Each season Emily P. Freeman does a link up of things she learned this past season. This time I am joining in the fun.
1. I am only responsible for me.
I am not responsible for anyone but myself. I am not responsible for other people's reactions or their emotions. This sounds obvious but for me was revolutionary. For quite a while, I have believed that my actions determine the emotions of others, but this is just not true. I cannot tell anyone to be happy or sad and I do not write the narratives in their minds.
2. I love the snow.
I spent a few years living in Florida and now being back in a place where it snows is just magical. I love how you wake up and everything is white. I am still not a fan of the cold, but I will put up with it for the magic of the snow. I love how everything is bright and fresh and new when it snows. The whole world transforms in an instant, everything is seen more brilliantly against the white of the snow. Also every time it snows, it feels like a gift from God just for me.
3. Ice skating is not like riding a bike.
I thought because I used to be able to ice skate that I could easily pick it back up, instead I learned ice skating is hard and painful (my ankles hurt the most). If I want to get good at ice skating I will need to practice.
4. There is such a thing as too much sugar.
I have always been someone who loves sweets. But in practice, I realized that too much of a good thing is still too much. I will probably never stop eating sweets, but I think balance is the key.
5. I need to be me, not someone else.
I realized this season that I have spent most of my life trying to be like other people. My husband will often say that I try to be like everyone else and I just can't. Even in my attempts at conformity I completely fail and end up still uniquely myself. I have to allow myself to be me more and to give up trying to be someone else.
6. Expectations can be problematic.
I love expectations. I am all about them, I enjoy meeting them. I am good with expectations, but I realize more and more that expectations are not helping me. In my particular case expectations make me unhappy and lead to disappointment. I am working instead to be present and to occasionally have a plan but not to bank on that plan panning out in the exact way I envisioned; In essence, being more flexible.
I appreciate this seasonal reflection and probably will continue it into the future. What did you learn this winter?
0 Comments
Something I have not shared is my obsession with cottage cheese. This started when I was young and our house would always have cottage cheese. I found it to be an adequate replacement for sour cream and ate it with cheese quesadillas. My mom would frequently put cottage cheese on top of a baked potato with some Parmesan cheese and crazy salt, occasionally even some sautéed vegetables as well. She had learned this simple way of eating from her college roommate and heartily adopted it, and with good reason. I saw her eating this way and tried it myself and LOVED it! You can imagine my delight upon visiting my then boyfriend (now husband)'s house to find his mom stirring cottage cheese into noodles to make Turos Csusza (pronounced "tour-ish taste-uh"). I had never heard of this dish before. This is a Hungarian dish she grew up with and continued to cook. I was hooked and it has since become a staple in our house. This dish is decadent, but delicious and inexpensive. Also it is one of the easiest to make. I mix it up by adding spices or Parmesan cheese or just eat it as is with salt and pepper. Each way is wonderful and delicious. Turos CsuszaSince moving to Iowa, I joined a book club that focuses on reading narrative nonfiction books-memoirs, biographies and autobiographies mostly. I had not read copious amounts of nonfiction before this book club, but now I read quite a bit. One theme I have noticed running through numerous books is the theme of grief. I think in part, people write about grief to process and it is a way that connects us all. We all eventually lose someone we love. If reading about grief helps you cope these books might be good choices for you. I find most of them hauntingly beautiful. These books go from most relevant to least with a fiction book at the end to round the whole group out.
Death is a part of life and it makes our living so much more meaningful. Our lives have an arc: a beginning, a middle and an end. Grief takes the place that love was, and is a sign of care and compassion. I know as a culture we do not like to acknowledge sadness and in certain ways grief can have taboos, but I also know that it is true to our experience and we are allowed to feel our feelings. If you have any other suggestions of books dealing with grief or loss, please leave them below. My focus for this month's happiness project is loving my body. This includes cultivating my style, eating foods that make me feel good, accepting myself just as I am and exercising. Now I know the mention of exercise will make some people cringe. I feel like many times we turn exercise into a competitive sport. We use our exercising or lack of exercising to shame other people or ourselves. I am not about that. AT ALL.
