My biggest fear

I took a break from journaling for a while.  And it wasn’t a good idea.  I was busier than normal, so in my free time I “relaxed”.  But since I was anxious, relaxation wasn’t really relaxation.  I tried to rest, but it didn’t work.   I ended up getting into a frenzy trying to get my career going, life going, and of course, snacking like I hadn’t eaten in a week, but really I was pretty full.

I figured out a long time ago stress and anxiety trigger my overeating.  It also triggers my inability to rest and sleep well.  So it’s a double edge sword.  When really all you need to do is calm your mind, my mind can’t stop – which keeps my body going too.

So here I am, still a bit anxious about the future, and 1.5 lbs heavier in a week.  Not a good idea to skip journaling.

I have had some good moments.  I’ve joined a ladies group and met some fun gals.  I’ve made progress on working on my career goals.  I’ve still been exercising every day and gaining fitness ground (my weight gain is complete proof that you can’t exercise away a bad diet).  I’ve had some good times.

But I always feel this negative ball in the pit of my stomach.  Sometimes I know why.  Many times I don’t.  I feel like right now it’s a bunch of things all at once.  But I’ll share with you the main thing on my mind right now.  It’s personal, so I’ll try to be vague.

I’ve always had an issue with fear of abandonment.  I don’t have a relationship with my father, and had a very poor one when I was a child.  It all stems from that.  And even as a child if a family member or friend left me (even just for a small amount of time) for someone else, it was like I was stabbed in the chest.  I took it as proof that I was unlovable.

And even as an adult, I still have this fear.  It’s definitely not as extreme as when I was younger.  I don’t cry and pitch a fit to get someone to stay with me.  But I do go through an anxiety spiral, and sometimes it can get pretty bad.

Now, the current situation.  My husband is very close with his family.  Which is a wonderful, beautiful thing.  I like his family, but would not consider myself close to them.  They are all very much alike and have always been close.  I am different, an outsider, someone who they had to let into the clique and are dealing with it, but still not quite fitting in.  So it’s a little awkward for all of us.  It has improved over time and I hope it will continue until it becomes natural and fitting that I’m part of the group.  I’m sure it will, actually.

But lately, old habits are starting to show signs of peaking in.

When dating, engaged and even as newlyweds, my husband would “leave me” for times to go visit his family.  Usually it was most holiday weekends.  He would just go up every day to visit them (they live about an hour away) – or even spend the whole weekend up there (spending the night and all).  I, though I like his family, do not want to spend my entire holiday weekend at their home.  When we had this discussion I could tell it rocked his world a bit and was not well received by others when all of a sudden he wasn’t spending the entire weekend with them.  But it has gotten better and I think more accepted.

But this coming Labor Day weekend, you guessed it, there are signs that he may be spending a good bit of it at his family’s place (without me).  It scares me. That old habits may be coming back.  My fear of abandonment has been triggered and it makes me anxious.  And while he may just spend Monday up there, to my fear and anxiety it feels like all weekend.  I know it’s irrational, but I can’t seem to tell my mind that.  Obviously it’s fine that he wants to spend time with them.  It’s healthy, it’s natural, it’s good.  But my mind takes this one step and blows it up to full blown abandonment.  That soon he will be spending every weekend up there and leaving me all alone, that I won’t have a husband, that I’ll just be sad and unloved.

And the bad part of my anxiety is that I attribute a lot of these fears to myself.  Like it’s my fault that he wants to abandon me.  That I’m not doing enough to keep him around and interested.  That I’m just not good enough.

So yeah, that can cause a girl to feel pretty lousy and fill the sadness with sugar cookies and vanilla ice cream.

But I have to snap out of this.  I need to snap out of this.  I want to snap out of this.

Every time these fears seem to seep up from the pit of my stomach to the forefront of my brain, I can fight them.  I can realize how irrational they are.  But when they are down in the pit, I don’t usually fight them, even though they still effect my wellbeing.  I need to fight them constantly.  So that is what I’ll be working on.

I went shopping with my mother several weeks ago and we went into a home store that had a lot of those subway art style paintings with the inspirational sayings.  I commented on how sad it is that we need those to remind us to enjoy life, relax, don’t let others steal our joy.  But I think I may need some of those.  Maybe I won’t invest in the art, but print out or write out a few of my favorites and post them around the home.  I’m sure my husband will think I’m nuts, but he supports me no matter what – nuts or not!  (See, why would I have this fear???  It’s so sad!!)

3 tasty nickel free breakfast recipes

Monday night I had a breakdown.  It wasn’t full-blown, but man did I want it to be.  It was one of those days where the little things weren’t going correctly, and when you have the weight of the world already on your shoulders, the little things are a big deal.  Sorry, “don’t sweat the small stuff”.  Sometimes we can only rely on the small stuff in life.

