Passion.

I’m sure my regular readers will have noticed a large gap in my posting schedule. Today marks my one year anniversary of starting this blog. I started it with purpose, with passion. I loved wellness and everything about it. Those that have been reading for the past few months my sporadic posts know that it has been a struggle determining the direction I want to take with with this blog or even if I want to keep it around.

I keep reading articles and seeing things that get me excited to post but never post them. I feel like I’m slacking at blogging, slacking at consulting, slacking at living a wellness lifestyle. Why would anyone want to take my tips or read articles I think are worthwhile if I can’t even practice what I preach? It’s a struggle. It feels like a struggle that is reoccurring, just a different topic. I keep living my life with the “when x happens then y” mentality and it’s not healthy because x never happens or is constantly changing. They use this analogy w/ people wanting to lose weight. They say once I reach my “goal weight” then life happens but the “goal weight” is never the goal weight. It has nothing to do with the weight. It’s in your mind. You think that getting to x will all of a sudden make y appear but that’s not how things work, that’s not how life works. It’s not a simple when x then y equation.

My director was talking to me the other day and asked me what I want to do with my life. 26 years old and I have no idea. I have forgotten where my passions lie. Forgotten what compels me to wake up in the morning besides an alarm clock and a schedule. I spend most Sundays locked in my apartment, shades drawn, binging and ignoring the world instead of embracing the world and being in it. I’m not depressed, I’m lost. Which is fine when you are 18 years old. But I’m 26. My time for being lost is over.

Occupational Wellness: 40 Hours?

I had this conversation with a friend over lunch one day about how it’s not necessarily the quantity of hours that you work, it’s about the quality of work that you do during those hours. Well, I recently stumbled on this article. Go ahead, click the link and at the very least skim through the article. I’ll wait.

Ok, back? Aaaaand? Thoughts? Comments?

I can say from grad school that sprints are fantastic. When I was writing papers, I would do writing sprints and just write for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. Obviously I would have to adjust that time to allow for editing my paper, coffee breaks, etc. But it kept me focused on writing my paper and I had an attainable end goal. A whaaaaa? Attainable end goal? Yeah, those are fan-freaking-tastic. I use attainable end goals all day. Ride my bike in and have to go up a hill? If I can make it to this drive way, then I’m good, I can do that. There are programs that you can install (at least through Chrome you can) that can time your day out this way.

I also found the “Results Only Work Environment” fascinating, absolutely fascinating. But that is partly because I find different work environments/cultures interesting.

What are your thoughts? How would you feel about your employer not caring how many hours you worked and just caring about the results? Do you work in a company like this already?

Mental Wellness: Reflection

Awhile back, I wrote a blog post revealing a side of myself I keep locked away from people I know. I made reference to eating disorders being a mental disease as well as a physical disease. I’m currently lounging around watching old episodes of True Life and naturally, I watch all the ones that are related to food and body image. The subject interest me in multiple ways because I can see bits of myself in these people.

You see them looking in the mirror and critiquing themselves and pointing out all their flaws, all their physical flaws. They point out physical flaws and relate them back to how they feel. I always relate this back to me after I engage in b/p behaviors. Because I look in the mirror and see my physical self but the reflection isn’t something I know or respect. The reflection is hatred and disgust. At some point, diets turn from hating the reflection in the mirror to hating the person in the mirror.

The hate isn’t in the reflection. It isn’t in the body in the reflection. It’s something bigger than that.

Mental Wellness: Jealousy.

I’m in a funk. That is for damn sure. And I think a huge reason why I am is because of increased exposure to social media, especially during this time of year plus the type of personality I have. I one time read something on reddit that was in regards to social media and how you are seeing everyone’s highlight reel while you are living your day to day and seeing the “behind-the-scenes”.

Do you ever just feel so overwhelmed by seeing everyone’s highlight reel? But at the same time, dude it’s social media, there is no need to treat it like your diary. So all we ever see is highlight reel upon highlight reel. And with the facebook, the twitters, the tumblr, the google+, the instagram, the youtube, the wordpress, the blogger, the vine, the linkedin…am I missing any? Probably. But with all the social media outlets and your ability to like, favorite, follow, subscribe, friend, etc anyone given any status…it’s no wonder your feeds are full of highlight reels.

And it goes back to how I have been feeling lately. Just burnout on all the highlight reels. And selfishly wishing that I had something to contribute to a highlight reel but feeling stuck in a routine. Feeling jealous of everyone’s lives and their highlight reels. Feeling like my contributions are not enough. Feelings of disappointment. Failure. Rejection. Wanting to prove my worth and not knowing how to do it and if my worth is something that is even worth something.

Physical Wellness: Marathon Training Planning

Today I spent the day carefully planning out what my marathon training will look like. My official training will start on June 1 (my marathon is not until October 19 so this gives me plenty of time to train). Right now it looks like I will be doing my long runs on Sunday mornings (my race is on a Sunday morning) and a some speed work along with cross training in the form of yoga, lifting, swimming, and playing tennis. While some people concentrate a lot of their efforts on running, I will try to put a little more concentration in endurance and making sure I don’t burn out (or injure) my body w/ a enormous increase in running. My first long run will be just 3 miles (an easy run for me) and build to 22 miles before my marathon.

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I’m still not sure direction that this blog is going to take or how often I am going to post, but I think I will aim for 3-4 days/week of posting.

I’m Still Around.

I’m still around.

I’m still bookmarking articles to review.

I’m still wanting to blog here. 

I’m just feeling uninspired. I’m feeling a drift from the wellness field and perhaps it’s what happens when you get out of a field for a number of years with no hint of getting back into the field. Perhaps it’s being around people who don’t necessarily care that much about wellness or think of it as a joke. 

Perhaps it is more of a realization that wellness may never be a career for me and may only just be a hobby and I need a bit of time to let that sink in. I don’t feel like I have been posting quality blogs lately. And I don’t think it is fair just to post for the sake of posting. I feel like I need to make more time and more of an effort in posting quality over quantity. That might call for a bit of a change in blogging schedule. 

But just know, I’m still here and I still want to be here.