Exercise or don't exercise; the choice is yours. Yes, I do feel like this is a choice we are all capable of and able to make for ourselves. I am not judging you for your choice, frankly I do not care. I like exercise. I enjoy the feeling I get when I sweat a lot, which is true most times I exercise. I am pretty sure that sweat is genetic so let's not get competitive about that either. My problem tends to be that sometimes I feel lost and although I want to exercise I have found over time that having a plan helps. In a way for me it provides a logical stopping point. I like having a place to stop and say I have done enough so I do not spend all day exercising. I used to exercise because I felt I had to, or because I wanted results. A year or two ago I realized that for me, exercise provides me with mental clarity. I feel better when I exercise on a regular basis and so I try to exercise regularly. I have tried many exercise methods and I like most of them, but I find for me I tend to get bored so I need either to change my plan or have a plan that builds upon itself changing as the weeks go by. I have also found that if I try to achieve a goal instantly I will fail and feel bad, I instead do better when I break my goal down into smaller parts and incremental changes. For example, a couple years ago I wanted to build my endurance running (or more likely jogging). I wanted to be able to run for a full 45 minutes. I was unable to do so at the time. I then broke it down to what I was able to do then, my baseline was being able to run for 27 minutes and every other day when I ran, I added a minute. It took me a while, but I was able to work my way up to running 45 minutes. More recently I wanted to run at a higher speed, and I realized that my bullheaded way of just running until I felt ill was not working, I have accepted that I will build speed slowly. Currently my plan includes four days of lifting with brief intervals of cardio (jogging on a treadmill, because it is COLD here), one day of longer cardio, and daily yoga practices. Also, when I am feeling particularly motivated I try to make sure I get in ten thousand steps. If you are wanting to exercise and need a plan, start gradually. Begin with one thing and build. I think in more recent years I started with yoga, then added cardio and weights and finally added steps. Even steps can be broken down, start with where you are and see if you can add a thousand steps per week until you are where you want to be. Exercise is not an all or nothing pursuit. My other key is that I do NOT exercise for the results. Otherwise I would be frustrated and feel like a failure, which is not useful to anyone. Take it slow and remember you get to make the plan, you can modify and shift to make the plan work for you and only you. Also enjoy it, exercise is fun. Although I clearly love to cook, I also love going out and eating good food. When I say "good food" I do not mean it with any idea of what that is, what I mean is that if I eat it, it tastes delicious and I enjoy it. This food does not have to be fancy or from a small restaurant, I enjoy trying food from anywhere- large chains to the hole in the wall places. All are accepted and enjoyed. Also one other thing to note, my taste is my taste, you may like something different or disagree and that is completely fine. I am not actually a formal restaurant critic, but I enjoy the experience of going somewhere new and seeing what they have to offer, expanding my food horizons and just enjoying not having to do the dishes.
My husband and I have been going out to eat ever since we moved to Iowa. We go out once a week and barring special occasions (birthdays, visiting families and anniversaries) we go to a different restaurant each week. By now we have gone to about a hundred different restaurants in Iowa, some good (some not so good), but we have enjoyed the hunt and exploring to find the best dishes or restaurants you may never have heard of that are great. We go and we eat and we enjoy. This is our hobby, and although at first I thought it was just me, it has become a part of our week we look forward to. Date night at a new restaurant trying new food and being surprised by how it tastes. This habit has made me realize though that I am really into novelty. I also cook in this novel kind of way, we make new food each week, unless we are cooking for others. Each meal is a new trial or test and like all trials there are some that are errors and some that are delights. I find the novelty exciting and it makes me want to cook and explore more. My life as you may have noticed has taken a turn for the introspective. I am attempting to find myself in a larger context and to make my way through the world aware of my actions and their influence. Lately I have been reading The Book of Joy. The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu make the point that we as humans are interdependent. We need other people to survive. We come into this world because of other people and we leave the world among other people. The data shows that more people are experiencing loneliness and do not have someone to confide in or share with.
