Category Archives: lifecoaching

Contemplation, Family, getting in shape, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, Native American Women, Nature, running

One Month Later…

One month later.  I’m still at it.  I either walk or run/walk six mornings each week.  I still take one day off each week.  I don’t have a set day because of my crazy work schedule.  It’s the day that I have to leave to early to get a workout in before I have to go.  I still don’t like to get up in the mornings to workout.  I’m still not a morning person.

Oh, I try to make excuses.  My feet hurt, my ankle is twingy, my knees are sore.  I still go.  I really am proud of myself for keeping at it.  I write tonight because I already don’t want to get up in the morning and workout before I leave for a full day of meetings with 150 miles to drive, but I’ll get up.  It’s run day, so I will run.

I did add the second half of the course.  I was run/walking 1.57 miles each time and now I am up to the full 3.1 miles.  I thought I would give myself a week or so to acclimate to that distance but, who am I kidding.  It isn’t that far.  One day of running it and one day of walking it, my body knows what to do.

I’ve started buying the equipment.  You know, the arm band to hold my phone.  I am tired of a sweaty phone case because I have shoved it into the shoulder strap of my top.  I have added at least three pair of shoes my wish list.  I will have to get the warmer gear out soon.  I think I have at least a week of time left before I have to start dressing for much cooler weather.  I don’t mind that little nip in the air for running, for now.

I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around the later sunrise and earlier sunset.  I don’t like the idea of running in the dark.  It isn’t like the city, where lights are everywhere.  No, this is the sticks, a yard light or two, some porch lights, then darkness.  It’s a quiet area, people wise.  It is a very active area for wild life.  I see foxes, deer, I hear coyotes, and owls.  Thankfully it is getting too cold for snakes to be out in the early morning, but you never know at this time of year.  And, let’s not talk about other people’s dogs that may or may not be leashed.  I will probably just stay inside to “run” on the elliptical unless it is a day that I don’t have to leave to early.  I’m not afraid of the dark, just the critters that roam the night.

I am already planning the workouts for the deep cold.  Walking won’t be a problem but I don’t know about running in really cold weather.  I’m not that addicted.  I don’t think that I will be by deep winter either.

I am thinking it is also time to start adding some weight training. I don’t know what to do and I don’t have time.  It has been a process to add time to walk and to run.  Now I have to figure out how to add that critical weight training.  I have to figure out the time.  I still don’t want to be a morning person, but right now, it is the most logical time to lift.  After work I have reports to write and a husband to spend time with so after work isn’t an feasible option for me.

Okay, now to rest.  I still don’t want to get up early and run….

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Contemplation, getting in shape, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, Native American Women, running

Pride, Dignity, and Grace

You’ve heard the old adage, fake it til you make it?  Yeah, that how I live my life.  I’ve yet to have a job that I knew how to do until I was hired and trained.  Everything I did at those jobs, I learned as I went.  I totally faked it until I made it.

Is that a bad thing?  I think not.  What’s the secret to faking it while you take the time to make it?  Pride, dignity, and grace are my secret.  How I look.  Win, lose, or draw is often not as important as how I look as I go.  Faking it, making it look good until I can really do a thing, making it.  Easy peasy.

I was running the other day, I do that now….and I realized that my posture sucked.  My head was down, my arms were limp, my breathing was ragged, and my legs were barely moving.  Fake it, lift my head up.  Fake it, pull my shoulders back.  Fake it, breathe evenly, count three breaths in, three breaths out.  Fake it, see that line painted on the road and make my feet hit that line every time.  Fake it, stretch my stride just one more inch.

Pride, head up.  Dignity, shoulders back.  Grace, feet flowing across the ground.

Next thing I knew, I was half a mile down the road.  So it seems that I am still faking it until I make it.  What I have learned over the years that is that no matter what, I will look good while I am doin it…whatever “it” is.

As you drive past me, you will think “wow, I wish I could run like her”.  I will finish the race, eventually.  I will look good while I am running.  You will not know how hard I have to work to look like I am a natural, or to look like I run miles and miles every single day.  I will know how hard this is, I will know about those beginning steps, I will know just how fake it was until I made it.

I still have 1.5 miles to add to my run.  I still have 1 minute and 15 seconds to shave off my mile splits to reach my goal.  I will still use pride, dignity and grace to reach my goal.

5K—>I got you!

