Day 9: This must be the place…

Since Chris had his surgery 2 weeks ago I have been driving his truck because he can’t use his left hand to steer while shifting. Driving a manual transmission is fun. It has been a while for me and I must admit it is fun buzzing around Flagstaff in the truck. But the most fun is the cd that he left for me. The cd he left is the String Cheese Incident concert CD from their July 23, 2010 show at Red Rocks Ampitheater in Morrison, CO which prominently features their version of Naive Melody by the Talking Heads. I have listened to the whole cd about 20 times and I am not sick of it, not even close. This morning I found the video of the Naive Melody track from the same concert on YouTube and I wanted to share it with all of you. I have been enjoying this cd and this song in particular for weeks now, so why am I choosing to highlight the song, the concert, and the location today?

* This song incorporates my new “turn around statement” what I can say to myself to turn a negative into a not-so-negative, and then hopefully into a positive. The lyric/turn around statement is “feet on the ground, head in the sky, it’s ok I know nothing’s wrong…nothing!” It puts it all into perspective for me.

* Chris and I were there! Want to try to locate us? I think we were sitting about 12-15 rows up from the stage and to the right (good luck finding us). I think I can speak for both Chris and I when I say some of our best times were spent together at Red Rocks rocking out to String Cheese Incident.

* The video shows how much the crowd is into it! What you can’t hear in the video is the crowd singing at the TOP OF THEIR LUNGS. Everyone who is there knows the words, that’s what I love about when a band covers another artist’s song, it creates community when everyone knows the lyrics and sings along. I sing along, alone, in the truck but it is a loud and raucous time as I buzz around town with this song blasting.

* The video also shows the legendary Red Rocks Ampitheater from the musician’s vantage point and it is incredible. Enough said!

* This song has always made me happy. I grew up with the Talking Heads version of Naive Melody, it was introduced to me by my very cool babysitter back in the early 80s and it has always had a special place in my heart.

Sometimes I forget how much music is a part of my life. A good deal of my identity is tied to music. I often remember my childhood through the music of the time that my parents loved. I remember significant milestones in my life by what music was playing or what my favorite song was that summer. I remember falling in love with Chris, music was always there in the mix cds he used to make me and what we listened to on roadtrips. Throughout our relationship we have discovered new music and re-discovered forgotten classics together. I can’t thank him enough for bringing the music back into my life, just when I think I have heard and seen everything, there is always something new and spectacular!

Music reminds me of who I am, who I want to be, and what I want my life to be in the coming years. It reminds me that anything is possible and it allows me to enjoy genuine talent in the most authentic way possible…through admiration and abject appreciation. Most importantly, it reminds me that at the end of July Chris and I will, once again, be attending String Cheese Incident concerts at Red Rocks. For us this is like going home and I have started a mental countdown until we are there in the sun, surrounded by thousands of excited fans, and enjoying one of the things that truly sustains us…the music!

Day 8: Rain

Today I was feeling bored doing desk work all day long. By 2:30pm I decided that I had had enough of my desk and my office and decided to venture out. Once I was outside I walked to do some errands around campus and the clouds started to gather, the wind picked up and tossed the trees around, and then it got really dark. I stopped into our recruiting office and the sky opened up and sent down hail, driving rain, more rain, again more hail, and then more rain. It was like the clouds dropped buckets upon buckets on us thirsty Arizonans and I loved every minute of it.

People in Arizona think I am crazy because I love the rain so, so, so very much! I am originally from Northern California and went to college in Seattle. Rain makes me feel at home. My transplanted little soul is constantly thirsty in Flagstaff, Arizona land of little rain, dry weather, and high altitude.

Today marks the official beginning of the monsoon season in Northern Arizona. That’s right we have finally reached the point when Flagstaff receives tons of rain. Each year this is the time I look forward to most, it is monsoon season and I am so very happy. The rain makes me want to dance around in it and let it wash me clean. It reminds me of this quote “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” – Bob Marley

Rain is cleansing, it cools everything down, it renews everything, and sounds soothing on the roof and windows during a rain storm. It is like a good cry, afterwards I feel cleaned out and washed from the inside out and at the same time it is calming. In Arizona rain is rare but when it shows up there is lots of it not to mention in Arizona when it rains the air smells heavenly like a mix between wet asphalt, soaked trees, and I am told there are shrubs that grow wild all over the state that makes the air smell heavenly.

As I get ready for bed I can only hope that the rain continues tonight so I can sleep through a rainstorm, just another thing that makes today spectacular.

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Day 7: Flying brings out the worst in most!

