Thought Questions

I really have no idea... I wish I could say that I actually have had impact on someone, but I can't say that I have.

A lot, actually!  I understand my body physically more with my health in all.  My spirituality, a lot more. I understand why things seem like they are moving at a snail's pace. I understand why I'm not "in" love. I understand why I do what I do a bit more...

One, I finally broke off a co-dependent relationship.  Two, I took the steps I needed to be healthy again.  Three, I started living for ME!

That I can't do it.  I'm so used to not doing being able to do anything, that I've begun to tell myself that I can't do anything...

Like me... less attractive and extremely intelligent, lol.

Putting off my quiet time...  

I'd finish that paper that I'm finishing today!  I'd call my aunt like I said I was going to...

I got these questions from here: Thought Questions

This is what I've been contemplating today:

50 Questions...

I got this from a website I found on stumbleupon...

Live What You Love: 50 Questions to Ask Yourself

Probing into myself isn’t easy. I’m so thick-headed. I can adequately probe someone else, but when it comes time to ask myself, “what do I want?” I always come up blank. So as an exercise for myself and you, I’ve created a list of questions to ask ourselves to help define that passion. They are not in any particular order, except for my own random stream of consciousness. I tried to avoid common cliche questions, as I’ve never found them helpful and you probably wouldn’t either.


1. How do you really feel about what you are doing right now at this exact moment?


I feel as if I'm missing out on what I should be doing. Realistically, it is wrong since I am doing everything I can do to be doing what I want to be doing. I'm just impatient. To be honest, I feel like a failure...



2. What is your fondest childhood memory? Who was there? What was going on?

Probably spending my weekends at my grandmothers. On friday nights she would take me and my aunts to dixie's, which is a truck stop and I would order pancakes at midnight. 


3. How comfortable are you in your home?

Not very to be honest. I really can't be myself.. who ever that may be..

4. How comfortable are you in your town/city? State?

I love Jax. I love being able to go to a new part of town, and I love know where I'm going.


5. What kind of weather do you like?

Sunny and mild. Love those two weeks in March that are just perfect weather- not too hot, not too cold. I also love the English rain...


6. Do you believe you can have your cake and eat it, too? Why or why not?

No. For starters I can't eat cake! LOL! Seriously though, I feel as if I'm working towards something I will never attain. See number one.


7. What is one quality about your parent(s) that you really loved?

Their love. 


8. What is one quality about your parent(s) that you really do not like?

Their criticism.


9. Do you like what you are doing for money?

Yes. It's a job, and it has great benefits. I'm thoroughly blessed.


10. What do you feel is your greatest skill?

Empathy.


11. What do you feel is your greatest personality trait?

Total acceptance. 

12. Do you feel like anything in your life is holding you back from ultimate joy? List everything.

My self-efficacy, my self-esteem, my own rejection... ME!!

13. Write a paragraph or two about your ideal weekend/time away from work. Include location, sights, smells, food, activities, and people.

My ideal weekend away is sitting in an old bookstore. Sitting in a velvet chair, smelling the hardwood floors, with the dim lighting, an rusty and dusty papers everywhere..

14. How close are you in proximity to the people you absolutely adore the most?

Not that far believe it or not... the farthest in Jax is a 20 minute drive..

15. What do you want out of life?

Like hell if I knew!

16. How do you think people will remember you, when you die?

My listening skills...

17. How do you want people to remember you, when you die?

My compassion

18. Write your epitaph - the sentence you would want to appear on your grave.

Here lies a Godly Woman who sacrificed it all to pursue her calling...

19. What is one thing you could do today, this week, this month, or this year to get a step closer to creating the legacy in #17?

Be proactive

20. How do you feel about your home furnishings?

Too big! My room is smaller than a dorm room. With a queen size bed, and an armoire, there is no room!

21. Do you have a hobby that you like to do but you don’t get paid for? What is it?

Reading? I would love to play the piano again...

22. Does money hold you back from anything? What does it hold you back from? Be very specific.

Yes. Traveling.

23. What do you think of passionate people?

They're people on fire!

24. Do you know anyone who you feel is living their dream? Who? What do they do all day and night? Be very specific.

I feel everyone else is, except me! 

24. Do you think you can be completely satisfied living where you do right now?

Yup.. love it here at home, lol!

26. What do you want to accomplish?

My licensing in marriage and family therapy. Most of all: my own home! 

27. Do you want to change your career?

Don't have a career yet!

28. Do you wish you lived closer to a certain someone or group of people?

No...

29. Do you wish you lived in a foreign country or a far away state?

YES!!

