So this week was very full of work. Work and work and lots of work. As a free-lance school psychologist my work ebbs and flows. Some weeks I have more freedom, other weeks I have things that keep me away from the mats. This week will also be a bit fuller, but I know I did a decent job this week and next week will only get better. Last week’s challenge was to find a little more about how to work meditation into my daily life. Not just mindfulness, but also meditation. I took the short route for now and downloaded the Headspace app and purchased a year’s worth of access. There were good reviews, and actual instruction, so I’ll start here as a version with training wheels and dig further down the rabbit hole as I am ready. I’m enjoying it so far and I can stick with this as it reminds me on my phone. Hard to forget when it tells me to do it!
I’m a little behind on the physical side of things, but I am keeping track with how much I am exactly behind and picking up a little each day. Will be no problem this way to jump back on track.
This week the biggest thing that I have had challenge over, not all the time but sometimes, is trying to be comfortable with where I currently am in my life and in my process. I’m still a relative baby in the martial arts. May 2018 will be my 8 year anniversary in the arts, and I am 34 years young. I feel sometimes that I don’t entirely belong in this place. I see the accomplishments of my cohort members, and I am in awe of what they have accomplished in their time in the arts. It is said that you should spend time with the people you would be happy to become, and I need to keep that in mind when I feel that I do not have the history or expertise to pull upon.
I’m supposed to pull together goals that I want to accomplish here for the 2018 UBBT. The last time I tried this was two years ago, and I came up quite short. Not because of anything external to me, but what I was dealing with in my own mind. I was untrusting and looking to external forces to pull me along my path. I now know that no matter what I am responsible for my thoughts and I create what is going on around me. So for me being a person living with PTSD my reality is sometimes skewed. I’ve found that doing things to gain the approval of others, and assuming the worst to be something I have to talk myself out of often. My mind tries to connect things that aren’t there in it’s misinformed attempt to keep me safe and protected.
So because of that, its really really difficult for me to know sometimes if I am doing something because it is in alignment with what I truly want, or if I am so searching for validation and belonging that I embark upon activities that are off the path of where I should be going. I’ve stayed in jobs too long, relationships too long (or not long enough), and signed up for things that, when looking back, had nothing to do with me but had everything to do with gaining favor or being included with those around me. To be accepted, to have value.
So because of this, my number one goal this year is to continue to learn how to trust, and to get to the end of this year knowing myself. Knowing what I do because its what I want to do. Saying no to the things, without explanation, of those things that do not serve me. To engage in activities that bring me light and love, and build more solid relationships with people in which I also know to be on this path.
A second goal is to look at a wellness-based self defense series that I can create for health, relationship, and environmental based issues. Sensei Tom (check out all the things he is doing at www.TomCallos.com) is a huge proponent of this, and is why I feel I am drawn to his work. While I’ve been attacked during a time that I did not have a martial arts background, what would have helped me to avoid my situation more would have been more environmental self defense. Once things are hands on, it’s a different story. But if we can help other people to get out early, that could really be what people need. And you don’t need 10,000 reps of these things, its having the knowledge and living by it that makes the difference. So we could save people in a few hours and not take 5+ years to get to a level of proficiency that you could consider yourself to be safe. I want to rely on my health habits and environmental awareness for my self defense. I hope to never need to defend myself from an attacker, but I do know that I need other things daily: to eat the good things, workout to keep my bones strong, and practice martial arts for my spirit and mental challenge. This will be my WOW project and I will be looking to develop it building up now researching here and there and then really digging in over the summer when schools are closed and I have the free time I need to make something that I can really be proud of and put my brand behind.
A third goal is to look at my body realistically and know that I have quite a long way to go physically to get to fitness competition shape. I’ve always competed against other people in all that I’ve done. I’ve never set up a competition against myself. So I set the goal that by my 35th birthday in November 2018, I would like to be at a place that I could enter a fitness competition, such as the one that you see going on at Master’s Worlds at the Envicta Fit Fest. But I know myself, and setting a goal that far out doesn’t make sense for me. Because I do my best work at the wire, I’ve always been a midnight crammer when it comes to school and work, and I ace it. There is something about a sense of urgency that fuels me to get going. So I need to break this goal up into smaller chunks to make sure that I do get there. Because you cannot cram off 10-15 pounds of body fat when it’s all you’ve got left to go. So I eat with the science-based guidelines of Precision Nutrition, as I am a Level One coach and coach others actively. I started 16/8 Intermittent Fasting, which is not a diet, as you consume the same calories if you would have eaten them throughout the day, but instead changing nutrient timing. If you want to learn more about what I’ll be doing, check out #3, the Daily Fast. I’ve also reserved a gym partner for each Monday to lift, which I know that I do better when a part of a team (it’s how I found martial arts in the first place). I won’t cancel on a training partner, and I have more fun this way. Life is supposed to be fun, not full of pain.
I’ve got to spend more time thinking of the other things I want to accomplish, other than those that are a requirement of the process, such as logging the journey on the web, daily fitness activities, righting wrongs, repairing relationships, daily acts of kindness, daily martial arts activities, book reading (I’m currently reading “Toward a Psychology of Awakening – Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal Spiritual Transformation” by John Welwood – link to a sample here, as well as listening to “A Selfish Plan to Change the World – Finding Big Purpose in Big Problems” by Justin Dillon – and a link to that one here. … But again, back to goal one, this is something that will require met to really dig through to make sure it is all in alignment with who I am and who I am becoming.
Till next week. Check out the happenings of my cohort at : https://tomcallos.com/ubbt-team-2018/
The Great ADVENTURE 