After writing posts from Day 4-6 last night I ran into a spectacularly screwed up situation with my flights home to Flagstaff from San Diego.

Flying, I am convinced brings out the most horrible attitudes, bitchy travelers, and travelers who overestimate their importance by displaying entitlement behavior that does not look or sound good. This is what I experienced yesterday. Here is what happened:

I got on the plane yesterday at 7:00pm in San Diego, all was well until we started to push back from the gate and they noticed something not working and we had to go back to the gate, then we sat for an hour at the gate before having to deplane and change planes. We changed planes after being told that every one of our connecting flights will likely be impossible to make and to plan to stay in Phoenix overnight and have our flights rescheduled. We get on the new plane at around 10pm and fly to Phoenix and start to land in a severe sandstorm. We got about 150 feet from landing and had to pull up and do a missed landing because we could have crashed due to high crosswinds. Then we didn’t have enough fuel to circle above the storm and had to head to Tucson to refuel before heading back to Phoenix. We sat at the gate in Tucson for an hour while the storm blew over and then we finally left Tucson at around 12:15am and got to the gate at Phoenix at around 12:55am. Then I waited in line for an hour and a half to get my hotel room and when I did I was told I could not access my luggage. By the time I got checked in and into my room in Phoenix it was 2:30am and I was far from sleep, dirty, annoyed, and just wishing I could go home.

This morning I woke up, met my shuttle, checked in and flew out of Phoenix for my 30 minute flight to Flagstaff. I finally got home at around 9:45am and I proceeded to sleep until about 3pm.

You may be asking yourself, what is the purpose of my telling my most recent travel horror story? I am using it to illustrate how it has become much easier for me to tolerate difficult situations especially stressful situations. I was able to be grateful that I came out of it safe and able to finally go home. I will admit it was a challenge to stay in my own business instead of getting riled up on my own behalf and on behalf of others so that I would just spiral into negativity and stressed out mode.

I did what I needed to do…slept when I could and read when I could. I also took in the increasingly more negative updates and resign myself that worrying and complaining will not get me home, will not change anything, and certainly will not decrease my stress level. It was definitely a horrible night and I wish I did not have to experience everything that I experienced but I was able to come out of it okay, learned from it, and moved on.

I was able to salvage the situation, to sleep, and then rally to work out in the evening and have date night with Chris. I was able to turn the situation around to be a positive and most especially I did not let it ruin my memories of a fantastic weekend.

This proves it, everyday can be spectacular EVEN when enduring cranky travelers, really bad travel luck, and getting home nearly 10 hours later than expected. Tonight I am just glad to be home safe with our kitties and with Chris.

Days 4 – 6: How did I get so lucky?

It has been a fruitful and spectacular few days, I have not written on a daily basis but I am back to the writing and I have so much to say.

I am so very lucky to have so many blessings in my life that no matter what the negative aspects of my life are, I have so much of the good, the great, and the spectacular. In the last few days I have experienced so much good I felt like I had to share because I feel so very lucky for everything.

On June 27th we closed out our Orientation season for 2013. We had our last day of our last 2-day session and everything went so very well. Looking back it has been a crazy few months but we managed to accomplish so very much as a team it is heartwarming to look back and see how far we have come. I am so very proud of each and every one of my student Orientation Leaders who did so well, learned so much, and succeeded beyond everything I could have imagined.

On June 28th we finally got to celebrate what it means to be involved with our Orientation program at the 2013 Orientation Leader Banquet where we celebrate, eat good food, thank everyone present for their involvement with our season, and inevitably the majority of us cry because it is over and we have worked so very hard to get us to this point.

Also on June 28th I left Flagstaff for San Diego to meet some of my dearest friends at a resort to catch up, drink, celebrate, talk, and laugh. This trip was the perfect trip to relax and regroup after the craziest 2 months that I have experienced in a long while. Now that I am headed home from San Diego after experiencing a rebirth of friendships, lots of fun in the sun, and a much greater understanding of myself and my dear friends I am feeling grateful, happy, sad, and ready to get home.

With so many great things happening in the past few days I have begun to ask myself: how did I get so lucky? I am lucky, grateful, and happy to be where I am at this moment – I can hardly keep from crying from gratitude which should not be a surprise because I have spent the last few hours talking and crying while saying goodbye, it just seems to be habit by now.

