Big Rocks and LIttle Rocks: Navigating Terrain Shifts
Since I last wrote, a lot has changed in my life – as I anticipated it would. The changes are good, and I am grateful for that.
I have now started my new job, which has come with a lot of apprehensive excitement. A steep learning curve usurped my capacities for routine and for writing.
But, I am finding my way back, learning how to live my new life, facing myself over and over again in a whole new world.
I am starting to sleep just a little better as I am adjusting to everything. Sleep helps everything.
I am now pausing, taking stock in what it means to navigate my health and wellness through a major turning point in my life.
Keeping My Footing in the Seas of Change
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
I am in the midst of change right now. A lot of it.
Since I last blogged, I retired from one career, traveled several places, and am on the edge of starting a new career. All of this is good.
Changes, even good ones, can be unsettling and upset the balance in my routines, in my life. These changes turned my foundation into a slippery slope – more than I expected.
To keep my footing, I have had to catch my balance several times in the past weeks. Catching my balance always means failure in some way.
I enjoy the beach much more at half my size. I feel younger, better, and more energetic than I ever have in my life, even though my age now gets me some senior discounts.
And, I have failed. More I than planned, and more than I would like to admit. Failure works that way.
But, failures are a natural part of the self-improvement process, the ongoing process of being me, of facing myself, of understanding the shadows that shape my life.
Eat When Hungry: Discovering My Golden Circle
Discovering My Trigger Foods, Part II
A couple years into my weight loss, all looked well from the outside. I had lost half my weight; I stabilized at a healthy weight; and I radiated improved wellness.
On paper, my numbers looked comfortable, controlled, and predictable. The patterns looked like successful maintenance.
I had even started to get a few comments about my success in maintaining my weight loss. These unsettled me. I felt like a fraud.
Inwardly, I was flailing on the razor’s edge, about to tumble off into a chasm all too eager to devour me back into the 97% failure rate.
I knew this space intimately. Looming failure always won. I clung to the sharp edge of success, barely making it day-by-day. I was missing something, but I did not know what.
Then, I came into a direct standoff with what I did not yet understand: Eat When Hungry.
Transforming My Shadows: My Framework for Making and Sustaining Personal Changes
Personal changes are hard to make – especially the changes that run counter to our human tendencies. Making these changes and sustaining them in my life are challenging processes.
When I decided to embark on a serious journey to improve my overall health, I knew I faced a 97% failure and 3% success rate for sustaining long-term weight loss.
I wanted to understand the roots of my failures. I wanted to learn from these failures in ways that led to the long-term successes that had eluded me all my life.
I am still learning to try to maintain long-term success. Doing that means understanding the blurry line between failures and successes where one is always part of the other.