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Contemplation, Family, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, meditaton, Native American Women, Writing

The Day I Started Taking Over the World

 

It was a long time ago, this story’s beginning.  A child was trying to be born.  Her mother, just a child herself, a little bitty sprite of woman.  Still three months shy of her 17th birthday, not 100 lbs., tiny, bound and determined to be someone’s mother.  Her small size was causing major havoc on her body this day.

The things that she should have known, she did not.  The things to do, what to expect when going through your first child birth, the danger signs, what to tell your doctor…all of this she was not aware of, not because she was incapable, but because she was alone.  Raised by her grandmother, mom left when she was very young.  Pregnant on purpose, because if she was pregnant, they had to let her get married.  A husband who was about 5 minutes older than she.  You might say, she was an angry young person to do all of the things her father and grandmother told her not to do, and you would be correct.  Nevertheless, here she was, in labor with her first child.

Now it was time.  While modern as hell, it was 1962, and the things they know now, were not the things they knew then.  They pumped a lot of drugs into that tiny body as she was ready to give birth.  Her labor was long and hard.  When the child finally emerged, she was blue, lifeless.  Fetal monitors not what they are these days, I can’t tell you whether the medical staff expected this or not.  But the young woman had now gone into seizure immediately after the birth and it took the concentrated effort of the entire medical team to save her life.  The stillborn child was placed on a cold table next to the gurney and forgotten as they worked to keep the little bitty woman alive.

Minutes pass, the mother-to-be will survive.  As the doctor and his nurses continue to stabilize her, for no reason anyone can name, that little blue baby begins to wail.  She announces her presence like it is no ones business.  Everyone turns in surprise, maybe even awe.  Not expected, not expected at all.

Flash forward, 56 years later…no matter how I have lived my life in the past, I think about how I began in this life.  No, I don’t remember it, this is the story that my mother told me, more than once.  No matter what kind of decisions I made in the past, I make them now with this story in my heart.  I still do this to people, still, for no reason anyone can name, announce my presence…and yes, sometimes with a wail.

What do you say to a person who started out like that?  What do you expect from someone who decided to live even when others thought she would not?  I asked this of myself, more than you think.  I continue to answer myself every day.

 

 

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Contemplation, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, Native American Women, Nature, Writing

56 Bottles of…

I’ve been having a really hard time of things this week.  Winter does that to me from time to time.  I have claimed to be of the Bear clan.  Winter can be quite confusing.  My mind racing some days and other days, I just not sure who I am.  I eat too much, want to sleep to much.  The earth is supposed to be at rest right here in my neck of the woods, but some days, it isn’t.  Even this little bit of writing just looks like a jumble of words to me tonight.

I have had some clearer moments this week.  The cold does that to me, as well.  I see better when the cold kills the pollution in the air.  I watched some geese flying south.  I thought for a minute, how strange it was to see geese flying so late in the season.  Not that winter is half-way gone or anything…but if I were a goose, I think I would have high-tailed it to the beach long before mid-January.  The squirrels have been crazy-busy.  All those black walnuts I painstakingly raked out of my yard are now being dug up, from the middle of the yard, and spirited away to hidey-holes.  With all this activity I am not surprised at every new announcement of snow storms approaching.  Reminds me of that joke about the weatherman predicting a bad winter, because he saw the Indians cutting lots of fire wood…and the Indians cutting lots of fire wood, because the weather man predicted a bad winter….the announcements for the weather come way before either, said the geese and the squirrels.

The hills, now with bare trees looks like some old man’s balding head.  His hair sticking straight up and his scalp all white since the first snows fell.  I see houses out in the woods that I had not seen since last winter.  I wonder what those folks think when they see cars rolling up and down the highway, that they hadn’t seen since last winter.

I completed two video “how to” courses this month.  I have some webinars to attend…maybe that’s part of my problem, it feels like I have physically done something, but I haven’t.  I’ve only missed one day of work due to bad roads, but it feels like I haven’t been in a long time.  OK, so maybe it’s just the cold weather, bad roads and sitting in the house for several days.

And then there’s the 56…in a couple of weeks I won’t be 55 anymore.  I’m not sure what to do next.  I’ve never been here before.  It’s not time to retire, but I’m no spring chicken.  I love my job, I hate my job, there are so many things to do, and I don’t want to do anything.  It’s a strange mood.  I begin to understand how some of my ADHD friends feel all the time, minds jumping around from one thing to another.  They seem to handle it better than I have been.  This winter seems to be making me a bit crazy.  My upcoming birthday seems to have done the same.