I am so very grateful for the time I was able to spend with my dear friends. We have known each other since we were 18 years old and just starting college yet we still have things in common, still have so much fun with each other, and we still connect while learning what is happening in each other’s lives. It was so amazing to catch up with them and to let them in on the important work I have been doing in my life. I was also able to learn so much more about their lives, how they have been in the past few years, and what they hope for in the coming year. Some are pregnant and will have babies soon, some will be starting new jobs, others are contemplating having babies in the near future, and all are taking on new challenges in their personal and work lives. What I can say is, this trip was a godsend for me. It helped to ground me in my past, enjoy the present more, and look forward to the future. These are all things I knew I needed to be doing but I think I needed a little kick in the butt to make it real and then to eventually make it happen. I miss them all already and I couldn’t have had a better weekend.

Not only was it an amazing weekend it was a weekend of growth and of challenging myself. There are a few key ways that I found the spectacular this weekend:

1) We spent nearly the whole weekend in San Diego at the hotel pool. And *gulp* this involved wearing a bathing suit for prolonged periods of time. In the past, this would have sent me into fits of panic, self-loathing, and negative thoughts would have just over-taken me. But I was able to wear a bathing suit, swim, sunbathe, and walk around without the negativity, without the self-hatred, and without worrying about what others thought about me as I walked around in said bathing suit. It was so freeing, even though I know I don’t look very different than I did a few months ago, I feel better about myself in general and I am better able to handle these negative situations. This is truly a win!

2) In spending the whole weekend with old friends I heard a lot about how my dear friends have experienced a great deal of wins and successes in their lives recently despite hardships and difficult times. In the past I was prone to fits of comparison and envy when friends would talk about good things in their lives and I would sit and thin about how I was unable to stack up to their experiences and their lives were so much better than mine. I would compare and despair and then despair some more because in my mind, my life was lacking by comparison. I was unable to help them to celebrate the good things because I was so focused on what I didn’t have – everything they had. Now things have definitely changed within me because I was able to celebrate their successes
and support them unconditionally. It really became clear to me that working on myself has definitely made me a better friend, a better wife, and a better person overall. I am still working on this but I know these are big strides that I am making.

I cannot begin to express enough gratitude to my friends, family, and most of all Chris who have supported me in my journey. I am so very lucky to have you in my life. I cannot wait to share more of my life with you all and I am fortunate to be able to continue writing this blog so you can hear about the everyday spectacular in my life. Even if we are not geographically close, you are in my heart and I am so very grateful for everything we are able to share.

Day 3: Relax – You Are Enough!

True to form I was searching through Pinterest last night and found this quote that completely captures my thoughts on the differences between tension and relaxation. Inspirational quotes seem to find me when I need their inspirational messages the most. Lately I have been finding many quotes and memes about RELAXING and taking time to RELAX. The one that has stayed with me for months now is…

RELAX:
You ARE enough.
You HAVE enough.
You DO enough.

In the past I have had a love-hate relationship with the work RELAX. Whenever someone told me to RELAX or suggested that I RELAX I got SO pissed. I figured it said something about me that I wasn’t comfortable with – I felt judged, I felt rigid, unable to compromise, and like I needed to be handled. It always sounded condescending and absolutely I hated being called out on these things because it meant that I was hiding nothing and the cracks in my perfectly constructed armor were showing. I personally hated the implication that I didn’t know how to handle myself and then, almost immediately, I would get upset with myself for being mad at someone who so obviously was trying to help. This is in no way sustainable behavior especially knowing that life can bring stressful situations. I know I will get stressed, I will get overwhelmed, and I won’t handle it well EVERY time so I guess I do need to take the advice, to RELAX.

The RELAX quote above is the best for me today because this is something I struggle with a great deal. I have a few modes of relaxation and I am not sure if any of them comes close to an actual relaxed state, but I am working on it.

TO GET TO SLEEP I MUST RELAX:
In the past 11 weeks that I have been working with my life coach I have been able to clear my head and RELAX, really and truly RELAX enough to fall asleep and stay asleep. Prior to doing all of the work I have done with my coach I could fall asleep but NEVER stay asleep. My brain was constantly on overload with the thoughts I never let myself think, the things I left unsaid, and the thoughts that told me I was not enough, I did not have enough, and that I didn’t do enough. So basically my brain would wake me up making a horribly detailed list of the ways I have failed myself, others, and how I will continue to do so because I was not enough. Now I have learned to express my feelings, to feel my feelings, and to think positively in learning how to do these things I am much more RELAXED at home especially when getting ready for sleep.

