New Half Year's Resolutions

Source: www.helpyourautisticchildblog.com

Today I found out I'm overweight. Yes, that's right, I'm FAT!

I've always been a bit curvaceous and I am comfortable in my own body (maybe a bit too comfortable!) so calling myself fat doesn't scare me at all. In fact it is doing me a world of good.




I'm an active person. I run, I go to boot camp, spinning, yoga etc, I play softball and I feel I have developed a strong body. I eat healthily (most of the time!). And yet I am still overweight. And it's all because of alcohol. I drink beer when I play softball, I drink Pimm's in the park, a glass of wine at friend's barbecue, prosecco with the girls, you name it. I take every single opportunity there is out there to drink alcohol. And it doesn't make me an alcoholic but it makes me fat! That's right, it makes me FAT!

So the question is: what am I going to do about it? Just carry on like nothing's happened because despite being a bit overweight, I actually look pretty normal? Or decide that my health is more important than my social habits?

Maybe it's time that  I re-evaluated my New Year's resolutions. Maybe it's time for my New Half Year's resolutions. Now that's a great concept, I think, and now just the perfect time to re-evaluate the objectives I started out with at the beginning of the year, acknowledging what's been achieved so far and revisiting the goals which have somehow fallen off the radar.

So, here we go, in the Well Done column:

• Doing Extensive Research for My 'Love' Project
• Getting a British Citizenship
• Participating in the LASL Softball Rookie Trials
• Joining the British Softball Federation Development Team training sessions
• Writing 30.000 words of my book so far
• Keeping a daily journal (and a separate gratitude journal)

In the Not So Well Done column:

• Putting on weight
• Still smoking (albeit only socially!)
• Indulging in alcohol consumption
• Lagging behind on my exercising routine
• Wasting energy on things I shouldn't
• Abandoning my TEFL online course due to lack of time
• Indulging too much on mind wandering instead of getting things done

Well done me for the things on the Well Done column, but now it's time to take the things in the Not So Well Done column a bit more seriously. Starting with exercising and eating. And drinking only at week-ends. I've got less than half a year to lose 5kgs!

What about you? What are your New Half Years's resolutions you're still struggling with? Time to reinforce those goals!

Stay inspired.
 

Are you a giver or a taker?

It recently occurred to me that in order to find love you have to give love. And not to a select few - close friends, relatives, people we fancy etc. - but most importantly to those who make it challenging for us to love.

To illustrate this I will invoke a story I read about Saint Therese de Lisieux which I've read in Grethchen Rubin's 'The Happiness Project'. Saint Therese was a French carmelite nun quite famous for her 'little way'. Little way is about making small adjustments in our every day lives, small yet impactful overall, rather than waiting for a major event in which to demonstrate our spiritual greatness. And despite being a beautiful soul, she was only human and she had her dislikes.There was a particular sister she found insufferable which she deliberatley wanted to spend time with and forced herself to like. That particular sister never knew she was one of the least favourite people of Saint Therese.

This story really impacted on me because I think it illustrates something a lot of spiritual people are going on about: that we are here to embody love and to truly embody love is when it's most difficult to do.

There's no real effort in loving people who are making it easy for us to love. Which obviously doesn't mean we shouldn't love them. Really we should love everybody because we all come from the same source but I know that most of us aren't yet that advanced as to truly practice love. So there will be people we'll find tough to love. There will be people who'll push our buttons over and over again! And it's particularly those people we should strive to love more because that's what embodying love is all about.

As Marianne Williamson says, “Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is.” 
I noticed that only through trying to love against my normal affinities, I'm genuinely beginning to understand this whole love thing. I mean I'm a good person. But If I was truly honest with myself I would notice that sometimes I take my friends for granted, that sometimes all I want them to tell me is what I want to hear and I'll do the same for them, that I don't always and fully heatedly listen etc. So I've decided to challenge myself a little bit and before reacting the same way I would always, I just put a little bit more love into my actions. I think 'What would I have to say to my friend so it really helps them?' and that little thought would change the whole situation. And it feels good. I feel like I'm finally starting to embody love. It's not about who is right and who is wrong. It's about loving the others, just as they are.

People used say to me 'You'll find (romantic) love when you're not looking for it!' and I grew sick and tired of it. How can I not look for it I asked myself when all I wanted to do was be in love with someone? Now I think this is probably true. But it's certainly not complete. I think what people should really have said to me a long time ago is: 'You'll find love when you're not looking to get it, but when you're looking to give it!'

What about you? Are you a giver of a taker?...

Stay inspired!

 

Charging the ball

 

Some of you may know that I've been training and playing lots of softball the last couple of months. For selfish reasons. The Ad League is putting together an All Stars team which is sent to the USA to play in an international advertising softball championship and I have my eyes set on making it to the team. There will be beer. There will be boys. There will be parties. You get my drift! But despite these superficial reasons, I have used this goal to see how far I can go with improving my game.

My game was pretty lame to start with. I grew up in Romania and not only that there is no tradition in American-style sports (well, we do have a Romanian game called 'oina' which sits nicely in between baseball and cricket, but no one really plays or knows the rules for) but there is hardly any encouragement for team sports. So I have never thought of myself as an athletic creature until fairly recently when I got into all sorts of physical activities and realised that I am quite strong and resilient overall. But to get good at a sport, now, that's something else I never thought I'd do.

 

I started playing softball three years ago with my work team and in between cans of beers and giggles I slowly but surely started to understand the rules and being less and less afraid of the ball, occasionally making it to the first base when accidentally hitting the ball with the bat. This year however, I started training, taking up a spot with the training team from the British Softball Federation. I also joined other teams to get more game time. Last Saturday I played in an all day softball tournament and played 6 games. On Monday I went to my first trials session for the team selection. Which is when one of the trainers shouted at me 'Go, charge the ball!' and I ran like crazy towards that ball not even knowing what 'charging the ball' meant.

 

'Charging the ball' means running forward to grab it when hit on the ground. Not waiting for the ball to bounce its way to where you are, but running towards it and relaying it to the relevant team mate. See, I've never been one to charge the ball in the past. And this is something that's been valid for everything else in my life. I would wait for the 'balls' (situations) to come to me. But training for softball as well as applying all the other self-improvement techniques I've been learning in the past six months or so have showed me that I am now the kind of person who is charging the ball. And yes, I do have lots of bruises on my legs and hands. But there's no better feeling than charging that wild ball, I tell you! I'm proud of my bruises, you see. Life's not about sitting comfy on the side and waiting for balls to land in your glove, it's about charging the ball!

 

Are you 'charging the ball'?