Wednesday, January 2, 2013

My Focus

I love lists. I always have. They calm me and make me feel more focused. So when New Years rolls around, I'm excited to make a list of goals.

2013
The Year of Authenticity and Giving Voice to the Growing Fire Inside


To have accomplished by December 31, 2013

Take Back My Power
Stand up to (my landlord) – send letter and get home safe and livable
Say “no” to sex/dates/anything with people I don't like/want
Do not lend money I can't afford to lend
Set boundaries and say “no”
Be more assertive
Ask for help when I need it and accept it when it's offered
Do what scares me, do what I don't do now

Date Myself
Spoil myself
Take myself out to eat
Buy myself flowers

Treat Myself Like I Would My 5 Year Old Self – with love, kindness, and forgiveness

Physical Health
Biking 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week
Physical therapy daily – alternating between cardio and stretching
Try this whole yoga thing
Be able to walk 30 minutes without stopping
Receive a massage
Visit chiropractor
New glasses

Eating
Meet with the Fat Nutritionist 2x a month
Give myself permission when I eat
Keep a food/emotion journal
Drink one gallon of water a day
Be working on eating mindfully
Be working on an eating schedule
Be working towards more simple foods and less processed ones
Be working towards eating gluten free

Mental Health
Be working on mindfulness
Take medications and vitamins every single day
Therapy every week
Finish DBT group
Work on DBT skills on my own – books
Therapeutic writing 2x a week
Meditate 3x a week
Work through What You Really Really Want again
Work through Beautiful You
Be working towards self acceptance and love
Be working towards much less self criticism
Allow people to love me

Social
See friends once a week
Attend Wasted Wednesday 2x a month
Reach out to old friends and stop being afraid to make new ones
Accept sexual attention/body worship with NO guilt or shame
Get naked, under lights, with no hesitation or apology
Ask for what I want in bed and only fuck people who deserve it
See a movie in the theater
Go to (the local independent coffee shop)

Appearance
Paint my nails once a week
Get a pedicure
Only own clothes I love
Primp several times a week – body scrub, feet scrub, face mask, shave...
Play with makeup

Home
Clean/tidy daily
Scrub once every 1-2 weeks
Have a home acceptable for pop-ins
Know that it doesn't have to be perfect or spotless
Have art on the walls

Finances
Sell plasma twice a week
Have $100 in savings

Life
Read 25 books
Be volunteering on a regular basis
Have 150 pictures in my 2013 flickr folder
Submit an “It Happened to Me” to xojane
Update blog 2x a week
Learn how to do something new

It doesn't matter if I'm not able to cross all of these off.  These are things I'll be working on for the rest of my life.  But this year is a start.  And, on December 31st, I will be closer to these goals than I am now.

“You cannot use someone else’s fire; you can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe you have it.”
Audre Lords

 “Picture yourself when you were five. In fact, dig out a photo of little you at that time and tape it to your mirror. How would you treat her, love her, feed her? How would you nurture her if you were the mother of little you? I bet you would protect her fiercely while giving her space to spread her itty-bitty wings. She’d get naps, healthy food, imagination time, and adventures into the wild. If playground bullies hurt her feelings, you’d hug her tears away and give her perspective. When tantrums or meltdowns turned her into a poltergeist, you’d demand a loving time-out in the naughty chair. From this day forward I want you to extend that same compassion to your adult self.” 
Kris Carr

"And when you die, and when I die, every reason we had for not hitting send, for not putting our most authentic work out there in the world, all our fear of rejection, all our fear of being misunderstood, all that legitimate stuff, is going to be bullshit."
Kelli Dunham



5 comments:

  1. This made me happy today, on a day when I otherwise felt like I let myself and others down immensely. Thank you!

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  2. I hope you won't mind if I share my perspective on the gluten-free thing, as I've been trying it this year: I've read tons about it, and what I've found is that science generally indicates that there is no reason why non-celiacs would benefit from cutting gluten yet a very large number of people say they feel better off without it. I know I do! My theory is that it's not wheat itself that affects us, but the form in which we usually eat it - refined white flour, with little nutritional value, and often (such as in most kinds of sliced white bread) with tons of added sugar or HCFS as a preservative. These foods are also really high up the glycemic index. If we were eating gluten in the form of whole-wheat, non-sugary foods, I doubt it would be any problem for me. But I've never developed a taste for that, so I decided to try dropping the white bread and pasta...and I feel tons better for it.

    I've taken to baking cakes with almond flour rather than white flour - almonds are SO NUTRITIOUS AND TASTY and I adore the texture of almond cake, it's so moist and buttery. It also costs about 10x as much per pound, so I make less cakes now, but enjoy them more when I do. I've pretty much completely stopped eating cakes I didn't bake myself, which is good in so many ways.

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  3. Don't know what's specifically happening w/ landlord but (if you haven't checked it out already I mean) Legal Services Alabama (.org) should have helpful info on its website, and they might even be able to help you as a client. Good luck.

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  4. You seem very nice...but if you spent your time actually doing these things instead of making lists, you'd be a lot happier with yourself. Having a big list of things to do simply makes things more difficult, because now you have this "big thing" you have to deal with. Just get out there and start doing.

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  5. I also love list making. I loved this post, and has inspired me. :)

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