Physical
I've been taking mad advantage of the warm weather and have gone for two runs and some walks. It turns out the more I exercise, the easier it is to motivate myself to exercise. It's like, when my ass was on the couch for two straight months, the idea of moving my muscles for anything more than chewing candy was totally overwhelming. But I think I broke through that barrier; now, I find myself looking for ways to exercise throughout the week. I even (get this) did an Insanity video on Saturday! I also played football and Frisbee that same night, which probably pushed me over the edge - I'm still totally sore today. But I did it! Who knows if it will continue beyond this exercise challenge, but for now, I have check marks next to all five weeks (which for me means I'm logging at least 10 minutes of exercise per day and at least 30 minutes on three out of seven days per week). And no, I didn't count the minutes of running through downtown Ann Arbor on Thursday for the safety of Jolly Pumpkin as tornado sirens wailed and hail pelted me. And yes, one of my runs was to the drugstore to purchase Cadbury Eggs, but whatever! A run is a run.
Goals over this next week? Another Insanity video and another run, at minimum. It's fun to keep adding new things, but I'm not sure what else to add. Maybe the dance video Yanna had mentioned? And I haven't busted out my Wii Fit or Dance Dance Revolution at all...
Mental
Okay, first things first: I had two harsh weeks in a row at work. One was harsh because my boss was out of town, and, as fate would have it, things just went batshit crazy while she was gone. Being second in command, it was on me to un-crazify things, and I did. Everything. All the things. That might not seem like a big deal - after all, that's my job, and I deal with most of that stuff regularly anyway, but truly, it was like the seven circles of hell descended upon my workplace. Pretty much anything that could go wrong, did. It was bad.
Not helping the situation was the fact that I had a training to put together, one that I'd be facilitating four separate times over the following week (i.e., last week). Sometime in the last six years, I developed a seemingly intractable fear of presenting. Don't ask me where it came from - I was in theater and Forensics in high school, and I thrived on giving presentations during undergrad and grad school. Anxiety rears its stupid head, I guess.
So last weekend rolled around. I was feeling pretty good about juggling All The Things, even while I was a bundle of nerves about facilitating the trainings that were scheduled for four out of the five work days last week. And?
A mental breakthrough.
Seriously. Mornings are my worst time for anxiety, and I woke up last Sunday morning unable to concentrate on anything except the trainings - for which I was woefully unprepared, having had zero time to plan them the week before. Now, there are few things I dislike more than a sunny Sunday that's wasted stuck in an anxiety vortex. So I located the source of my anxiety - fear over not being prepared yet - and decided to accept the fear. Even beyond that; I welcomed the fear. It was going to motivate me on Monday to thoroughly prepare for the first training on Tuesday morning. It was going to guarantee that I wouldn't fail, that I wouldn't let people down, that I wouldn't make a fool of myself.
And, wouldn't you know it, once I accepted and welcomed the fear...it left me. Mostly. Like, 95%. It rose occasionally throughout last Sunday, but I just acknowledged it, and it would leave again. Unbelievable.
Then I had an inexplicably crappy end of the week, but the weekend kicked me out of that funk. Three days of a funk - it may have been random, but I'll tell you what, it's way better than a year spent in a funk, or months or weeks. Three days. It's manageable.
But it's all more manageable when I get sleep, so I'm going to do that now.
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