This idea of interconnection has made me consider the world and the people in it very differently. We are all people looking for others to connect with, to trust in, to confide in. We are all human and no matter our circumstance that connects us. My husband pushes me to question why I am trying to connect, am I doing it for my own accolades or for others. I think it really does not matter, because I know when I am open to connection I feel better and happier and my joy is then contagious. It seems to be a chicken and an egg situation it does not matter my motivation, it matters the effect it has. Prior to reading this book, during the past summer, I had informally started a tradition for myself. On my daily walks I would say hi to the people I saw. All of them, whether they said hi back or not. I did not see this as anything particularly useful or meaningful, but I chose to do this because I noticed when people had said hello to me I felt connected and good. I wanted to spread that feeling to others. I do know my context, and living in Iowa this may seem more achievable than elsewhere, but I would argue that just because it appears achievable does not make it any less valuable here and in fact makes saying hello more valuable elsewhere where it might not be the norm. I grew up on the East Coast and if nothing else it is known for how closed off people are, they are very private and keep to their own business, which may be understandable. Yet, I also believe that no matter the culture of where we were raised or the culture of those around us, we have the power to make our own destiny. We can choose the culture we put forth in the world. I choose connection, I choose to say hello. I have been struggling lately with finding myself and being myself. I like to think I know what that is and what that looks like, but in reality I am not so sure. I know that we are ever-changing and the person who is typing this in this moment will not be the same person in the next moment. I struggle with finding the balance between what I am supposed to do and what I actually enjoy or want to do. I have noticed this pattern in my life as of late. I feel overwhelmed and exhausted, so I pare down my life to the essentials. Then I feel external pressure to do, be, have, act more. I call this my more more more instinct. I usually relent and give into this instinct and add things to my life. The types of things I add are usually of the unessential or mundane type, TV, movies, etc. I then am watching the thing or doing the thing and I realize I do not like this. I do not want to do this, why am I doing this? Sometimes I realize I am doing something because that is something the "old" me used to like to do, or was accustomed to doing is more likely. In this season of my life, I struggle between who I am supposed to be and who I actually am. One way this plays out is in gender roles, I think of the things I have somehow come to assume women like to do- get their nails done, watch romantic comedies, read romantic books, watch dramatic television, put on makeup, care about my outward appearance, or have a distinctive sense of style. I look at this list or just type out this list and I feel tired, exhausted. I am not that person, yes there are parts I am willing to ascribe to; I will put on a bit of makeup to feel more confident. I am currently working on finding a sense of style so as to make shopping and getting dressed in the morning easier. Most of the rest though, I have to let go. And yet as I say that I still struggle. I wonder if letting go of those things that I do not do or care about makes me somehow less of a woman, less feminine. I have to accept that in reality, I do not care about being very feminine, I feel like I should, but I don't. I have been reading and listening to the work of Emily Freeman lately and I am coming to be wary of what I should do. I find when I say should it indicates things I do not want to do but feel a compulsion towards. I know this letting go process will not be easy, or simple or concrete. I may get to another season where I feel the more more more impulse, but I am slowing down and learning to recognize that it is just an instinct and impulse, probably one of those given to me by evolution that is not helping me. I can see the instinct for what it is and let it go, knowing I have enough and I am enough just as I am. Not spending all my time trying to be the person society tells me to, not trying to be someone other than who I am. I am not saying that those things are inherently bad or not worth my time, but I know when I do them I feel like an impostor. I am tired of always being an impostor, I just want to be me. If you need permission to just be yourself, to let go of what you should do , to let go of who society, or family, or friends or loved ones think you should be, permission granted. I think we would be better off if we stopped trying to evaluate our self worth based on others and instead accepted each other as we are, all our quirks and all. I have found living based on the more more more impulse to be unfulfilling and exhausting. I am tired of being tired and I want to instead feel alive and grateful for what I have. I want to live in a way that feels like me. I am not saying that I plan on living in a way that is stagnant, but rather do things that feel true in my soul, even if they make me nervous or afraid at times. I am embracing me, in all my changing glory and hoping that in this new month and in this new year I can find a way to make being myself the norm, to ignore the pressure of the world and just live my life in a way that is working towards my purpose in life, living my life intentionally.
|
About MeI'm Sarah; a wife, traveler, foodie, and adventurer. Archives
October 2019
Categories
All
|