30. What are three things that you do everyday that make you totally happy?

1. Listen to "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals
2. Listen to Pandora
3. Driving my MINI


31. What do you want to pass on to your children?

Don't want children...

32. What is something you have never tried but would like to?

Scuba diving

33. Are there things in life you wish you could reverse or make right?

Doesn't everyone?

34. Do you feel like you have enough money to live the way you want to?

Nope

35. Are you happy when you think about the upcoming day and all that it comes with?

Ehh.. not really... gotta lot of homework to due. However it is from my own accord...

36. What do you find challenging?

Figuring out who I am...

37. What do you find thrilling?

Helping others overcome their problems..

38. What are three memories you haven’t yet created but you would like to?

1. Get married
2. Graduate Graduate School
3. Be a licensed LMFT

39. Do you feel energized when you work?

No..!! lol

40. Do you feel creative when you work?

Creativity is stifled where I work! (on purpose though! lol)

41. Describe what you consider work, and what you consider play. What are the differences?

Work= something you gotta do!
Play= something you do to reinforce work

42. Do you feel blessed or lucky to wake up each day? How can you get to that point?

Somedays... learn to be grateful!

43. If all of your debt was forgiven tomorrow, and you had a completely clean slate, what is the very FIRST thing you would change about your life?

I have no idea, truthfully. I don't work because I am in debt, and the only debt that I have is student loans so nothing would change...

44. Where are three places you have always thought about living but never did?

1. Chicago
2. Phoenix
3. London

45. When do you want to retire?

uhh.. in like 40 years?

46. Is there an award or accolade you have always dreamed of winning or being recognized for?

Nope


47. If you could learn how and money was not an issue, is there anything else you would do for work besides what you are doing now? Be specific.

Yes, I'd be a concierge! 

48. List three things you would immediately change about your work day if you were the boss (assumes you are not the boss).

Nothing, really.. Maybe changing us to stop calling at 8:45... that would be nice...

49. List three things you would immediately start doing on the weekends if you had the money.

Travel, experience the arts, and fine dining

50. Imagine it is a big holiday and you are with your loved ones and you are living what you truly love. When they ask what you have been doing, what do you say in reply?

Doing what He has called me to do...

I figured this out while writing to my friend, who is a at sea, and sharing what I previously wrote:

Life is a stand still.. it's not like I'm looking for the love of my life.. I just want those around me to tell me they love me, and that they actually see me.. I always say the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and that would be Sarah, but sometimes this quiet wheel needs oil too... I just want to be heard, and I feel that I'm not... not from anyone here, nor by God... it's like I'm talking and no one is listening. And what is worst is that I don't even know what I'm saying, or even know what I want to say, or what I should be saying... I have no idea what I want anymore, and it frightens me. I've always had a plan, ya know? I mean I know in general what I want.. I want my licensing for marriage and family, I want a house.. I don't want kids.. I don't want pets... I don't want debt... but what do I really want? I want to travel, I want to be held, I want to be special, I want to be someone.. but who, exactly? I have no idea... this is scary.. like I don't know what I'll be at the weight I'm supposed to be... I don't know what life will be like shopping in a normal size. This fear is just vast...

She responded with this:

I think youre silly, because you have always been beautiful and youre finally starting to realize it. Remember that you are an amazing person at whatever size you are, you have been an amazing friend since we met and that hasn’t changed when a lot of stuff has. YOU ARE SPECIAL.

Even if you don’t know what to say, if you ever want to just talk just text or email, I’ll listen.  We are only 22, its ok to not have it all figured out. I mean think how boring the next 40 years would be if we already had everything worked out?

Thank God for good friends!

Life is..  life, I guess.

Yesterday was one of the worst day I had in a long time...  At the end of the day I ended up sitting in a cold bath crying my heart out.  This is what I learned:

I am beautiful..  no really I am.  And I fear that I'm not...  I've been really bad at my diet, not because I'm like "with the hell of it!" but because I LOVE stepping on the scale and seeing that number... and let's be honest, I haven't seen that number in uhh... oh...  9 years.  I love stepping on that scale and seeing a good number.  It makes me feel like I am there!  But... I'm not there.  I love putting on my size 14 jeans and saying "YES!!", because I haven't been there since elementary school.

I love the feeling of what I am now... why would I continue to change? Better yet, why wouldn't I want to continue to change?  Fear.  I fear what I will become.  I fear I won't be beautiful. I fear I'll still be alone at the end of the day. I fear that I'll still be rejected. I fear that I'll still be left out.  Fear.

