During this strange time in history, I noticed y’all were tackling all sorts of interesting projects. I decided I needed one, too—something positive to remember the pandemic of 2020 by.
I decided to pay attention to something I had abandoned…
Nope, I’m not cleaning my garage. I am not organizing one single thing. I’m not planting a garden or cleaning up my yard.
Instead, I decided to take care of myself better. This, folks, has made all the difference for me.
With relatively little time and effort on my part, I feel so much better than I did a month ago.
On March 30, I got on the exercise bike and the yoga mat for the first time in a long time, and did 30 minutes each. I liked it so much that I decided to do it every day. But I fell short of that, and changed my commitment to every other day, which felt more manageable, reasonable, and doable.
I also get off the bike after every song, take a couple of sips of water, shake out my legs and arms for a few seconds, and get back on. This makes the bike project a reasonable proposition, too.
Daily walks of any length—by myself, or with my little guy, Jackson—are a fresh air bonus.
My recumbent exercise bike has pulleys to work my upper body while I pedal, which gets my heart rate up fast, and also helps my whole-body strength. It feels good to get up from writing, or doing a consulting session with a client, to do something physically challenging while listening to good music.
After only a month, I feel a sheet of muscles on the front of me I haven’t felt for a very, very long time. Goodness gracious. Who knew they were there. I’ll be posting rippling ab photos soon, I’m sure.
I have no idea what the scales have to say about my bike/yoga project—I don’t care. Paying attention to scales tends to send me sideways, and therefore, I’m ignoring them completely.
But—I LOVE the way I feel! Hang in there, everyone.
Mary-Elizabeth
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The buck does stop with me and I say, “It’s all his fault!” (ha ha). I’m loving your videos and it was nice to be introduced to your daughter today.
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Terri Crosby
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Mary-Elizabeth — so glad you could meet my daughter! Thanks for watching and for enjoying the videos.
Terri
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Althea Gonzalez
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Nice job on the video! Love you and MacKenzie playing off each other. And so true, that we are always responsible for our creations.
My two cents, the term “fail” feels off for me. If everything is always in divine order then there is no “failure”. There is only an ending that may have come sooner than anticipated or desired. And there are things we can be or do (like owning our stuff) that can make them last longer.
Reading… Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert, also helped me to see that over the centuries there are all sorts of reasons and expectations people have for getting married. Those reasons definitely shape the longevity or viability of the marriage.
Thanks for sharing!
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Terri Crosby
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Thank you so much for your comment and your suggestions. I totally understand about the word “fail.” I’d like to share a couple ideas about that…
One,there are certainly many emotion-filled definitions for the word fail involving one’s worth (to prove deficient or lacking, to fall short of success or achievement). But other definitions suggest something simple like “to dwindle” or “lose strength or vigor.” Fail can mean that something ends.
And two, when I work with clients, I start with the language of where they are, not where I am, which builds a bridge to where we will go together. I can be fully in “everything’s in divine order” while my client is not. People who come to me are typically (but not always) in a less than rosey frame of mind about their relationship situation. Even if they understand intellectually that everything is in divine order and there is no such thing as failure, their heart may not be feelin’ that, if you know what I mean. They feel like their relationship (or lack of one) is or was a failure, even though they know differently in their head. So it’s a process of getting the inner-sort-of-secret-feeling of failure out in the light and make it fully OK. We play with it. Welcome it. Understand it. Take it by the hand and take a few baby steps. And then everything begins to change. The heart and mind can come into alignment with the idea that you know is true.
A rather drastic example of this is when my husband Eric almost died last year. Intellectually, I know death is not the end of a relationship, but in the middle of that experience with him, I saw how far I was from actually embodying the truth of that. I’ve come a long ways about it. I understand it more deeply. So at the beginning of that experience, I knew the truth in my head, but life gave me a chance for my heart to understand it more.
Thank you so much for chiming in!
Terri
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