Some days I feel like Eeyore in this picture. It’s the black cloud. I just can’t kick it. I try to push it away, shut it out, ignore it, and make believe it’s not there, but no matter how hard I try, the black cloud lingers. It follows me around. My shoulders slump, my head down.  I want to notice the good in life more than the bad. Sometimes, it’s just hard.

Sure, I’d rather be happy, smiling, welcoming. My “up” me is much more inviting, it draws people to me, but I can’t fake it if it’s not there. It has to come from my heart. I’ve learned over the years that faking it takes a toll on my mind, body and soul. I want to be real; I just don’t like the damn black cloud.

I am no stranger to the black cloud. It has come and gone throughout my life, as I know it has others, and its okay. We are all on this journey called LIFE with its ups and downs. The downs just hurt.

I’ve learned some strategies that I use when the black cloud comes around that have helped me. Maybe they can help you too, when you are feeling stuck beneath the cloud and want to leave it behind.

* Allow it to be there. Let it sit with you. It’s trying to tell you something. Don’t fear it because it’s there for a reason. What does it want you to know?

* Give it love. Give yourself love. Lean into self acceptance. Be as kind to yourself as you would the most important person in your life, if they were feeling blue. BE the most important person in your own life. What would feel good to your heart?  A walk, some fresh air, holding your cat, dog or whatever feels good, laying on the floor doing nothing, watching an old movie, reading a good book, wrapping up in a comforting blanket with a cup of tea, talking to God.  Whatever your heart leads you to do.

* Feel what needs to be felt. Don’t push those feelings away. Even just giving the feeling a voice and saying “I feel sad”, can help. Give yourself the time, place and permission to let go of the feelings that you are trying not to let out. If you need to cry, it’s okay. Get your box of Kleenex and a tear jerker movie if you have to, but let them out. They are cleansing. I notice after I let out my tears that I feel lighter and free.

* Reach out. Get in touch with a friend or loved one that will listen or just be there for you. Eeyore had Pooh just to sit with him. Send a text, an email, a phone call. Don’t isolate. And, if the black cloud just won’t leave, find help. Don’t go it alone. Get in touch with your doctor, a therapist or a coach.

On this day, I don’t see the black cloud. I look around, feel my shoulders and there is no heaviness. Real joy!  My heart wants to smile.  It’s a sunshine and blue sky kind of day.  Life is full of ups and downs and I’m going to thoroughly enjoy this “UP” day.  I’ve found as I take the time to talk to God, acknowledge all of my feelings, rest, laugh, and allow myself to be imperfectly me, I just don’t see that black cloud as much.  It’s a process and it’s learning self acceptance and love.

If you have that black cloud hovering overhead like our friend, Eeyore, and you would like to reach out to someone, feel free to contact me. I have been there and understand.

This year I’m bypassing New Year’s resolutions in favor of something that makes me feel hopeful and light hearted.  I am choosing “words that inspire me”.  That takes the pressure off of doing my resolutions just right.  Words that help me get into that good feeling state. 

My words are ~ Joy, Ease, and Let Go. 

Joy  ~ We have so many moods and feeling changes throughout the day.  We may wake up happy, but as the day goes on and life happens, we could go into sadness, anger, anxiety, and so on.  When I think of joy, I think of it as a core feeling.  I can be sad or mad and have joy too.  If I’m having a stressful time at work, I can look at a picture of my family and find joy.  I’ve learned to keep my eyes open for little pieces of joy through out the day no matter what I am doing.     

Ease ~ I have had this long time belief in my head that everything is a struggle, but it’s just not true.  I want to feel at ease instead.  The dictionary defines the word “ease “as “freedom from pain, worry or agitation”.  Love that!  As I go about my day focusing on finding “ease”, that just feels so much better.  The word makes me want to go ahh.

Let Go ~ This is a big one for me because I consider myself a “hanger-on-er”!  I try to take the situations in my life, hold them tight, and fix them myself, but it just doesn’t work that way.  It feels so good to place my worries, struggles, and unhealthy habits in the hands of God (my higher power).  I know that He has the answers and will lead me into doing what is best.  I let it go. 

If you were to think of a word or two to carry with you into 2012, what might they be?  That simple act might just set the intention for you to find more of (your amazing words) in your life in 2012. 
 
Happy New Year, my friend.

Now as I look ahead to 2012, I know that even greater things are on the horizon.  I am comfortable right in my life, I have a good job and my health is okay, but I yearn for more than okay.  