I realized that I don't have a lot guy friends because I think that all guys look at me and can tell that he left me.  He didn't just leave me...  he left me for her..  I think that guys can see that and they say.. well obviously she wasn't good enough if he left her for another.. and maybe that's true.. and maybe it's not..    so I've walled myself up, hiding away from it all.

So what if he left me?  The relationship was awful, like in the play "A, My Name is Alice" "I said I loved you, Frank. I never said I liked you",  I might have loved you but I never liked you...

Then there is the boy...  Every time I try to like someone new.. I feel, like I'm cheating on him.. but the thing is he was never mine to begin with.  So, with those last few tears.. I shed a goodbye to him, and started a new chapter...

Then there is love... God all I want is someone to tell me they love me.  I want that look, that feeling of knowing I am loved... I didn't get skinny so I could be loved, because well although being skinnier might help me find others to love me, would it really be genuine? I mean, after hanging out with my sisters a couple time since losing almost 70 lbs, I thought maybe they'd like me more... and you know what?  They didn't... but those who did before, still do.  Because if they really were to like me, they would have like me before, not just now..  wow, I'm so superficial...

What I have really done with my life?  I'm still living in fear... still living at home... still feel like I am nothing, that I have nothing... thank God how I feel isn't the real truth, because I would be worse off than I am...

Great Minds Think Alike!

After posting my last post I logged in to FB and saw a friend had written a note. She also has a band, and her note describes why some of us have a band and why we did it. She has given me permission to post this, and I hope you dear readers realize just how much we are reaching for and why we do what we are doing!


"A few weeks ago, Sean and Courtenay were talking about your "battle cry" at church... I think I just found mine. I sent the following to my mother in an email: I feel better when I go [to the gym]... especially after I've been to class... I feel more energized because when I push to go to the gym, when that's the last place I want to be... it makes me realize that I'm not the same person I was 2.5 years ago, before the [lap band] study. I'm determined to live my life to the fullest, not like I was missing out before but it helps you "psych" yourself up, when you know you have things to lose weight for, when you have things to look forward to, kids, life, roller coasters, traveling, anything that you want to do, but can't because of your weight."

This is just one of the reasons I am changing and I am no longer letting my weight hold me back from the life I want and so deserve! 

Breakthrough!

Here's another long one.  I have no clue why but these past few weeks a lot has been happening and well I just need to get it out!

Physically

I finally have officially lost 50 pounds!  Whoo hoo!  *happy dance!*  The first (and hardest) stage of my new lifestyle and change is over, now I just need to keep pushing on.  When I lose 10 more pounds I'll be half way done! :D

I hadn't realized just how much work it would take to get to this point.  Granted I knew that there would be some work involved, but I hadn't realized it would take this amount of me!  However I am super grateful to have accomplished this and to have a band.  I know that I wouldn't be able to do this on my own without the help I needed.  For me it's all about a timeline.. I've lost 50 pounds in 3 months, does this mean I'll be able to lose another 50 in 3 months?  I do hope so but I don't want to set myself up for a failure if I don't..

I started weight training and personal training over a month ago, and ever since then I've been so fearful that the all the training I was doing would interfere with the number on the scale.. and in some sense it has but the number has finally moved!  I know that if I were to not incorporate weight training that just through cardio alone I do lose a lot of weight but I have to gain strength, muscle, and most of all I need to shrink all that extra skin (gross I know, I'm sorry!).  After training with a friend last week I hadn't realized just how much.. what's the word... fit I am compared to 3 + months ago.  3+ months ago I couldn't climb the stairs to the tank (not that I would have wanted to, and I still don't because I hate stairs.. we have a hate/hate relationship lol), nor could I have endured the workout that was set before me.

During the entire workout my friend kept mentioning that I wasn't breathing hard, and normally I would be but I hadn't even noticed it.. and frankly I don't know if I know how to push myself that hard.  Beforehand I would just try and do a workout and I would be quickly breathing hard, but now I have to push myself, and I soon realized that I need to find some motivation to do just that.

I've never really had to find some kind of motivation and while lying on the floor doing sit ups and crunches I really just wanted to cry because all I could think about were the horrible memories of my past that affected not only my health, my self-esteem, but also how people viewed me.  During middle school, life was hell.  I went to school to escape the drama at home, and by the time school was over I wanted to be home to escape the drama at school.  I had a teacher who was a complete jerk, especially to me.  He was fit, into working out and I was.. well.. fat and the complete opposite.  Unfortunately this teacher was my p.e. coach and a science teacher.  He was a good teacher, made learning fun but unfortunately he didn't know how to appreciate differences in others, and he valued looks very highly.