Truth be told, I’ve been “a bit crazy” for a long time, I just don’t think I noticed it, or at least I haven’t admitted it to myself.  How many days until spring?  Perhaps by then my mind, my thoughts, my everything will have settled and I won’t be so…whatever this is.

 

 

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Contemplation, getting in shape, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, Native American Women

Arguments with the Crazy Lady

The alarm went off at 7am.  That’s not too early for many people but for the crazy lady, it was way too early.  I lay in bed and my body is begging me to get up and get moving but the crazy lady in my head wants to know what the hell is going on.  Twenty minutes, we argued for twenty minutes.

Finally, I rolled out of bed and got onto the elliptical.  That’s when the arguing finally stopped but only because, thanks to many mornings of marching 3 miles in the cold and the dark-thank you Air Force training, I learned to walk in my sleep.  My body was happy because we were finally accomplishing the number one goal of the month and the crazy lady was happy because she went back to sleep.

I will have to use the machine for many days.  My driving schedule gets me out the door not too long after the sun has risen and I don’t get home until after it is dark or very near to dark.  This is the Hoosier National Forest.  There are big cats, wolves, coyotes, vampires, Sasquatch and the like in these woods, I’m no fool.  Not to mention, it’s freaking cold outside now.  Turns out, I like walking in my shorts and tank top when it’s 18 degrees outside.

Twenty minutes into the workout my husband was out of bed and rounded the corner of the living room to look at me with raised eyebrows.  I said “good morning” and he smiled and walked into the kitchen to start the coffee brewing.  He returned a few minutes later and  asked me if I wanted some lights.  As he was reaching for a lamplight, I told him no.  He just shrugged and walked back into the kitchen.

Five times the sun has risen since that first argument.  Three days of the five, we had a big difference of opinion as to what was supposed to be happening at 7am.  But I did it.  I got up every morning and did my exercise.  I cannot honestly say that I have lost any weight, it’s only been five days, but I can say that maybe, just maybe, I am becoming a morning person.

I will not be able to skip a day in my routine.  I am wired to quit and say ” later, I can do this later”.  I am trying to change my inner dialog, trying to become a morning person.  I find that starting my day with a brisk 30 minute walk has helped my mentality.  I do more, think faster, engage easier.  I still need my coffee but I can talk before I take the first sip…talk and make sense.  That’s new.  I work all day, get my reports done after dinner, meditate in the mornings, journal as I need to.  This might actually be working for me.

I think that the crazy lady will always object, she is definitely a night owl.  We don’t argue at night, about bed time.  I am usually up until midnight or later.  I think, for now, I will pick my battles carefully and not complain too much about needing to get to bed earlier.

My alarm is set.  My projects are lined up for completion.  My business is getting pushed into the front of my “to-do” list.  I will get up a little earlier than I used to and get on the elliptical machine and walk for a while.

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Contemplation, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, Native American Women, Uncategorized

Lost

I am lost.  I wasn’t before.  Before I knew exactly where I was.  I wasn’t happy, haven’t been happy for a couple of years.  I was consoling myself with dreams and it just isn’t working for me anymore.

Let me explain.  I hate my job.  It was fun for awhile but it has been 16 years…it’s not fun anymore.  I have time in that earns me 6 weeks of vacation a year but I can’t use it.  When you run in a department that is one person deep, there is no one who can take your place if you take time off.  People used to help me, but now everyone knows that I do a lot, much more than they believed, so now no one really wants to cover my caseload.  I will finish this year like so many others…with time I cannot use and don’t get paid for.

I wrote a resume.  I haven’t had to do that for a long, long time.  Thank God for my daughters, who sent me copies of theirs.  I had good examples to follow. The resume has changed a good bit since the last time I used one.  Now I get to decided how to “get myself out there”.  Lost.

I have been dealing with depression, anger, loneliness.  I try to keep my head up.  I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice when I speak to people in the company, but it’s hard.  I don’t mean to sound hateful.  I just don’t think this is the job I want to do anymore.

In a month, will I change my mind?  I don’t know.  I really don’t know.  My formal education is not so impressive, to people who just read resumes.  I am old now.  I worry about changing but not improving.  I don’t like this feeling.

I am working now, on me…again.  I will sit back and look in the mirror.  I will see if I like what I  see or not.  I will change what I need to change so that I like what I see when the mirror looks back at me.  It’s all I know to do.  No one can fix this but me.  No one can decide if I am lost or not but me.

 

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getting in shape, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, Native American Women, Writing

Jump rope

It’s been quite awhile since I sat down to write anything.  I have been missing the easy thought flow of just getting things off my chest.  I have missed many opportunities in the past few months because I was just so often, too tired.

