True confession: There are times when I sit at my Weight Watchers meeting and often check my email while only half listening to the leader. I know. I know. It’s rude. I should give her my full attention. It’s not her fault; she is actually very good at her job. I can check my email any time and attending meetings is supposedly a big part of succeeding on this program. I know. Okay. I know. I’m sorry. I’m a multi-tasker with a severe lack of patience. I can’t help myself. But this week, while I was checking my email (and my Facebook page), I heard something that made me sit up and pay attention. Somewhere in between the monotonous litany of point finds and sharing recipes I know I’ll never try – someone was talking about how taking care of ourselves is so important and yet so incredibly hard. So many little things get in the way of making healthy choices. Instead of making time to exercise, track food, drink water, and prepare meals, we are all taking care of everyone else and their needs. And then she said something brilliant. If taking care of ourselves isn’t meaningful enough to us, then it will never become a priority. And she is right. There are so many little things that have gotten in my way of succeeding on any weight loss plan – laundry, dishes, homework, errands to name a few. And then there are the big things that got in my way – overcoming depression, planning my son’s bar mitzvah, getting used to a new job, adjusting to a different schedule and a much longer commute and dammit who has time to lose weight, let alone sit at a meeting without checking my inbox?! But my Weight Watchers leader had an excellent point. A point so good that it gave an entirely new meaning to their typical Weight Watchers SmartPoints. And I left the meeting making a big decision – it is high time for me to get back to my own self-care and make myself the priority. And for me, this means a few important things:

• Being more present in the lives of those who I love (a.k.a stop constantly checking email and FB)
• Finding time to exercise
• Plan out and cook meals and track my food intake
• Write more often (hence this blog post – my first one in over a year)
• Read, read, read

How am I going to succeed this time? What will be different? For the first time in a long time, I’m putting myself at the top of my to-do list. Stay tuned…

• Comments Off on Life Got In The Way

I started a new list today and halfway through it I wondered if I have this list already. The answer is probably, but I can’t find it–hence the need for a new list. When I clean up a room, I find old lists and check things off because it makes me feel good.

• TV shows I want to watch
• Books I want to read
• Blog posts I want to write

• Comments Off on A List of My Lists

I’ve lost my voice – and not in the “I’m sick and can’t talk” sort of way. I lost my voice for my blog. This tends to happen when I start to censor myself, my topics, ideas, thoughts and words. Now that I’ve started to censor myself, it is difficult to stop. For instance, I was going to write a post on LinkedIn about working in the non-profits and the difference between being inspired to give and being expected to give. But I decided against it because maybe that is too controversial of a topic and maybe I’ll offend people – people I care about, people who I care what they think of me. So I put the topic on my long list of blog post ideas that grows daily, but hasn’t been dusted off in a long time. I can’t write about the joys and challenges of parenting because my kids are old enough to read it or hear about what I write from others. If i write about the joys – and there are a lot of them – I’ll embarrass them. If I write about the challenges – and there are a lot of them too – they will be upset at best. The writer’s workshop I used to attend was a haven of encouragement and support from fellow writers and wonderful conversations about everything from oxford commas and em dashes to story development and adventures in publishing. For financial reasons, I haven’t been able to return to the workshop and now it is difficult for me to find the time to go. So, I’ve lost my voice and I’m sad about it, but I’ll keep trying and hopefully you will still be there to read it.  

• Comments Off on Untitled