If you know me, you know that I am incredibly clumsy, quiet, and uncomfortable in my own skin.  Middle school was no different, I think it was the worst time that I was all three of those!  That plus the added combination of a teacher who ridiculed me behind my back to fellow classmates it just wasn't the greatest time.  And all though those years are behind me.. when I work out, or lift weights, or whatever I'm doing exercise wise I can't help but think that deep down I'm not good enough, and that I'm doing it all completely wrong (which I really could be..).  I've got to push through and push myself to new limits even though I have no clue where the starting line is or the finish for that matter..  but most of all I have to accept that this part of my life is a part of me, and that I do belong regardless of how much I know, look, or feel comfortable doing because no one is looking anyways (or really cares! lol)

So I went to the gym today, and I tried to push myself to a new limit.. but I think to do that I might just have to get back on the elliptical.. which is super scary since I tore both my meniscus' on the elliptical last time. I don't know what I'm going to do but I gotta break myself, I just got to find out where and how...

Emotionally

You know I would be super grateful Jesus if you could just hold me together!  I about fell apart at the tank last week and that was after I had already fallen apart and since Thursday (today is now Monday) I've fallen apart again...  I have no clue what is wrong with me but I'm glad these issues and pain are coming out of me so I can be made whole!  

Last week I sent a message to an old friend apologizing because I felt that I had wronged her.  And in a sense I had because if someone had treated me the way I had her I would have wanted an apology.  However she didn't feel that I needed to apologize and that she wasn't the only to have noticed that I had left and that she enjoyed seeing me and.. "I think that sometimes you feel on the outside, when that is not what others around you think. I am not the only "young" person who noticed your absence, but that may not matter at this point."  

However from the outside it feels just like this (this is what I wrote back):

To be honest, I thought going to friend breakfast was one of the worst mistakes I had made in awhile. I do feel like an outsider, but that day I had finally realized that I was an outsider. I don't believe that it's intentional but there is a reason that I have no friends at the Chapel after attending there for 15 plus years (and going to school there).. and a reason that I can't find my niche (whatever that really might be!). It's just a bit frustrating, when I vocalize my pain and hurt about how I feel like an outsider to others and they tell me it's because they just don't think about me, or that they never see me and then on the other hand to be told I'm faithful at what I've committed to in service and coming to everything. The two just don't add up in my head, it's a double message and it feels like a double bind.

I left the Chapel not only because I felt like an outsider but I couldn't stand the way people looked at me (there were other issues like not being challenged and stuff...). The condescending glances were getting old, and frankly I was hurt and tired of being "looked down upon". Not to mention the way my family is looked upon. Unfortunately I have no control over my family and their actions and I also can't control how people associate my family with me. You know how different they are than I, but not everyone else does, and not everyone wants to. And those few people who did know just weren't enough to keep me, not that they were super helpful either...

I can't help but feel walls between you and I, and the others at youth and in the church. I try to move forward but there is just something that stops me, and I just get the message that I'm not good enough (or rich enough) and not wanted, which not only hurts, but it annoying and frustrating and a lie. But I can't equate the knowledge of knowing it's a lie with how I'm looked at and how I'm treated.. the two just don't add up...

What else can I really say about how I feel about this situation.. I'm still hurt and am becoming bitter.  No one wonder I can't move forward.  I haven't heard from this person but I had already figured that, that bridge was burned and I was making the last few attempts of salvaging it.  I did however see this person and several others yesterday and didn't speak to any of them.. just because I didn't want to..  it wasn't a "you hurt me so I'm going to just sit here and wait for you to do something..."  but a genuine I really don't care if you talk to me.  Relationships are a two way street and well if you aren't going to work at it, then don't expect me to do all the work myself!  

I also had a conversation with a friend on change yesterday... her daughter and I went to school together and apparently she is hanging out with old friends who have never changed throughout the years.  Her mom mentioned how I had to leave friends who were the same way.. I thought about one of those persons today as I was driving and then I happened to some information on their FB and I realized after almost 9 months that they hadn't changed, and God only knew when they were going to..  it makes me and my therapist side a little sad.. 

Spiritually

I would just like to tear down these walls that are hindering me. I need a lot of direction and well I feel like I'm not getting any!  I'm in a hurry but God isn't..  if I could just figure out the pace He's at so I wouldn't be so frustrated!!

Learning

Today I realized that I am still dealing with rejection..  I thought I had actually dealt with it but apparently not all of it.

Dear Jesus please help me and take this away...