When I get there...or wait I think I am already.

Me..Doing what I love..having Starbucks with Girl Chat!

A well deserved morning cup of Joe after Hot Yoga....

Me & My Girlfriend Jackie....at our weekly yoga date....

Truly one of the Sweetest Inspiring Cards I've ever received.

Hello Loves! Happy Wednesday! How are you all? I have been really busy & was not able to blog Sunday, but I will be blogging again this Sunday as well as writing about my 2nd "Inspirational Woman" of the week. I again want to take this time to thank my readers who send me the sweetest messages! Just that you all take time out of your day to read means a lot. Truly...& putting up with my awful Grammer..LOL. I am working on it! Anyways..summer is coming to an end, & I am a little sad. I really have been doing fun things on my Wednesdays off such as coffee & yoga dates with friends, laying out, painting, & basically just having "free"days. I'll also miss sleeping in or not stressing over deadlines. But it will feel nice to get back into the swing of things & back on a routine though. I'm doing pretty good on my 30 class/30 day yoga challenge too. I did my 14th & 15th yoga class tonight. I had missed a day last week due to work so I had to make it up somehow. So 15 classes only to go..LOL.
   
        So what have these nonstop weeks of yoga brought besides sore muscles & a tighter bum? Peace. Serenity. Acceptance. Happiness. I feel like there has lately been a lot of positive things & people drawn to me..probably because I am exuding that positive energy outward so it is coming back to me. At my work with my clients, with my friends, with myself. I feel just as they say...a sense of "ZEN?" LOL...corny to some maybe, but I could not love the feeling more. Also it is a daily work in progress for me not to obsess over my body & myself everyday but I am trying. I skipped the scale this week because I did not want to get off my yoga high if I saw a number that did not reflect my hard work. Yet shouldn't the number not be the only indicator of my hard work? I mean I did just type out how much "happier" I feel by doing it? It got me to thinking, "Will I ever get there?"
   
       Speaking of that question...I wonder, how many of us women ask ourselves that question? "When will I get there?" "There" meaning..the perfect body, the perfect job, the perfect man, & well the perfect life. Tonight in yoga the instructor told us to not to judge ourselves, & that it was.."Yoga Practice, not Yoga Perfect." I thought that was so well put. Yesterday I got the most touching & beautiful letter from a client of mine named Bailey whom I've helped lose weight. She read through my blogs & wrote the sweetest compliments in my card thanking me for helping her. She's a beautiful girl whom I met a while back, & when I first met her was discouraged in her progress with her weight loss. I looked at her seeing the disappointment & sadness over her recent results & I saw my younger self in her. I was once that teenager sitting in her place. All I wanted was to lose weight, buy a smaller wardrobe, but most of all feel more "confident." Now 12 years later here I am still wondering, "Am I there yet?" I always promised myself when I got to that "perfect weight" I would buy that perfect wardrobe, land that perfect job, & eventually have & deserve that "perfect life." So here I am skipping a weigh in because I'm afraid of what that inner voice will say to me if it does not approve? So am I the expert to give Bailey or any of my clients advice for that matter?
   
       Then I realized that the answer is yes. I am worthy because I deserve to be. I can give advice because I am 100% truthful in what I say to them, & that is I struggle too. But if we listen to that inner voice that likes to doubt us, put us down, & convince us that we don't deserve to live until we "get there," (there meaning that perfect size), well then we will just watch life pass us by. So just a few years ago I started allowing myself to shop & enjoy it. Sure it would be nice to be at that perfect weight, but I actually was "there" a little over a year ago at that perfect weight & I remember thinking, "So why am I not perfectly happy yet?" Because that number is not magic, it is a shallow indicator of our inner happiness. When I have a bad joint day or even look down at my cane I walk with every day, do you think I tell myself.."Well if I was only 130Ibs this would all vanish." No..because it won't. My disease has nothing to do with my weight, nor does my weight have to do with the medicine I take for it. Therefore my weight will never cure my disease or my search for happiness when I get there.

       So what am I waiting for? In the letter Bailey told me I inspired her to be happy with herself no matter what. She also has lost weight now, but I know she did not mean just that. And that is all I had hoped for the minute I met her. Because as in me, I saw a girl who had so much to offer, was beautiful inside & out & whom I did not want to see beat herself up over weight, & in the end lose years of obsessing over it like I have. Like I said, I still struggle with it, but then I try to keep in perspective what keeps me happy. Yoga. My family. My cat. My writing. My girlfriends. My painting. Being healthy. My morning coffee. But most of all knowing that I may have helped one more woman see their beauty, & it didn't have anything to do with a scale. So my Beautiful readers, just like me & Bailey...your already there. No matter what the scale says. Namaste.