goal setting

I recently had a conversation with a friend in which I explained that the more time that passes before I respond to an email or text the harder it is for me to know what to say.  I start to feel like I should open with an apology.  You’d think that this might shame me into procrastinating less but it hasn’t worked yet.  I mean, who wants to say, “sorry I’m an asshole and haven’t written you back in waaay tooo long”.   This blog is kinda like that too.  It seems a little odd to jump right into regular scheduled programming after a long absence.

I’m not going to apologize but I will say, I miss writing!  And taking pictures!  And connecting with all of you!  It’s been a strange year and the blog has definitely reflected some of these personal shifts, mostly through scarce postings and vague reference to my life being a little shaken up.  I’d love to get back to regular 3-5 times a week postings but I haven’t been able to kick my ass into that gear as of yet.

At last posting I was gearing up for my 32nd birthday.  Well friends, May 12th has come and gone and with it my Challenge deadline.   The challenge was to basically do a whole lot of yoga, Pilates, running, and meditating in the 6 week period before my day.  I fell a little short on a few of my specific goals but I did get stronger and leaner and had many really great workouts along the way.

Although I really enjoy setting goals and challenges for myself I also feel that it can become a little restrictive and actually undermine my greater goal of living a super active lifestyle and enjoying whatever activity feels right to me in the moment.

I don’t know about you but I only have a finite amount of energy and time.  Sometimes I would rather use that time and energy to mow the lawn or clean the house or go dancing or take a walk or a hike but if I am trying to meet a running goal than I choose to lace up and check it off my list.  My take-home lesson is that at this point in my life it’s more functional and satisfying to truly listen to my body and my day-to-day life and let my activity be a response to these needs.  This isn’t going to make me PR in a half-marathon any time soon but I’m totally cool with that.

Meditating!  Love-loathe.  Loathe-love.

Rarely in my life have I been so incredibly challenged to release judgement about my ‘skills’ and abilities.  I suck at mediating.  I am so not successful.  And yet, I have sat in stillness and relative silence dozens of times over the last two months.  I rock at meditating.  I can totally do this. 😉

I’ve been loving the Headspace app.  It is a free 10-day, ten minutes a day, meditating program.   The premise is super simple and the exercise can be done sitting or lying.  Once I got caught in a crazy downpour in my car and I pulled over and did my meditation from the drivers seat.

In light of my new goal too not set goals I am commuting to embracing meditation as a really useful tool to have in my box of live-your-best-life tricks.  Most of my meditations last around 10 minutes but I’ve had good experiences with sits as short as a minute or two.    This recent Huffington Post article, Meditation Health Benefits: What The Practice Does To Your Body,  only reiterated my affection for meditation.

That’s all for now. Hope to be back soon!