So as I laid in the fetal position on the couch with tear filled eyes, my husband came to the rescue.  I woke up to a rainy day, a dog that splashed in puddles and got me covered in mud (and not my dog – which makes it worse!), a ruined scheduled run, a repair man coming (nothing is more stressful than waiting around for a repair man), and a ruined dinner by stinky chicken.  The husband took over.  He seemed a bit frustrated, which is completely acceptable, but he did the work.  And that made me feel happy, grateful, and bad.  I hate it when I don’t come through for him, so it always stings a bit when he has to pick me up and put our world back together.

I wrote him a note yesterday.  We do that on occasion.  Write a word document and email it to each other.  It’s cheesy, but it works for us.

The gist of what I wrote came down to this:

• I have no sense of control over the big picture in my life.  And I’ve been working for over 2 years to get out of my current job situation, and I’m still stuck in the same place.  So when little things don’t go as planned, my world seems like pure chaos.  Doomsday thinking.
• We do have some happy stuff planned in the future (think a year from now future), but I don’t like to look at that because it depresses me.  And yes, I’m still working to get myself out of my job and into my chosen career, but I’m still not there.  And I don’t look into the future because it makes me that much more disappointed and frustrated with my current state.

He of course knew this.  It was just reaffirming what he suspected.  But it helps to get it out, and to have someone else hear it.  So if you have a hard time putting things into actual vocal words like I do, write letters.  It really helps!

Now on to the nickel free world I’m not trying to create for myself.

I love breakfast.  It’s my favorite meal of the day and I could eat breakfast foods for all 3 meals if it were up to me.  And with my limitations in my diet, it’s easy to go for bagels and muffins every day for breakfast.  And I did that a few mornings when I first started my elimination diet.  But the bloated, icky feeling I was having on a daily basis reminded me I can’t do that.

So now I create healthy low nickel breakfast meals.  Here are a few of my favorites:

• Banana and eggs “pancakes”.  These are thinner than regular pancakes but have a surprising pancake feel to them.  And I love bananas, so the flavor is right up my alley.  Now I’m only suppose to have bananas a few times a week, so when I do, I make these pancakes.
  • Take 2 whole eggs (or 4 egg whites) and a banana – put in a blender and mix well.
  • Pour the batter on to a preheated griddle and cook just like you would a regular pancake (they bubble up and everything!)
  • Flip when the bottom is set and cook an extra few minutes until the whole cake is set.
  • I usually end up pouring all the batter in at once and create one big pancake, cut it into 4 quarters when it’s time to flip, and then flip as best as I can.  I comes out looking a bit messy, but they are tasty and filling!
• Fruit and yogurt
  • This is an easy and tasty breakfast.  Take plain or vanilla flavored Greek or Regular yogurt and mix in your favorite fruits (except for the one’s that are high in nickel – pineapple, dates, raspberries).  I usually go for blueberries and strawberries.  For a little crunch, I add in Corn Puff cereal (or you could also get a white rice based cereal like Rice Krispies).
• Egg white and veggie scramble
  • I use 100% liquid egg whites for this and usually leftover vegetables from the dinner the night before, such as chopped broccoli, asparagus, or sweet peppers.
  • Put the veggies in a pan on medium heat to get them crisp and flavorful again.  Then pour in 1/2 cup of liquid egg whites.  Add any seasoning you like, such as basil, parsley or dill.  Cook until the eggs are set and done.
  • If you want an extra umph, you can add some shredded cheese to this recipe.  Cheese always makes things taste better.  Just don’t go overboard or your breakfast will start to head towards the unhealthy side.

I rotate these three breakfast feasts and have been happy.  Breakfast is still my favorite meal of the day, even at low nickel!

A summary of my life at this moment

I have this song stuck in my head.  Animal by Neon Trees.  Specifically the beginning.  “Here we go again….”

Our difficulties and problems always seem to come back to us.  Like a boomerang.  I’ve been trying my best to deal lately by focusing on other things.  Work, family, taking care of others, and just going through the motions of self-care but not really putting my heart into them.  And I realized, I need to recognize my difficulties.  It’s not a bad thing to admit you are struggling.  It’s actually a show of strength to admit that you are frustrated, scared, lost.

And while I’m not in despair or depression, I am a bit anxious and frustrated.  And that’s ok.  That’s not weak.  That’s life.

My best way of dealing with these issues is through words.  And as I’ve seen my most trusted ears get a bit tired of hearing about my issues over and over again, I’m turning my blog into my ear for a bit.  I promise not every post will be whiny, woe is me, victimized ranting.  That’s never fun to read.  But I will be going off my focus for a bit until I can get my footing.  And then, the blog will be (hopefully) be reborn into its true intention.

