely vigilant about keeping up fences in my professional life.  If I don't, all the predators, in the form of grading, teachers' issues, and stress will begin to zap my energy again and I will lose focus on my personal goals: balance, relationships, health, connection, fun.

Conversely, the opposite seems to be my struggle in my personal world. Tearing down SOME of the "protective fencing" is part of the process when you are trying to establish relationships. Calculated risk is required. Sadly, those fences are not only steeled and plated, they've been there so long they are now covered in knotty muscled vines that need a weed-whacker on steroids to remove.

No joke.  The very same fences that I need in one area of my life also need to be scaled back a little (a lot) in other areas.  Here's the visual in my mind.

What I need in my Professional Life:

What I need in my Personal Life:

These visual images actually help me to keep myself in balance in terms of all my fencing... lol.

Answer of the Day: Avoid Underselling Yourself-- Honey, you got it goin' on!

This week I was chatting online with, Mo, who lives in the great state of Utah, in Salt a Lake- the City!  She is a wise friend, who somehow manages to always know how to say the exact right thing to me at the exact right time. It's sort of uncanny how she accomplishes this.
Here is a portion of that conversation...

what's with all the self doubt, B???

ME: it's me Mo.  I am a ball of insecurity when it comes to my personal life...

look at my track record, doesn't it sort of speak volumes!

I'm working hard to change that track in my head... but a lifetime of habits don't change overnight.

okay - here's my wisdom for what it is worth...everyone has a shitty track record until they meet the right person...and 50% have a shitty track record even after that!

ME: you are totally right

my wise friend. i miss you

but your biggest flaw is CONSISTENTLY selling yourself short

exactly

ME: you nailed it

First of all, I'm amazed at the the wonderment that is real friendship.  I could say this much about each of my girlfriends: we really know each other.  We have been through hell and high water together and that is something.  I'm so grateful for the mirrors I have in the form of my girlfriends who feed back to me what I need to see, good, bad, or ugly.

After this conversation, I put on my (hot pink) big girl panties, my black VS bra, made myself up so I was feeling myself like I should be and remembered that I have got it goin' on!

I'm smart, funny, generous, accomplished, witty, intelligent, considerate, attractive--- and I'm well loved by so many of the most amazing friends and family.  I need to stop underselling myself and remember that any MAN should have to show me he is WORTHY of me.  And most importantly, the right man, knows this and reminds me of it everyday.

Answer of the Day: Small Change is Good Change

I am not the most patient person when it comes to getting what I want. I've worked REALLY hard in the last ten years to remember that small change, the slow tightening of a screw, little by little, eventually keeps things in place. 

That's why starvation diets don't work.
That's why jumping into relationships doesn't work.
That's why trying to implement gigantic reforms or overhauls in education doesn't work. 

That doesn't mean that every once in a while you can't throw caution to the wind and just live with your hair on fire. God, life would be so boring if we didn't do that once in a while... But as a regular mode of operandi, trying to be patient and make incremental change is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.

When I was young, for many years, my aunt would save up all her left over change in a sock.  When the sock was full, she would invite me over to her house to count up all the money, put it into those bank issued paper rolls and then we'd go to the bank, cash them in and she'd let me have all the money.  This usually amounted to somewhere between fifty and sixty dollars, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.  But for a ten year old, that was time well spent! Frankly for a fourty four year old, it's time well spent.

Anyway. 

A few years ago I started doing the same thing.  I've done different things with the money in the jar.  I tried to start tradition with Lea's first born, Dylan, for Christmas-- giving him a jar that he could count and then collect dollars for.  Which he did.  But then Lea recycled the jar and so now, I'm deciding if I'm going to continue giving away dollars that way or just the old fashioned paper money way.  I've used it to get a pedicure.  I've gone to dinner and a movie.  Just fun little things that I normally would do.

Anyway.

By the time I check in on my jar of money, it's usually around the same, fifty or sixty bucks!  I'm always amazed at how money that collects in the bottom of my purse, my book bag, my cup holders in the car, turns into serious cash after slow accumulation.

It's a good lesson about making small changes that add up to big change.  I feel like this is where I am in my personal life.  I've been making small changes:  the (mostly) daily gratitude posts, the small changes to my diet, the weekly therapy visits that help me stay focused on ME and WHAT I WANT, the short and frequent walks with Lucy, trying to write and read more, making more time for friends and family; these are all small changes that are starting to add up. All the things that are making me feel more HAPPY are adding up and putting me in the frame of mind that invites more HAPPY to my life.

This morning as I was out walking Lucy, I realized for the first time in about a year, I didn't wake up with a sense of heaviness.  There was a lightness that I haven't felt for quite some time.  There is no question in my mind that this lightness is the result of the cumulative changes I've been making. 

It feels good to be feeling excited about things again.  Six months ago I started working mindfully on rediscovering my HAPPY.  I feel her starting to wake up and shake her groove thing again...