WORRY:
I have always worried that I did not worry about things that I would not be able to give them the proper dedication that they needed. This translated in my daily life to worrying about EVERYTHING, my relationship, how others thought about me, my work, my family, and the struggles that my friends and family were going through. No wonder I had no room in my life for me because all of my attention and worry went towards helping others. I thought this was how it was supposed to be, I thought I had to segment my life in this way because I was not enough to go around. Now that I am getting more comfortable with being enough, with letting go, and feeling disappointment instead of using food to make it feel better I feel way more able to drop the worry. Now I feel the worry and ask myself the following questions to get through it: 1) Is this worry true? 2) What place does this worry have in my life? and 3) Wait, why did I feel like I need to worry about this? I feel it, I deal with it in a very logical way (asking the questions/doing the work), and I am able to move on. This is a work in progress and I have, by no means, mastered these techniques but I am miles better than I have been.

TIME FOR ME:
As a giver, helper, and pleaser it has been very difficult to find time and space for me. I got into a rut, I was stuck, and was unable to see how far removed my daily life was from what I wanted it to be. I hated going through the motions, pretending not to feel things I felt deeply, and acting like everything was ok while being mad at myself for having to pretend. This is not a sustainable way to be and I have had to block out me time and I am still getting used to asking for what I want/need from my husband, family, and friends because I am so used to just letting it go (which as you can imagine, had nothing to do with letting go). So I take time for me at work (taking a walk to enjoy my surroundings), I take time for me at home (spending time in my spot a smallish corner of our spare bedroom reading and journaling), and I take time doing things I want to do (calling up a friend, planning vacations, and now blogging). I still struggle for with asking for help in creating time for me especially with my husband – but we are working on it together.

EATING, DIETING, AND OTHER CRAZY STUFF:
Food sometimes stresses me out and I know I am not alone. We as a culture spend a great deal of time worrying about what we eat and how we look. We focus on weight, which I always thought was not the best way to measure health. Health must be measured by how people feel, how they get themselves moving, and if they are eating healthily. Why do we measure health and fitness by weight? We tend to use food and our consumption of that food as a way to gauge our worth, how we are feeling, and whether or not we are worthy of love and attention. I tended to eat things that are “bad for me” and then I started thinking about the food itself as being bad. Then when I wanted that food I beat myself up for wanting something. I participated in restrictive diets and when I “failed” it would seem like the end of the world, I would think of myself as a horrible person, and the emotional turmoil would continue. Recently I have started reading a few books by Geneen Roth “Breaking Free From Emotional Eating” and “Women, Food and God.” I have started doing research into Geneen’s theory that if we eat what we want to eat, we won’t eat as much and we will stop craving the foods previously known to me as “bad”. This is an ongoing saga for me and food but I am working on making a major life change so change comes slowly and steadily.

The bottom line for me today is to RELAX it’s ok, RELAX, you are enough, RELAX you are enough, and RELAX you do enough because it is true. Hope you have a spectacular day and you have a little bit of time to RELAX, it is so very refreshing.

Day 2: Happy, Happy or at Least Positively Positive

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I rediscovered this quote last night and I immediately added it to my inspirational quote section of my journal and decided to touch on it in this forum. I then decided to think a good deal about how I react to difficult situation, the choices I make in choosing negativity, and what I can do to create more positivity in my life.

I am sure we all know quite a few people whose first reaction to a difficult situation is to be angry, upset, frustrated, and choose negativity. You may ask me…how do you “choose negativity”? Anger and frustration is most definitely a choice. So is boredom. It is so very easy to choose negativity. Positivity is more difficult because there are many other individuals who are quick to pile on to your negativity, it can spiral out of control a great deal and turn to a negativity-fest.

 I am consciously making choices everyday either to be angry and frustrated or to take in the difficult situation, do what I can with it, feel the frustration, learn from it, and move forward in a positive way. I am working to check myself prior to jumping on the negativity train. I am not perfect but I do know that I need to make an effort to be more positive.

In making conscious choices to be more positive, here are some tips that I am using:

1) Fake It ’til You Make It

I believe it is completely possible to change your own outlook, a good start is to fake it first. If you are trying your hardest to be positive, chances are you will choose positivity because you are already halfway there. I am not advocating making decisions to act a certain way so that you are consciously choosing not to be yourself. This is just a quick reminder to yourself like: “Hey I want to be more positive, let’s do that!” This is like adventures in positivity.

 2) Choose Happy and Remind Yourself Daily

Whenever I leave my house, my office, and walk anywhere I choose a mantra/happy feeling/happy place to think about for the day and I find something to say to myself. This morning I left my house and I made a point to say to myself…”I am choosing positivity today, I will have a great day, and I will do everything I can to keep positivity in my life today. This helps me to frame my day, so I do this at the beginning and at the end of my day so I can start and end my day with positive intentions.

