“heartbeat! you make me feel so weak!”

Taana Gardner, I feel you girl! Not sure if I mentioned from when I wrote about my stress and anxiety a couple weeks back, but my heart palpitations have come to say hello again. This second time around isn’t as scary, although it does make me feel weak! Because I am a little afraid to run or do anything that exerts energy.

I’ve been meaning to make another doctor’s appointment, but you know, when you for some reason work in an environment that frowns upon time off, and takes no consideration when you do take time off, (in regards to work load) it’s a little difficult to make that a priority or focus. This brings me to one of my favorite quotes:

dalai-lama

My man, The Dalai Lama ❤ I so love this.. and it’s funny because as I wrote those sentences above this quote immediately popped in my brain. Why is this not memorized as a daily mantra?! Because my HEALTH should be my priority.

Ugh. When I have been doing all I can nutrition-wise all the way to drinking up to 50-oz of water a day again, and yet my skin is still dry, brittle, and sunken in.. You’d think I would be more in-tune with the issue at hand. Stress, anxiety, and now these awesome – what I like to call – mini-heartattacks. Why does life need to cost money?

Thankfully, aside from this stress that is pretty much making me sick – wait, you know something?! I was looking at past social media posts recently.. and I kid you not, in the past 5mo I counted being sick about 4 times. FOUR TIMES. That’s almost once a month! Maybe it’s not the weather after all! – I do try and live in the present at all times. Thanks to my 5-minute Journal and noting down what I am grateful for on a daily basis, it does help me to stay present and do my best to take advantage of Today.

Now if I could just find a nice balance of personal priorities and a fulfilling job, I think these palpitations would be gone for good. But why is it of all things that, THAT is the hard part? Why is having a job/career so detrimental to personal life?! When did that happen? Whatever happened to working for a greater good, to make your company proud, to build relationships that last for a lifetime? Now with most people I talk to, it’s not common to have “work-friends” rather just “work-friend” and some times no actual “friends” at all, rather just acquaintances, or just “people I work with”. And many don’t even hang out with these people outside the office or even know anything about their personal lives. We have created an office culture of just showing up to take home pennies with no regard on how this affects us personally (I’m sure certain industries may differ? but my close friends all work in different industries, and it seems to be similar). And by ‘affecting us personally’ I mean working long hours, or running on empty by the time 5pm hits and not putting yourself first.. when the only reason we have jobs is to pay for things.. for ourselves. 

I remember working in environments where managers and employees actually cared about each others well-being. We would get drinks after work on a weekly basis, celebrate birthdays, and baby showers, and weddings! And we hung out on weekends and became actual friends. Because these are the people you see more than your own family amiright!? So it made sense to create relationships.. Or maybe it’s just a New England thing, because I just realized all those work-fam experiences were when I lived in New England. Gah SoCal! 😦 #SoDissapointing

I digress.. sort of.. I just know I’m a little uncomfortable because my heart keeps break-dancing in my chest, which creates fears of being able to make quick movements. And this is created by stress, which is sadly because of my current work environment.

We can do this heart! Got to do some heart-push-ups to keep you strong.. and learn to invest in myself so I stop making you work harder than you need to ❤

 

 

 

40 days and 40 nights

My dad is in town, and for those who are reading this and know me, that means church on Sundays! I mean, I have gone to church without my father before, but those churches are not Catholic churches. And while I can’t say I “enjoy” being in a Catholic church and all that structure and feeling like God is always angry.. It is slightly comforting to still know by heart every bit of every prayer, (with old-school language I might add.. I never learned these “new” words they have updated to) and to sort of reminisce about grade school.