So what’s up with my life right now?  Not one major thing.  Lots of little things.

• My health:
  • I still have some minor personal health issues I’m dealing with.  I’ll spare you the details, but it still gets to me whenever I see symptoms pop up.  While it’s treatable, it does require a trip to the doctor to get prescriptions, and it is unpleasant and somewhat disheartening that I still am susceptible to this issue.
  • I did a great job on the 21 day fix, but after the program stopped, and my stresses remained, the weight started coming back.  I’m starting the PiYo challenge tomorrow but I’m pretty sure I’ve regained all the weight I lost on the 21 day fix in these past couple weeks.  I’m disappointed in myself that I let that happen.
  • My allergies.  Yikes.  So I’ve been on the “nickel free” diet for a week now, with no real improvement in my lips.  To be fair, I did eat a ton of foods I wasn’t suppose to eat on Sunday as a farewell of sorts and I woke up with a pretty bad reaction on my lips.  It’s been a week, and somewhat better but not a lot.  But these reactions do take a long time to clear.  It’s just frustrating that I’m eating food I’d rather not be eating (especially the not as healthy options) and not seeing results.  I have to do this program for a month at least to try to clear the reaction.  1 week down.  My tummy definitely feels the difference in eating though (not in a good way!)
• My family’s health:
  • My mother-in-law’s surgery was a success, but she is still in a health battle.  This is stressful for so many reasons, of course the main one being that it’s difficult to see a family member struggle with serious health issues.
  • My dog is healing.  Slowly.  We’ve be taking her to doggie rehab where they have been working on speeding up her recovery from 2 very strained hip extensor muscles.  She seems to be more “bouncy” and happy, which we take to mean she’s feeling better.  Though we do still see her gait and sitting pattern are not quite up to par, so she is definitely not healed.  She is tired of being cooped up to reduce her movement.  Poor thing!
• My career:
  • I’ve decided to go after what excites me career-wise.  That does scare me a bit, but it’s a great thing.  I have always loved fitness and have extensive training, education and job experience in the field.  I did switch fields for a while to focus on my own health issues.  It’s hard to take care of yourself when your job is to take care of others.  And it has been very difficult to get back into that field now that my health issues (except for the minor one’s listed above) are under control.
  • I am still working, and ok with it, but it doesn’t excite me, which frustrates me.

I think that’s it, although I’m so tired right now there is probably more things on my shoulders that I have “forgotten” about.  It will all come out in due time though, I’m sure.

So there we have it.  I’m not sharing this for pity or to bum anyone out.  I’m just sharing this as a starting point.  I’ve been trying so hard to be happy and excited about the future, that I’ve neglected the little things that are nagging at me.  It’s time I fix that.  So the first step is airing it all out.  These things cause me much distress.  Now, it’s time to work on them so they don’t!

Tomorrow I will report my weigh-in.  I’m scared, but it will happen.  I’ll also keep you updated on my PiYo challenge, my low nickel diet, and everything else in my life.  Hopefully sharing these things will be of some benefit to all of us – motivation, relation, and just a sense of letting go of burden, even if just for a brief moment.

Challenges for the week: Self esteem, tests and volunteering

I’m still working on my challenges of the week.

Last week my challenge was to work on finding the right path in my life.  Of course, that’s not usually something you can figure out in a week, so it will be a continuing “project”.  But that’s just fine!  (In case you are interested in the work I did do last week, I will be posting on it tomorrow.)

Today, I’m going to focus on what I want to accomplish this week.  Most of this is based on of the work I did this last week.

As part of my ongoing “project me” I am doing some work on my self-esteem.  This week, I’ve assigned myself the task of writing down my strengths, accomplishments, and all around great qualities.  A Yay me list if you will.  In a world where the negative is easily identified and the positive is often overlooked, it’s easy to have low self-esteem.  So I am challenging myself to give myself some props – and write it down!  This sounds daunting to me, a modest girl, but I hope it’ll be easier than I think!  The list is due on Thursday.

Keep on studying!  My ACSM Health and Fitness Test is only 8 days away!  And while the thought of not having to study anymore is thrilling, I’m starting to develop a little anxiety as to how prepared I am.  The way to beat that anxiety: study!  So I have to force myself to buckle down and get things done!

Saturday I have signed up for a Habitat for Humanity Project.  My challenge is to NOT back out of it.  I’m an expert at backing out of new, scary and alone experiences.  (This is a women’s only project, so I am going absolutely on my own – no hubby, no friends, nothing).  Believe it or not, the whole thing sounds overwhelming.  I have no construction skills and no one I’m comfortable with to follow around.  But I can’t back out.  I’ve backed out of too many things lately so I can’t let myself off the hook again!

