Realization....and many changes under-weigh.

Yes...under WEIGH. I started a second blog in addition to my sparkpeople blog to track my journey....specifically related to weight loss. "Stopping the Slow Savory Suicide".....dramatic, yeah, but it's the truth. I realize that I have been punishing myself for years and years, and this week I decided to stop punishing myself, and start living.

I've been overweight my entire life. I have never been within the "weight guidelines" for my height, and only briefly have been within an arms reach once or twice in my life. Even when I was within arms reach, I couldn't see that I was healthy....I only saw the flab, the rolls, the parts of me that were imperfect. Today, I look back to some of those days and am amazed at how incredibly fit I actually was at that time, and how close I had come.

Survival Instinct

Those who know me well, know I'm a survivor. No, not the kind you see on Reality TV scrapping for the last inch of space on some crazy deserted island, the kind that makes a place in the world by constantly attempting to live up to their full potential. That's me. A real survivor.

Stuff happens. I end up landing on my behind in the dirt. I look around, watch to see if the coast is clear. Then I brush myself off, and take a large leap forward. I never stop. I never let anything get in my way for long, and I learn from my own mistakes and my own misfortune.

I can't say that I was always this way. There was a time in my past where with each "failure" I would step back (as opposed to forward), and stand there until I got knocked down again. When I got knocked down again, I would step back. Obviously, this wasn't a path to success and happiness, it was a path leading me to insecurity, instability, and sadness.

What have I survived?
Poverty.
Violence.
Rejection.
Loss.
Catastrophic injury.
and now....Layoff. (unemployment)

The one thing that all of this did, was that it made me stronger. It was a type of education that I hold in even higher esteem than my degrees from the University of Oregon and University of California (Berkeley). Survival from these things led me to seek "higher education", and gave me the insight to choose a course of study that has many more applications than meet the eye.

I became a Social Worker. Being a social worker is much more than being in "CPS", or working in the "welfare" system. It's more than being a "therapist", and more than working as a "grief counselor". A Social Worker is a professional whose education is based in understanding people. Understanding their needs, and how to help them to find the supports/supplies/situations that will help them meet their own needs. It is about helping people to help themselves. Where is a person who has this skillset needed? EVERYWHERE!

Who wouldn't want a person on their team who could help people find the things they need, and who has a "knack" for locating resources and teaching others to find their own resources? Who wouldn't want someone who is compassionate, yet knows how to keep their boundaries? I can't think of a place where a Social Worker wouldn't have a good fit. Not one.

So, when a Social Worker finds themselves out of work, and with an entire system that seems to have shut down....government services on the decline, thousands of skilled and amazing professional Social Workers out in the job market....he/she should be putting their skills to work. It's time to think outside the box. It's time to look at other places where the skills of a Social Worker are transferrable. Wouldn't Twitter benefit from a person on their team that has strong skills in communication? Wouldn't Google be interested in a peson who is excellent in locating resources? Wouldn't Yahoo be exstatic to find a person who can lead and influence a team of people to achieve their own goals? Of course they would.

What is my point? The point is choose your stars. Think outside the box, and if you find yourself face down on the pavement, look up, take a look around, scope out your options, then take a gigantic leap of faith forward. Use your own survival instinct. Your future happiness and success depends on it.

Excedrin for Racial Tension Headaches

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Famous Quotes About Success

Famous Quotes About Success: "Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours."

I've always been a high achiever, I just didn't always realize it...

There is so much more to the story, but I have always been a high achiever, and these days I look at my life and realize that I'm starting a sprint on reaching my goals. I've come a long way from where I started, but haven't made it to the finish line yet. For people who know me well, they know that in my life I've had a relatively crazy ride. I'm talking soap opera "One Life to Live" kinda stuff. I've been beaten, divorced, starving, almost homeless, shot, angry, frightened, and broke. I've also become a leader, an academic, a community servant, a director, and a person who truly and wholeheartedly believes that if you believe, you can achieve. You are the only thing that truly stands in your way.

It's been a pretty rough road, and unfortunately it shows....because I carry the weight (literally) of all of the negatives in my life with me every single day. The depression, the anguish, the self-loathing...all of that has piled on inch by inch, ounce by ounce, until I hardly recognize the girl in the mirror. I look at myself, and all I see is some crazy lady in a fat suit. I am often the "biggest" girl in the room, the "biggest" person in the airplane...and every time I realize that, no matter what else I have achieved in my life, I feel like I have failed. FAIL. I feel that my picture/video should be smack on the front page of the Fail Blog.