I love the phrase, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”.  Scary?  yep!  Fun and exciting?  You bet!  There are just some things in my life that I want to make better.  I want to THRIVE at a career that I LOVE!  I want amazing health and a strong body that feels great. 

It’s all so, so possible, for me and for you. 

In the next year I pray that I will be my own hero and that you can be your own hero.  ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE! 

Wishing you the best this holiday season and into the new year.

Take care,

Debi

I’ve been wanting to blog about the old Safeway closing it’s doors for awhile now.  These words have been on my mind and knowing myself and how I process things, they  just won’t leave until I write them down.   I took the photo with my phone so I’d have a visual of how it looked.  I think we all have memories of places that live in our hearts , but how often do we stop and remember or speak of them?  Here is my bittersweet good-bye to an old store: 

An old Safeway store closes its doors.  A new fresh & modern Safeway emerges and, “wow, it’s awesome”!  It’s what our area has needed.  Sometimes even a good change can be uncomfortable though.  The old store wasn’t just any Safeway, it was “my Safeway”.  I grew up going there week to week! 

I drive by the big, old empty shell now and if I look that way, I can feel my heart drop a little.  I know it’s just a grocery store and by looking at this photo; it’s not a very good looking one. It was time.   It’s just that the old store was one of the many icons in my life. 

I just can’t help think about how things used to be.  If I close my eyes and remember….I see myself as a little girl with my mom walking down the aisles.  I believe that my mom bought my first candy bar there, which means my chocolate love began behind those walls.  Ah, my mom, I can see her in the store with her dark hair and loving big brown eyes.  It was always a fun adventure to go shopping with her. 

I remember when I got my first apartment and shopped in that store with my roommates.  I have to smile now as I remember how we tried to buy all of our favorite foods, but with very little money.  I think we lived on macaroni and cheese for months, so much that I can’t touch it today!  

I began taking my own boys to that store when they were just babies.  That’s probably where I bought their first candy bar.  (I see a candy bar pattern here).  It’s part of their past too.  It  fascinates me as I look at all of the simple, everyday memories that happened in a grocery store.  

Can you remember any stores from your childhood that are no longer in your life?  Do the memories make you smile now, too?  I drive into our “downtown” area that was once the hub of shopping.  As I stop and think about it, I can still see & hear the hustle and bustle of all of the friends and families shopping.  Now the stores are closed and vacant buildings or offices sit in their place.  We now shop in our little mall or on line!  I know that change is part of growing older, but sometimes my mind likes to reminisce of how things once were.  

I am ready to say goodbye to the old and hello to the new.  I went into the new fancy Safeway.  The aisles are wide; there is a bakery, a floral department and a Starbucks!  It’s what I have been waiting for.  It’s like the “big city” stores.  My grandkids will grow up with their own memories of the new Safeway.  It will be one of the icons in their own lives. 

Life is an adventure in so many ways.  It’s nice to see that things change….yet things stay the same.

I’ve always been a seeker, always on the look out for better than my current situation.  I believe that it’s good, actually imperative,  to go for our dreams and seek out what brings us joy.  The key is not letting our future goals rob us of happiness now.  Today, this very precious moment, is all that we really have. 

I would begin my day dreading going to my day job, praying for it to be a good day (which would mean I wanted everything to go my way).  I’ve been on an this endless search for a nonexistent perfect day.  I didn’t realize that my days were already perfect, because they played out just as they were meant to.  That good day that I was looking for, begins with me, my thoughts and my attitude.   I’ve come to realize that no matter what happens around me externally, I can find peace and joy within myself.  This new way of thinking is so very freeing.  The change had to happen within me.

Are you going about your life wanting things to be different?   It’s the “if this would change, than I would be happy” thought.  I get that!  What if you accepted your job, your boss, your debt, your weight, whatever it may be, just as it is right now?  Let go of the battle.  

There is magic in acceptance and in finding happiness within ourselves.  It gives us power.  It opens up the door to attract the very things that we desire most.  As Jeannette Maw says, “like energy attracts like energy”.  My warm fall day feelings are not only bringing me joy now, but they’re attracting more amazing things to show up in my life tomorrow.   

I spend my evenings sitting on my blue sofa with my face glued to Facebook, catching up on my email, and snacking on popcorn.

I know that I am meant for more.   Am I wasting precious time?

