The Toxicity of life

I am finding my summer to be full of activities, which has left me with less time to myself at the computer, so what will follow is sort of a few ideas I have been kicking around since I returned from a family reunion on Sunday.

First off, seeing my entire family was just heavenly. I could easily write a whole post about the feeling I had throughout the weekend, but I will spare you all the cheesiness. I will say this, my dad is the single most focused man I have ever seen. He is on a health quest and has just met and surpassed every goal he has set for himself over the last few years. It is astounding. I can only hope to find that sort of progress in my own life. Also, for a brief moment over that weekend, my mom and I talked about the toxic things in life, in my life in particular. It has had me thinking for the last few days and what follows will be a summary, or meandering word vomit of these thoughts.

I have been doing a good job of cutting all of the toxic food out of my life. I have been doing a pretty good job of upping my physical activity to remove that toxic laziness out of my life. As I have detailed in this blog multiple times, I am working hard on eliminating the negative thoughts that continue to plague this journey of mine. These toxic thoughts lay at the root of everything in my life. I am constantly giving myself new goals, and my most recent goal is to stop being so self-deprecating. I am at a point in my life where I need to take myself and my journey seriously and in order to do that, I have to cut out my jokes at my expense. When you have spent 20 years conditioned to make fun of your own weight so no one else does it first, this is quite an undertaking, but I believe it is vitally important to my progress. Yes, I need to work on getting the thoughts out of my head, but first I need to work on not making jokes at my own expense. If I want other people to take me and my journey seriously, I need to take it seriously. therefore, I am trying to cut down, then eliminate the amount of time I spend making fun of myself. I have done fairly well so far. Try it, it is difficult.

The next part of the toxicity of life is people. I have had many toxic relationships in my life. I had a seriously toxic romantic relationship in my early twenties of which I still feel lingering effects some times. I have allowed myself to carry on extremely toxic platonic relationships out of fear of not having any friends which have done severe damage at times, and I have had a few toxic relationships where the line between platonic and romantic have been extremely blurred. Any sort of relationship can be toxic. Having the strength to pull yourself away from it is challenging. However, I know that I need to expect better of people. I need to make myself expect to be treated better and that starts internally. I am working on removing everything toxic from my life and that includes relationships. Currently, I am working on not carrying all of that baggage from the toxic relationships into my current relationships. I am working on letting go of anger, resentment, sadness and frustration. it is yet another roadblock on my journey. I must figure out how to knock the roadblock over. I can no longer afford to go over it, under it or around it because it invariably pops up again and knocks me on my ass. I am 31 years old and it is time to start dealing with my damn issues! It is never too late to try and fix the things you dislike about yourself.

Onto some random quick hits:

I walked to rehearsal the other night. It was lovely. I am enjoying walking. It allows me to clear my head, and get a nice workout in. However, I cannot forget my knee brace because the difference in my pain level is astounding!

I have hit a weight loss plateau. I have not lost any weight in about a week. Normally this would send me into a fast food binge, throwing up my hands in a metaphorical manner and going back to my old habits. My motives are more clear this time, so I am taking it in stride. I will continue to take it in stride. If I do not lose weight for a week, but I make a break through in another realm, so be it. My life will not crumble around me with a bad health week. (Also, it was not a bad health week, but did not lose any weight.)

I have found my desire for french fries and chips slowly draining. It is nice. I never thought I would live in a world where I thought I would be cool off french fries.

I am still looking for good healthy side dishes. I love salads, but I need something else healthy to eat with my proteins. It is tough to not just whip up some pasta!

Also, my my desire for snacking is not going anywhere, so I am trying to substitute nuts and fruits for ice cream and candy. It is mostly working!