I had the perfect opening line for this blog post when I woke up at 4:30 in the morning the other day. I thought that I should open up my phone and write it into the notes and decided against it. I could remember it for another hour before my alarm went off.

Well, I was incorrect and when I woke up an hour later, that opening line had completely disappeared from my thoughts. So here I am writing this blog post in an entirely new way. 

There are so many different ways that this blog post could go and I am unsure which one will happen but I am just going to let my fingers do the talking. I find my best blogs tend to be the ones that I don’t overthink. I just write and write.

For the past few weeks, I have been focusing on adding some new things to my life. 

• Meal planning
• Meal prep
• Working out
• Stepping out of my comfort zone when it comes to blogging pieces of my story
• Setting time aside to work on my book

 CHECKING IN WITH MYSELF

Sundays are when I typically do meal prep. It is my day to fit in a lot of things including planning for the week ahead, client work, and now meal prep. 

Today I did not want to meal prep. I had no motivation or inspiration to prep a few things for the week. Today was a tough day as I am working through a few things and I just found myself barely wanting to clean up after dinner. 

Honestly, for the past week, I have been keeping track of everything that I do during the day in a spreadsheet. I also did the same thing for my husband. I want to show everyone all that I do with the little help that I get. It is shocking to see it all written down in a spreadsheet even though I knew all along that I was doing 99.9% of the things on my own.

Trying to run a business while having a full-time job and trying to run a household of 5 is getting to be a bit much. I am getting exhausted and I can feel the resentment building up. I told my husband back in December that come 2024, if I haven’t gotten the help that I wanted, I was going to start hiring some help. 

The time has come and I am going to be moving forward with this decision. I do have someone reaching out to be my “house helper”. I am also looking at the option of hiring a cleaning company. This is something that I just can’t do by myself anymore and so I am finally deciding that enough is enough. I need help. 

I remember my friend, Shelly, saying this to me…

“It very much is a healing point and a place of empowerment. Too often we are told we have to do it all, no help. Some women cannot get out of that trauma belief and end up causing more trauma cycles.”

Now there is some perspective for you. 

Just as I was about to give up tonight and not meal prep, I remember the voice inside me saying, YOU ARE DOING THIS FOR YOU!

And so I went to the fridge and opened it up and grabbed the things out that needed to prep for the week. I didn’t want to. Just like I didn’t want to write this blog post. This blog post idea came to me a few days ago and it was as if it was just waiting for this moment in time to be written.

HOW I AM KEEPING THE PROMISES MADE TO MYSELF

I am fully committed to focusing on these pieces of my journey this month. I am going to break it down into each different habit so I can talk about how I am creating a plan to work on all of these. 

Meal Planning: 

I have a few things to use up in my freezer before I need to create a new meal plan. I am finding that when it comes to meal planning, I need to not assign a specific day to a meal. I change my mind too often so I will decide in the morning what will be for dinner that night. 

This helps keep things organized enough that I have a list of meals that we can choose from but it doesn’t feel rigid enough that I lose inspiration. 

Meal Prep: 

This is the start of week three for meal prepping. I didn’t do any dinner prep today as I am still using up other things. 

However, meal prepping for lunch has been such a savior. The mornings are running smoother and it doesn’t feel like everything is rushed. I am not a morning person so if I don’t have to wake up at 5 am then I am good with that. 

I have even gotten my youngest one involved and she makes her lunches the night before. She will typically choose from the items that are meal-prepped and then the things that can’t be, she can put in her lunch kit. 

This gives her the responsibility to help with her lunch and she really enjoys doing it. 

Working out:

I started casually working out a couple of weeks ago and by casually, I mean like once a week. BAHAHAHAHA

For March, I am challenging myself to work out every single day. This started on March 2 as I didn’t think of it until late in the evening on March 1. 

So far, I have included Iliza in the workouts with me. We have been using the Fit On app on my computer and we have been having fun. I went ahead and planned out the workouts and scheduled them in the app through my phone. This way I get a reminder for the workout. 

My following workouts on the Fit On app are:

• March 2: Move Better Workout
• March 3: Beginner Walking Fitness
• March 4: Embracing Tai Chi
• March 5: Barre Body Sculpt
• March 6: Kinrgy Aether Receiving
• March 7: Low Impact Pilates
• March 8: Ready To Rumble
• March 9: Dance Cardio Party and Abs
• March 10: Low Impact Cardio HIIT
• March 11: Yin Yoga Bliss
• March 12: Total Body Barre
• March 13:Kinrgy Aether Connecting
• March 14: Pilates Plus
• March 15: Fighting Fit
• March 16: Beginner Dance Cardio
• March 17: Low Impact Tabata
• March 18: Vitality and Bliss
• March 19: Yoga Barre Fusion
• March 20: Kinrgy Water
• March 21: Ultimate Pilates Body
• March 22: Title Beginner Boxing
• March 23: Dance and Sweat
• March 24: Yogilates
• March 25: Self-Grounding Yoga
• March 26: Barre Body Burner
• March 27: Kinrgy 15 Minute Method
• March 28: Quick Pilates Flow
• March 29: Smash the Bag
• March 30: Don’t Think, Just Move
• March 31: Feel Better Yoga

Stepping out of my comfort zone when blogging:

For the past few years, I have taken a step back on my blogging. I stopped focusing on my mental health journey and for the most part, that meant that I stopped blogging about my healing process. 

It feels like it has caught up with me and so here I am, making a promise to myself to start again. Not only to start again but to be consistent with blogging. 

Blogging made such an impact on my life that I know the healing that comes along with sharing my words. 

This doesn’t only mean that I am going to be focusing more on blogging, it means the content that I share is going to be even deeper and on more topics that come up. For instance, the last blog post that I shared was about a new sex trigger that I am experiencing.

As a sexual assault survivor, my healing journey is never going to be complete. There are going to be triggers that pop up buy my ability to handle those triggers should improve. At least, that is my goal through my healing process. 

Watch for more content where I get even more real and raw to show those who need it most that healing never ends. There doesn’t have to be shame attached to healing and to the things that we are working through. 

That is my goal through sharing my story. In hopes that I reach even one person who needs to hear my story and know that they aren’t alone. That keeps me going. That gives me hope that what I went through and still going through has a purpose. 

Setting time aside to work on my book:

I think this is going on year two of me talking about getting my book published. It was supposed to be to my publisher in September of 2023 and that did not happen. I am NOT even close to having the first draft completed.

I have 3 drafts of the same (but different) book started. I have stopped myself so many times that I don’t know how to get out of my head. 

I am now setting aside time to work on my book. This time will not be for client work or anything else. It is going to be strictly used to sit with my computer and put words on a Google Doc. If what is on the page doesn’t make sense, then so be it. I will edit it or have someone else edit it when the time comes. 

I am scheduling Thursdays from 7 pm to 9 pm to work on writing. My goal is to have the first draft of my book written by my birthday, June 22. That gives me 17 Thursdays to work on my book. 

I feel like the reason I am putting this off should be a whole blog post in itself but for now, I will say, I have been avoiding writing the book because I am scared to put my story on paper. 

I have parts of my story already on paper per my blog posts but this feels bigger and scarier than any of that! 

I deserve as much of myself as other people get!

I am good at putting others first. For a time, I was really good at putting myself first but I let life take hold of me and I put myself off to the side. I have run myself ragged doing everything for everyone else. 

That just isn’t how life is going to work anymore. 

Are there any promises that you made to yourself that you are working on?