 3) Spend Time Around Positive People

This may be a more difficult than the other two conscious choices. There are many people who choose negativity because it is the easiest thing. I urge you to get to know those people in your life who you think are super positive. take time to talk with them, see what they see and how they see it, and ask their advice about how you can be more positive. Be sure to compliment them on their positive outlook.

4) Take Time To Enjoy Everyday Beauty

No matter where you live, there are always opportunities to notice what is beautiful in your daily life. I live in a gorgeous place (Flagstaff, AZ) and work on an incredible college campus. I know that if I am feeling negative I can go outside, take a walk, and embrace a sunny day. I go outside with the specific intention to sit and notice the beauty around me. If you are feeling negative, change your scenery and get outside and just take in the beauty.

Changes are challenging but they can come easily. I think there are fewer changes more worth our attention than being positive and choosing positivity over negativity. It is your choice.

In closing I want to include a quote that I received from my Yogi Tea which I call inspiration in a cup. “The purpose of life is to enjoy every moment.” How will you make your day more enjoyable, positivity is a fantastic start. Positivity…just another aspect of the spectacular everyday.

Day 1: Adaptability and Team Work

It is officially Day 1 of Spectacular Everyday…where did I find my spectacular today? My spectacular happened quite early this morning as I was reporting to work at 6am.

I work with 50 incredible student Orientation Leaders. Together we plan and execute amazing transitional experiences for incoming freshmen, 10 2-day sessions, of which this is session #9. You better believe me we train them a great deal on being adaptable and rolling with changes on the fly. This morning we arrived bright and early to our check in location to find it under siege by so very many sprinklers (we send specific instructions for watering of the lawn) and today was not on that schedule. I was proud of myself and my team, we formulated a new plan on the fly and set everything up quickly according to our new plan.

In my journey to managing my emotions, staying in my own business – only in my own business, and not making assumptions about what others are thinking of me I decided to think about this situation in a new framework. I decided to think about how I handled it differently than it could have been in the past.

Normally this would have been a very stressful morning but I was able to think about it in perspective and not make any assumptions about what others are thinking about my team and about me. Instead I have been more able to see individual moments as individual moments not as moments fraught with emotional landmines. This process is truly all about growth and moving forward with my life and nowhere is this process more apparent than at work, in my professional life.

Today could have seemed disastrous and have gotten away from me quickly but I was able to handle each situation as it came.

Everyone was adaptable and worked together as a team. I could not have asked for anything better this morning and for this day.

How can I find the spectacular in my everyday?

2013 has become known to me as the year of transformation. For me it was high time to make some changes in my life in order to become the confident, happy, and emotionally intelligent woman I have always wished I could be.

In the past I have been “an actor” someone who acts how others want them to act, or how I assume they wanted me to act. This made it difficult to be myself or after a while to realize what my identity is because it was mixed in with what I thought others wanted from me. My “acting career” also made it possible for me to hide behind my unhealthy relationship with food and hide behind my weight and building it up as armor. It got to be so bad for me that I forgot how to regard myself as a person, and I became my weight/my armor and began the process of hiding and eventual disappearing. I estimate that I disappeared for a good few years. I went through the motions of life, pretended to be living it, and hoped that someday someone would notice me and what I was trying to do and would help.

Something finally helped me to decide that I needed help, it wasn’t just one thing that urged me to seek help, it was a combination of life events and an urge to experience more and to stop being miserable. When the need to make changes finally reached a critical mass I reached out to a life coach to help me with: finding the real me, loving who that person is, to live in the moment, and to know that I can be emotionally intelligent. This year of the transformation has been enlightening, challenging, and up-lifting. I am so very happy that I chose to wake up and get back to myself.

Throughout my time working with my coach I learned that I was “living for the future” I should say living for a future that would never happen because “the future” for me was a future I could never attain. It was constantly my focus…that perfect someday when I was thin, perfectly beautiful, a perfect wife, perfect co-worker, and overall just perfect. I thought that once I was perfect everything would fall perfectly into place, all of my struggles would disappear. I now know that future did not exist and now I am learning to work toward the future of my reality and most importantly I am finally LIVING my spectacular life and enjoying what comes to me everyday rather than pining for the perfect future and the perfect someday.

As my time with my coach is drawing to a close I find it necessary to share my everyday wins, victories, momentary set-backs, and the everyday spectacular. How will I do that? I will share all of it and I will share it here in an open forum in the hopes to help someone in their journey. I will make a pact to anyone who chooses to read my posts, it will always come from the heart and it will be authentic because sharing my everyday spectacular with the world demands sharing through love and authenticity. My new mantra has become my life is beautiful and filled with the spectacular that can be found in the everyday!