I am tired still, but have determined to start writing again, even just a few words to let out some of the angst built up inside….out.

I have been reading…that’s a good thing.  Even if I haven’t written things down, I am still filling my head with all sorts of stuff, sci-fi fantasy, murder mystery, psychology…you know, just the basics.

Then I picked up a “program”.  I still struggle with getting older, fatter, slower.  I still dread going to see my doctor since after the age of 50 it seems that every time I go, there is something else wrong with me.  I cannot tell you how much that pisses me off….just when you really start to figure things out, your whole body starts falling apart.

What to do, what to do?  I started using essential oils.  My house now officially smells of way too much hippy, but I feel better.  I take some great supplements and my mind is sharper, my heart stronger, my immune system stronger.  These are good things.  Not a bad start.  I have been using the oils for a year now, the supplements for about six months.

Today I added more supplemental stuff.  I have to say “stuff” because I cannot find the proper place to put a really thick, very dark green chocolaty coconut flavored…drink?  It’s very weird.  Almost yucky but kind of yummy kind of drink.  I have been sipping on it for any hour now.  I just need to bite the bullet and get it all down so I can get to bed.  New things tend to take me a minute to process.

My biggest procrastination for the past two months has been exercise.  I have such good intentions….

I have even gone to far as to use some bullet journaling techniques to put a little calendar in my “my physical me” journal to track my chosen exercise program.  It’s been in there for two months and so far, I haven’t started filling it out.  April and May…blank.

Honestly, I was scared.  Sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach and my minds’ eye holds a picture of a thing that is no longer possible.  I was scared of what would really happen if I went ahead and started my program.  Being 55 is hard work.

Picture this: a 20 year old active duty Airman, holding on to 125lbs for over 5 years, feeling really good about everything, heading out to the gym and working out for an hour or so with no breaks and actually walking out like “this is how the world is supposed to work”.  Yes, that was me, 35 years ago.  My heroes were people like Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray.  Boxing was as much an art to me as a sport.  I loved watching those guys’ workouts as much as I loved watching them in the ring.

I did not use the heavy bag or the speed bag…I wasn’t looking for muscle mass.  But I could jump some rope.  I used to jump for 20 minutes during each workout, Ali style, fast, fast, fast.  I would jump in front of the mirrors to make sure my style was perfect.  Did I mention that I weighed 125lbs?  I also hated looking like a rookie.

I have always said that the outcome was nothing to dwell on….but you gotta look good while your doing it…whatever “it” is.  So I jumped rope and I looked good doing it.

This is what my calendar is for…my goal, to jump 1000 times a day.  But, there is that “minds eye” thing….holy cow……

The book I am reading suggests jumping 7 minutes, twice a day.  This seems perfectly reasonable to me.  Still, it took another 3 days for me to put my shoes on and pull my rope off the peg it had been hanging on for a long, long time.

I am thinking that in reality, I might be able to jump a couple of hundred times without passing out.  I HOPE I can jump at least a couple of hundred times without passing out.  I asked my husband to come outside with me and to bring a watch.  He looks at me all funny and says “why?”.  I explain that I am going to start jumping again and I need him out there for support and to pick me up when I pass out.  I am being real with myself by now.

Seven minutes…I start thinking about all of those parables about time.  Is 5 minutes long?  no..hold this 50 pound weight straight out with one arm for 5 minutes.  Is 2 minutes long?  no….hold your breathe for 2 minutes…you know, those parables about time.  I am not stupid.  I know that I will not make it to 7 minutes on day one but I had to start.

OMG….I could not jump for 30 seconds in a row…by one minute, we were both laughing at my efforts, two minutes and I struggled to breath while trying to turn a rope that just would not work correctly.  Finally at 3 and a half minutes, my husband asked if I was done for the day.  YES!  I had to put on the sports rub after I finally caught my breath again.

I knew that I was out of shape but what never entered my mind was my body’s complete lack of cooperation.  How can a person forget how to jump with both feet at the same time?  My legs felt like lead.   I could not have alternated my feet if I wanted too, I tried, my legs just laughed at me too.

I jumped again this morning.  I still only jumped 3.5 minutes…..but I jumped.  I was counting, and several times jumped 25 times or more before messing up.  I jumped again this evening.  I jumped most of 4 minutes.  This time I really did almost pass out and only my Huskie was watching, she doesn’t even care and would have just let me lay on the patio until I regained consciousness.

