Start Where You Are.

Since most people who are reading this blog are here for the first time, my inclination is to do “the back story of who I am”.  I try to write it and then I erase it.  I write it again and then I erase it again.  It’s too long and too involved and I’m having a hard time finding THE one right place to begin.

I keep hearing, “Start where you are” in my brain. So here I am sitting at my desk. I’ve just had my second Usana protein shake of the day and I must say I’m glad that’s over. Today is Day one of my clean eating, clean living, “return to me” project.

I’m feeling hopeful because it’s Monday (I love the clean slate this day brings each week.) It’s the day I have on my calendar slated to “start again”.

What on earth does that mean?

I quit smoking almost nine months ago, which is huge considering I’ve smoked 40 of my 52 years. I did it “cold turkey” with the absolute resolve in my gut that I just was NOT going to be a smoker any more. It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve undertaken, but I’ve stuck to it and I refuse to go back. Oh, the cravings still hit me from time to time but I’ve realized smoking is more of a “brain habit” than a physical one for me. If I sit and think about the act of inhaling cigarette smoke, I immediately know I really do not want a cigarette; I just think I do.

Over time I’ve gotten to a place where I feel out of sync with who I really am, so I picked a date and today’s the day it’s time to start peeling the layers back. One step at a time.

Writing used to be such a huge part of my life. Whenever I take one of those silly Facebook surveys and it asks what my dream job is, the answer is undeniable:  “author”. To be an author, however, requires a person to write and I haven’t done much of that in quite a while. So part of getting back to “me” means exercising the part of my brain that puts words out for others to read. (This is the first installment.) Words used to flow effortlessly out of me. Now, it takes me an entire day to make one page make sense. It will come.

Lastly, no “return to me” would be complete without more regularly exercising my spirituality. I have always been in touch with my other worldliness, and I have always prayed, but I need to get back to my daily talks with God, my communing with the angels and Saints and my being the all-time best “Angelic Troublemaker” I can be! I think somewhere along the line I let this silly physical world take up too much space in my heart. I know how it happened. I know how to make it better and I so I will.

So to recap:

1. Work on Health
2. Begin to write again
3. Exercise my spirituality regularly.

Today is the first day.

Here I come world!