I love them! I lifted at the gym before work and am now sitting here feeling pretty accomplished and proud of myself. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the day brings!

Have an amazing day, everyone!

8:57 am  •  30 January 2012  •  9 notes

7:41 pm  •  29 January 2012  •  8 notes

i feel like doing something fun & new on this blog, so i came up with an idea inspired by rachelgetsfit’s latest post. i always wonder what the people i follow sound or look like, and love to watch a video or hear their voice to see if it is anything like i imagine it to be. i could make a video to share with you guys and i will talk about absolutely anything you want me to!

shoot ideas to my inbox! if i get a few ideas, i will make the video tonight!

 

3:38 pm  •  29 January 2012  •  8 notes

..and wow, did I eat a LOT. i’m pretty sure i could eat sushi every day for the rest of my life and be a happy camper! and you know what? i don’t have any regrets about how much i ate. life is too short & there is too much delicious food to not treat yourself and really splurge every once in awhile.

10:05 pm  •  28 January 2012  •  15 notes

An emotion we all feel, one so soul-crushing & devastating. I’m writing about this here because it is very much intertwined with my self-confidence, how i still have so much work to do in learning to fully love myself.

I struggle with jealousy in some pretty crazy ways and can let it eat me up inside more than i would dare let on to anyone. I don’t take it out on my boyfriend in the way you would think, like restricting who he can talk to or demanding to know who he is texting and so on… but this week, it has directly affected our relationship. On wednesday, we were out on a date and in walks his ex-girlfriend. Not any ex-girlfriend, THE ex-girlfriend. My boyfriend is a very honest person and we talked a lot before getting together so i know many details about all of his past relationships and my brain is an iron trap for this sort of information. Upon seeing her, it’s like my brain released every positive thing he has ever said about her and then turned on me to say:You do not live up to her & you never will. You are not as pretty, you do not make him as happy as she did, she is better than you in every single way.

Now, I realize this thought is crazy and irrational. Their relationship ended for a reason and I know that she is his past & I alone am his present. But I had trouble enjoying my night just knowing that she was there, I have negative feelings towards her even though I don’t know her at all, and I obsessed over her for the rest of the week. I am still struggling with letting these destructive thoughts go. She is one of two girls (the other is a girl I know from high school) that I obsessively compare myself to, as if our lives were all a competition and i need to be the “winner” or else my life is worthless. I constantly try to guess if i am thinner, have a better career, am better in bed, etc etc etc. in this age of social media, I am faced with countless opportunities to make myself feel bad by looking at their carefully-crafted profiles that do not expose their own flaws or insecurities. Of course, i always come up short when I play this game.

I need to stop. I’m sad for myself, I know that i’m not recognizing all of my own qualities. I don’t need to be better than them in any way, I just need to be me. This includes sitting and gently acknowledging my insecurities, but I also need to recognize my own awesome. I don’t mean to brag, but if I can devote DAYS to obsessing over all of their good qualities, then I deserve to take a moment to publicly acknowledge my own good qualities.

• I am a kind person. I feel like I am a very empathetic person who is always willing to listen to what is troubling someone, even if they are a stranger. It hurts me to see people in pain.
• I am intelligent. I have a master’s degree, and that is an accomplishment that I need to take pride in. I have a job and have been self-sufficient since graduating. 
• I am a pretty damn good cook. The food that I prepare for my boyfriend & I is (usually) healthy and nutritious while also being amazingly delicious.
• I really like the color and shape of my eyes, they are very unique.

I am going to continue to work on releasing this jealousy, and if I feel ambitious, will work on loving-kindness meditation towards these women. Any negative feelings I have towards them are of my own creation & perception, and not due to anything that they have ever done to me. They are both beautiful women with many amazing qualities and that in no way threatens my own self-worth. Life is not a competition, we are just here to be the best person that we can possibly be. These feelings, while uncomfortable, are a tool that I can use to learn to be more kind to myself.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I feel better now that I’ve written this out.

 

5:44 pm  •  28 January 2012  •  8 notes

i was up for the gym at 7am (before my alarm!!), and am getting ready to leave in a few minutes. i’m so ready to be back in there after taking a few days off to rest due to feeling a bit under the weather. this mindset is totally strange to me, i have never actively enjoyed working out. i love this feeling though and am so glad that i stuck it out through the days where it was a bit of a struggle to get there.

 have a wonderful day, friends!

7:46 am  •  28 January 2012  •  10 notes