Perfect from Imperfection

Greetings! Happy Independence Day! It's still the 4th of July in Hawaii :-)

I often wonder what people eat when they're trying to "be healthy" so, to be transparent - here's an example of my lunch:

Believe it or not, that meal was 717 calories - the cucumber was zero - or 10. That is 1 oz of nuts, I weighed it, that is 170 Calories - the bulk of the calories came from my smoothie - why? Well, the Almond Butter - 1 T - was 190 calories, the banana is sugar, the blueberries, protein powder, almond milk, flax seed..I think that's it.  I don't think we realize how many calories we actually consume and the "empty" calories that are going towards nothing.  I WAS starving by the time dinner came along - but it had also been about 4-5 hours since I had eaten - which, some theorize isn't good and that we should be eating every 2.5 - 3 hours -so, I failed in that realm.  Breakfast this day was 3 eggs with chia seeds, half of a small avocado, and that was it!

SO - that's how this ordinary girl plans, cooks, eats.

I just got really sleepy - so I'm gonna publish this and then save the rest for tomorrow.

Back at it!

Yesterday, I couldn't stop thinking about the team, the logo, etc. I am not an amazing artist - so these are my doodles.

Initially, I thought a heart with a crack down the middle - one side purple, one green....and I was trying to make a team name...but then a DIFFERENT name it me "Race 2 Rise." Sometimes, racing is the medicine you need to RISE! To overcome. To get confident again. To know you CAN. To truly know you can do hard things :D

My logo: The left is the green ribbon for mental health. The right is the purple ribbon for domestic violence. Yellow and BLUE make Green. Red and BLUE make  Purple. Out of the ribbons (maybe somehow shaped like "R"s for Race 2 Rise) rises a (royal) BLUE phoenix (shaped like a "2") with silver flecks in her feathers, a sparkling green eye, and a purple beak.  In Ghanaian culture, there is a creature that looks to the past with the future held in the beak - so the phoenix is looking to the left....well, I just looked it up - it's looking right, but...meh - thought that counts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankofa

SO - this being said, I got excited to start working out again...after a treacherous 0.57 mile walk/tug - o - war with a puppy (almost 10 months) I took off on my own. Not huge miles by any sense of the imagination - but I think I PRd, and it felt good....aside from my lungs burning a pinch :D (No, I'm not sick...just...like, exercise induced asthma or something, idk...). It felt so good to be out again! I NEVER thought I'd be THAT girl. *insert LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY emoji and hiding behind my hands* I LOVE running at night. Uhh, it's the best thing - listening to my jams, not able to hear myself panting loudly so I don't die, the coolness of the air, the peacefulness of the streets! So awesome. So, so awesome :D

Random plug - I run in Brooks Ghost https://www.brooksrunning.com/, men's because I have wide feet and they fit nicely. My hiking/OCR shoes are Saucony Peregrine https://www.saucony.com/ again - men's. I also have my shoes one size bigger than my everyday shoes.

BTW  - Check out "Dear Evan Hansen" - I love it so much!

Sparkle on.

Getting Real

So, I woke up and was thinking  - "A dangerous past time..I know" - and something came to me! Well, I kept it to myself, then I watched this ever-so-spot on video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDPDEKtd2yM

This guy hit so many nails straight on their little heads.  Then - it hit me - I need to create a team! A team that proudly wears purple for domestic violence awareness and prevention as well as green for mental health awareness. Ba BOOM! Unite the two causes that are near and dear to my heart with racing!  Now - the planning of it all - uniforms, media, planning which races to attend, training, etc.

Now - the why. Ugh...time to get moderately vulnerable without writing a novel.  Thing is - this is my year. I thought 2015 was "The Year of Amanda" - but, it's really 2020. Heck, it'll probably be 2021 and so on.  I recently had a friend who had some life things happen and he declared it his year - but here's the thing...YES, you can define the parameters of your year - but "YoA" wasn't started to take advantage of, manipulate, or be mean to others. YoA - or whatever yours is - is to EMPOWER YOU - not steal joy from others. Just remember that, please?

My scoop in a nutshell - I'll be 41 in May. True story. I have battled anxiety and depression, been told by other unhealthy people I could be bipolar - but all things I've been working through.  I've had the panic attacks where you can't breathe, I've had the overwhelming emotion where I just needed to escape the building I was in, I've had the heaviness of the world on my shoulders. I've been in counseling...aka therapy, I suppose, for a pinch more than a year.  My life hasn't been as hard as some, but hasn't been a cake walk. Fortunately, my rockin' professional has walked me through so much that has happened and I stand/sit before you with a HUGE appreciation of the profession. I've lived the "you're not good enough, you can't do anything right, why did you even get out of bed this morning" life. There's been physical abuse, mental abuse, psychological abuse, emotional abuse....

Take this on for size - you stubbed your toe on the bed. Your toe healed, right? How did that affect your behavior? Which had the lasting impact? So often, we talk about physical - but the physical heals. Our body involuntarily heals itself. Our mind - sometimes we breeze through things and we don't deal with them - maybe we don't know how. Maybe it's all too painful...maybe it's everything. No wonder it can feel like suffocating and the desire for freedom is so intense, and we want it so badly, it seems hopeless...

Heck, I wanted to be a school counselor to be able to get to the kiddos who were going through stuff and needed an adult friend/advocate to help them through their stuff.  We don't talk about mental health in aPpRoPrIaTe ways enough. We talk about disorders and labels, but we LABEL. We still look down upon things. Though it's lessening, there is still a stigma.

Recently, I watched "Dear Evan Hansen." REMARKABLE in so many ways. C'mon, people! No one should feel like their "Waving Through a Window." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfnMvo87fQU

We're currently in the midst of a pandemic - it's not COVID-19. EVERYone is talking about that. If mental health and domestic violence were spoken about as much as politics and the coronavirus, we'd be living in a safer world. I don't mean free from Robocop types of violence, I mean safe in our vulnerability. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability?language=en Safe to be us. Safe to freaking screw up and know we're going to still be loved.

I've watched some of my best friends and family members COMPLETELY self destruct because they didn't know how to confront the demons they carried - I understand it can feel suffocating and beyond manageable. In the TED talk, this hit me - something along these lines, "Are you really done living, or are you done feeling that way?"

I will be uniting my passions  - a lime green and purple team that TALKS! Because, frankly, sometimes that's all we need. Love!

Live Loved, my friends https://www.amazon.com/Uninvited-Living-Loved-When-Lonely-ebook/dp/B01864DVG6

Sparkle on.