I want something that fills up my heart and makes my soul sing.  I want to write lovely or coach clients into their clarity and inspiration.
I want to find my love of running again.  I want to giggle for no other reason than total and complete enjoyment of being in the moment.

I absolutely love hot fudge sundaes, but as author Geneen Roth says,  “I don’t want to sit alone eating a hot fudge sundae, I want my life to be as delicious as a hot fudge sundae“.

Can you relate?

I turned on my tv at 8:00 pm and listened to Oprah’s words and I swear she was talking to me!  
   
“Only I am responsible for me.  I am the only one that can bring on change in my life.  Only I can move my life forward.  I have been waiting for a divine miracle…God has been waiting on me.”

Words I needed to hear as I am back into my unhealthy eating pattern.  I have put on weight and it doesn’t feel good.  I almost didn’t write this, but change can’t come about when hidden in secret.  Here I am a life coach helping other’s with their goals, yet I find myself stuck in the muck myself.  I have been so busy with work, coaching and life, but not paying attention to my own body and soul.  Yes, I do know better, but I turned my back on myself.  I allowed the eating disordered thinking to creep back into my life, instead of keeping my recovery first.   

There was a man on the Oprah Life class tonight that had weighed over 700 pounds before he set out on a weight loss venture.  He began eating less food, making healthier choices and working out at the gym.  Just watching this very large man going to a gym was humbling to me.  He was battling for his life.  He even began to lead a water aerobics class.  Then he lost part of his foot to diabetes and he still kept it up.  He had lost close to 200 pounds and is still going.  Wow!  He took responsibility for himself.  He refused to wait around in the confines of his house any longer.  He was moving his life forward.

I am going to go back to the basics as I was taught by my own life coaches; work on my limiting thoughts, feel my feelings and not stuff them down, listen to my hunger and fullness, and take one day, one hour, one meal at a time.  I will also “tune in” to my intuition and what my soul is telling me. 

I love the prayer “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference”. 

I can never ever be perfect and I don’t want to be.  I do want to be healthy and feel good in my body.  I want to honor my body giving it the respect that it deserves. 

One thing that I can say is that I am right in there with all of you that struggle with your weight and the war within.  We are all responsible for ourselves.  No one is going to rescue us ~ we have the power to bring on the change that we want in our lives.  Our coaches and mentors can guide us, but we need to do the work.

Tell me, just what do you envision when you think of a cruise; maybe relaxation, dream vacation, rest, fun, or romantic? 
For me, the word FEAR come up.  For years that was the neon word that kept me hidden from so many things. 

My husband would occasionally bring up the word “cruise” or “ship”, but I would change the subject.  I didn’t want to even consider the idea.  It unsettled me.   I envisioned being trapped in the middle of the ocean, probably seasick and being tempted by irresistible food at my beckon and call 24/7.  I was stuck in my own limiting scary thoughts.  With an eating disorder in my past, I have always worried about being on a ship with an “all you can eat” buffet of decadent foods and desserts.  I imagined my husband finding me diving into a mocha cheesecake and not being able to stop. 

Interestingly, I needed to give myself credit!  I didn’t think about how I have discovered self trust and compassion.  I know so much more about who I am now.  I’m on my own side and don’t want to lose that.     
 
When I got to the dock in Seattle, I excitedly walked up on top of the huge cruise ship.  I watched the dock get smaller as the ship cruised out to sea.  The green ocean and the skies were all part of the perfect package.  The party music played as people danced as the ocean breezes blew.  My fears weren’t invited to this party.  It was just “kick ass” fun!  This was another new adventure and I soaked it in. 

I never did get sea sick, even when our ship rocked a bit, it was all okay.  As for the food that I had worried about for years, I realized that it was just food.  It wasn’t this big powerful scary monster that would over take me with giant bites of cherries jubilee and crème Brule.   I could eat what I wanted to eat, stop when I had enough and just walk away.  This was freedom from disordered eating.  There was no dieting, no binging, just eating normally with my friends.  There was a point in my life where this wouldn’t have been possible.  I felt blessed that I could let my guard down and enjoy life.

There are many more things that I long to do and adventures that I want to jump into.  I still have fears, but I notice them and don’t let them rule my life.  I still stand by my creed that “life is one big adventure and we are meant to live it to its fullest.   It’s sad, frightening, amazing, lonely, loving, and then some, but it’s all rolled up into one big ball of amazing adventures. 

We are so fortunate that we are able to be a part of this awesome thing called “being alive.”