 

 

 

Eight Fears

Next on my 10 Day You Challenge, 8 Fears.

I actually did a little work on this yesterday, not knowing that fears were coming up on this challenge, as part of my weekly challenge to figure out me.

Now, this list won’t include things like spiders or heights – which coincidentally I’m not afraid of either.  It will be more deep.

1. Fear of Failure.  I’m constantly avoiding trying new things because I’m afraid I can’t do it.  I don’t want to look like a fool in front of other people and it drives me insane when I can’t do something!
2. Fear of rejection.  I try to act all tough, like I don’t care what people think of me.  But I do.  The only time I don’t care is if I don’t actually like the person who is “rejecting me” as well.  Then I can explain away the reasons they don’t like me by what I consider their bad traits.  Not exactly healthy.
3. Fear of abandonment.  Stems from my childhood.  Absent father, latchkey kid, a story many people have as well.  But I’m always scared that people I care about are going to just decide one day they don’t like me anymore and walk away.
4. Fear of wasting my life.  I feel like everyone should have some purpose in their life – whether it is big (world leader) or small (family leader) or somewhere in between.  I don’t feel as though there is a purpose in my life right now and I’m not sure where to look for it.  It scares me that I may never find out what I should be doing or how I can make a difference.
5. Fear of being tongue-tied.  I get tongue-tied a lot!  I’ve always been on the quiet side, and growing up I didn’t have a lot of people to talk to, so I never really learned how to chat with people.  And being the introvert that I am, I never tried to learn chit-chat since it doesn’t appeal to me.  When I meet a new person, I instantly get a little nervous due to my fear of rejection.  I don’t want to make a fool of myself and have them think I’m stupid, weird, etc.  And this fear creates a big void in my brain where conversation comes from – and I just can’t talk.  I am getting better.  Working in the customer service field for years has taught me that I can use my work skills in everyday life as well.  (I’ve always been able to chit-chat with customers – it’s work, and I can do work!)  But there are still times when I meet a person, like a co-worker of my husband’s or someone I think is “cool” and I get nervous and the words just won’t come.  I avoid social situations due to this fear.
6. Fear of not belonging.  You can tell a lot of my fears are social ones, right??  Well, this one is probably a combination of some of my other fears – but I always am afraid to be the outcast of the group.  And being the quiet one, I’ve definitely been that more than my fair share of times!  But I hate the feeling of being invisible, or being alone even though you are surrounded by people.  That feels worse than actually being alone.  And in larger groups, it’s easy for me to fade into the background and just feel rotten about myself!
7. Fear of crowds.  And this isn’t because of social situations.  I just hate being surrounded by people.  I’m barely over 5 feet tall so I tend to get lost in crowds.  And when people feel the need to push by you, I basically get trampled due to my size.  Being surrounded by people has always caused me a lot of anxiety and I have to get either on the edge of the group or out of the situation all together.
8. Finally, I’ll end with a fear that’s not so deep.  Snakes.  Snakes freak me out.  I jump around and squeal like a little girl when I see a snake.  Luckily there’s not many in the neighborhood I live now, so I haven’t had to do my freaked out dance in quite a while.  I hope to keep it that way!!

 

It’s time to act, not just dream

If you look through the 60-odd blog posts I have on here, you will see that it is all over the place.  I guess you could say I’ve been struggling to find my blogger-voice.  But the one common thread through the majority of my posts is goals, hopes, aspirations and planning.  Basically, it’s me daydreaming online.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with daydreaming.  Online is really the only place I allow myself to daydream, to dare, to let my desire take control.  In reality, I’m pretty predictable, present-minded and a so-so pessimist.  This is what I show the world, but it’s not who I really want to be or truly am on the inside.  Yes, I’m always going to be cautious.  My anxious personality will never let me throw away all inhibitions.  And I am 110% fine with that.  But, I do not like that my anxious personality keeps some of these dreams locked up in the blogosphere.

So it’s time to stop writing about things I want to do, and do them.  To make my true hidden self match up a bit better with what I show the outside world.  Because, to be honest, if I take an honest look at how the real world sees me, I would not be pleased.  It would not be bad, but just not who I want to be.  And shouldn’t they see who I want to be?

It’s little things that really make a difference.  Instead of sitting around the house all day, get out among people.  (Although I am purposely avoiding places right now to avoid the widespread flu epidemic – yikes!)  Face a few fears (not all – let’s not get too unrealistic here!) and go with it.  Enjoy my time, whether I’m alone, with my husband, family, friends or strangers.  And then, after my fears start dropping out of sight, then maybe I will be who I want the world to see.

Are you with me?  Do you need some more motivation?  Check out this TED talk.  Very inspiring!