So let’s just talk about with how happy I was just for the fact that today was the first Sunday of Lent! A couple quick things here, I love the season of Lent and I am also a believer of a higher power – one of which I call God. Also, I’m not quite sure how I feel about churches, but I have always found it endearing how people find comfort in feeling a part of something by “praying” together. (This is a whole other post in itself) And let’s be clear here – I am a believer, but I am not by any means, telling any of you to believe something that you don’t. Nor am I trying to persuade – I like to believe I am a proper Christian who lives by the choice that God gave us, to believe or not to believe. Therefore, I am no judge or a prophet – I just hope you all are good people, but if you aren’t a good person.. I may judge a little bit lol 😉

Anywhoo – Lent! Yay for lent! Lol I love this time of year because as I explained, with much more sarcasm and swear words, to a dear friend of mine: It gives me a reason to challenge myself, make me a better person. And for me, because I do feel this sort of, “higher meaning” behind it, I actually stick to it. My percent of failure at what I have chosen for Lent every year is probably an average of about 90% success.. There have definitely been years where I have given up, or slipped, but more times than not, I uphold the challenge and am sometimes sad when it’s over, because I want to know how long I can REALLY go without bread before I break into a bakery in the middle of the night just to smell it!

I continued the conversation by saying to her, (she who is not a church-goer or religiously inclined per say) I think this is a great personal experience for everyone to go through because whether a believer or not, the point in Life, or with God’s work, is to challenge ourselves. To make ourselves better, to find fulfillment and find a bigger purpose than just – wake up, work, die. Now I’m not saying Lent changes lives and makes us all open non-profits to save babies, or puppies, or trees, but what I am saying is that giving yourself a challenge during Lent or in August, whenever you want, proves to yourself what you are capable of. I like the season of Lent however, because one: I follow it anyway, and two: a lot of people seem to, even if they aren’t exactly religious, so thats a great support system for any challenge you put yourself into these next 40 days (or 36 now if you want to get technical). It’s a great way to help each other and hold ourselves accountable. And here’s a wonderful quote I found about Lent:

“It’s almost looked at as a sort of “spring-cleaning” for your life.” heavy.com

I thought that article was a nice, little, quick explanation of Lent, and have I mentioned that quote is wonderful?!

I pretty much did a “Spring Cleaning” at home yesterday! Lol – Imagine doing that with your life once a year. Like a 3 day cleanse to kick start better eating, Lent gives us a reason to challenge oneself in hopes to kick start into something better ahead.

And again,  if you feel strongly about staying as far away from any religious ties, pick a different time of year – your birthday, an anniversary.. I just challenge you.. to challenge yourself! I feel like if we challenged ourselves more often, we may see new sides of ourselves – We would view life and/or certain situations differently. Just like with me, as mentioned a couple days ago, I like challenging myself anyway, new yoga class, pushing to a 10k run, whatever. This blog post is day 5 of a “blog challenge” I gave myself after my “quote challenge” from my Birthday month! So ok, I’m a little bit of an overachiever when it comes to challenges.. Lol. But just as I found some insight from the quotes I found in February, I am seeing a new determination during this “blog challenge” that I haven’t had in some time. I’m using my brain differently on a daily basis trying to think of something to share – it makes me look at every day differently, thinking.. how can I tell this story? Or even if I have a frustrating day, this challenge forces me to at least share that frustration in words even if it’s written poorly.

The point is, it’s making me DO vs just thinking about it. I had been frustrated at myself for not keeping up this blog and writing to my full potential. And honesty, I was super scared I wouldn’t have enough material for 31 days – OMG. I literally JUST realized I began this blog challenge on the first day of LENT! Ash Wednesday was March 1st this year! WHA?! I’ve been challenging myself from the start! Never mind the bread thing! 😀

That seriously just made my day! Ok so to finish up here, I hope you all take from this an idea of a challenge. Whether it’s giving up bread (harder than it looks I tell ya), taking a 30-day yoga challenge, or taking the GMATs (go big or go home amiright?!). Whatever it is, I hope you find something new, something that makes you think a little bit differently about what is around you, something that makes you proud of yourself ❤

Good Luck! 🙂

 

 

 

missing quote

I’ve been searching for about 30 minutes now for a quote I saw a few days back. I wish I had screen-shot it, or saved it..

It went something like this:

“Just because you have a bad day at work, doesn’t mean you have a bad job. Just because you have a good day at work, doesn’t mean you have a good job.”

And if I remember correctly it was another line or two longer about the overall feeling your job has on you. (If someone is familiar with this and can share, I’d love to have a copy of the actual quote, because I wanted to post it as reference) I could also be off on the wording as well, so I apologize in advance.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking and re-stating (what I can remember) this since I saw it. I’m questioning my own feelings about my situation. Are they just bad days? Or are they just good days?