Tomorrow morning will be my test.  I have to get up and leave for work earlier, my knees are feeling the stress.  Yes, I used more sport rub tonight.  I am supposed to drink the green sludge before I jump….wow.

First, I master the seven minute workout, then I get this drink down in less than and hour, and finally, I add just enough jumps to meet my goal of 1000 per day…like I said, 55 is hard work.

 

 

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Contemplation, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, meditaton, Native American Women, Uncategorized, Writing

Thursday Thoughts

I keep thinking that I have something to say.  Then I sit down and my mind is blank.  I drive around the state all day long with so much going through my head.  I get all excited about sitting down and getting all those thoughts out….but I find now that I am too brain-dead to put too much together.

I find it frustating, to say the least.

So I guess tonight I will just ramble.  Maybe some of those wonderful things I was thinking about earlier will come back.  If not, then at least I have had some typing practice, and I get to spell things.  I am one of those people who, when you can’t figure out how to correctly spell the word you want to use, will just pick a different word.  Hopefully it will convey exactly what I want to say even if it isn’t the first word I wanted to use.

I was on a kick, once upon a time, to use different dictionaries and pick different words every day…that got old and I could never remember any of those really cool words I looked up.  I learned a few new words but overall, not worth my time.

Honestly, there is so much insanity going on in the world that I don’t even try to make sense of any of it.  All these years I thought people were changing, not just some but many people.  Turns out, I was wrong.  We are in such a sad state.

Protesting, fear, anger, I’m right there with everyone.

As a Native American woman I think I can say, for real, I’m scared.  I feel more endangered than ever before.  It’s an ancient feeling.  I am sure that my ancestors knew this feeling well.  Yet I go to work everyday.  Talking with and helping people with disabilities.  I write my reports, supervise the staff assigned to me, and collect my paycheck.

I read a meme on Facebook today referring to all of this insanity.  It was a Buddist monk sitting in a meditation pose and the meme said something like all the chaos being OK since it means that it is clearing out the bad and good is coming after it all.  It was supposed to make the reader feel better.  But all I could think was, how long?

I still wonder…how long?  Will I survive it?  Will any Native person survive a level of hate so high it hasn’t been seen since “manifest destination” ran rampant over us all?

We stay in faith.  We stay in prayer.  It will do.

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Contemplation, Family, Life, lifecoaching, Native American Women, Sundance

To Whom Much is Given…

I tend to measure my relationship with my Creator against my relationship with my children.  We say in our prayers “Heavenly Father” or “Grandfather” and that is how I look at my personal relationship.  When I come to a bump or have a query I think about how I respond to my children as a mother and I imagine that this is the way my Father responds to me.

I have a really hard time not yelling at people who mean well but who give others who are standing in pain what sounds like sage advice when they say to them “God is just testing you”.  Folks, I have never once tested my children.  I do not recall ever being tested by my own mother.  I did not have to prove that I loved my mom or dad.  I do not test my own children to see if they really love me.  I think…why would anyone say something so cruel to a child (of God) who is in pain or confused about a situation?

I have said many times “to whom much is given, much is expected”.  I said it again last night.  I stand watching a loved one bear what looks to others like a huge burden and this is the reminder that was whispered into my ear.  As I wrote those words out I knew that if he was not “given much” he would not have any real understanding of what I was saying to him.  But I also knew in my heart that these were the words he needed to hear.

All is not lost.  He is not being tested to see how strong he is.  If he were not given much to begin with, none of this would be happening near him.  He would not be expected to know what to do, he would not be able to continue to praise God for all of his blessings.  He would not already have the answer to his prayers.  The Tree would not be calling him into the circle.  The heartbeat of the people would not be calling him to sing again.

I started thinking, even last night before I went to bed, about the number of people I know who have been “given much”.  I was really amazed.  There are a bunch.  It turns out, at least in my life, that it is not rare for me to see amongst my family and friends many who have been “given much”.  There are some who have much love, much intelligence, much wisdom, much beauty, much charisma, much of so many abilities.  I smiled because I realized that it was no wonder that my own life ran so smoothly and evenly keeled, I mean, look at all these wonderful people I know who have been given so much and whether they know it or not; giving back what they have freely, as was given to them.

I was still thinking about this morning.  This past 30 days has been rough on my family.  But this is a family that was given much and we know that much is expected from us in return.  We get tired, we get weepy, we get sad but we are never without hope, truth or love.

No, my beautiful family, we are not being tested.  We are being given the opportunity to show the world where our strength comes from and Whose children we really are!

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