Well, I've truly and 100% made a decision. I am NOT going to be that girl any longer. Not one more year, not one more month, not one more day, not one more moment. July 1, 2009 I started a journey, and that journey won't end until I see myself in the mirror again...until I truly can feel as if I have conquered all of my demons. Until I no longer wear my every failure as a pound or inch of unpleasantness on my body. I am fighting back. I fight back with my intellect, and have made huge achievements. I fight back with my persuasiveness, and I lead. I fight back with my heart, and I exude compassion for others. Well, now I fight back with my feet, and receive the adrenaline I need to be the person on the outside that matches the person I am on the inside.

I'm taking it to the street. I am walking every single day, starting with a little under a mile, and adding a little more each day until I find my stride. I started my regular walking routine around July 1, and have been walking ever since. 10,000 steps a day or more, but only truly tracking the aerobic miles I complete on the Daily Mile. I am also thankful to one of my oldest and dearest friends, Heather the Adrenaline Junkie, for rooting me on as I go, because my competitive nature kicks in and gets me going on that road again. (Thank you Heddy!)

So...I'm putting it out there for anyone and everyone to read, and for me to keep myself accountable. I'm keeping it real and sharing that I really and truly need to lose half of my own weight to reach my goal. HALF people, yes HALF! I'm like one of those people in People Magazine that they profile each summer, and if I have my way, I'll be on the COVER by May 2011! Why am I telling you this? Because I need your support, your encouragement, and your honesty. I need to keep myself accountable, and if I start to stray, I need you to KICK ME. ok?

(I'm not stopping till I can fit back into this dress....well ok one nearly that size)

Can I walk 500 miles?

Who would have thought that walking, simple walking, could be the life-changing force that it is. I've seen it first hand. So, here is the challenge I have put forth for myself, and for all of those family and friends who wish to join me.  I will walk 500 miles, not in one day, but I am committing myself to walking 500 miles.  Of course my goal is to complete this before a year has passed, but I truly am not going to put more pressure on myself than is needed. I am just going to walk my 500 miles, and I hope that my friends and family will join me in the challenge at http://www.dailymile.com/.  (See the side bar)

Maybe it's thoughts of mortality brought on by this past week's strange events...I mean how many celebrities are going to pass away in one week, and many of them not much older than I am now. Maybe it's the fact that my mother has inspired me, making me realize that the only thing in the way from me looking and feeling the way I wish to look and feel...is me. (She looks AMAZING....just sayin') Most of all, I know that I need to be able to keep up with my son. I need to demonstrate good habits for my son, and I need to see my son grow up, go to college, graduate, get married, have children....and with any luck see his children have children.

Here is some info on walking, that I thought I'd share:

The latest thinking is that walking at a moderate pace is more effective in burning fat calories than intense exercise. The body needs some time to mobilize the processes that dip into your fat stores for calories rather than just burning the simple sugars readily available in your cells. If you walk fast, always begin with a 10-minute warm-up at a moderate pace to get your body into fat-burning mode.

After you've got the hang of it, pick up your pace to 12-minute miles and under, and use racewalk techniques. You will burn more calories per mile because you will be using more sets of muscles than you do at a slower walking pace or by running. Racewalkers burn as many as a third more calories per mile.


You can also burn more calories by weighing more. As you lose weight, you are burning fewer calories per mile. Some walkers add weight belts to increase their calorie burn. For those who are losing weight and whose body is used to carrying around more pounds, a weight belt would be a more natural way to carry more weight. But having lost a lot of weight, I suggest picking up the pace instead - if you have 20 less pounds you will be amazed at how much faster you can now go.

Inspiration and drive...

I probably didn't need a psychometric profile (Strong Interest Inventory...it's a career/personality assessment I just got certified in) to tell me that I'm "Social, Enterprising, and Artistic", at least not the person I am today, but in 1993, when I got those same results (with the same test), I was actually very suprised. I was shy, insecure, and absolutely, positively...defeated. Today, however I know these things about myself, and I sometimes wish that I had the courage to show these parts of myself when growing up.

I was always painfully insecure, and shy....why? I really don't know, but I certainly was. I look back, and I often think of the things I should have said...should have done...and of how I could have avoided the bumps in my road. I could have avoided some very painful years in my early 20's, my mid-late teens....if only I knew then what I know now. Wow, I can certainly see some ways my life could have been quite different....choices that could have been different....people I could have known in a different way....had I known then what I know now.

I always had inspiration and drive, however. They were always there. I look back and see the kernels of knowledge in the way I created a club in the 4th grade, just so I could be the president. How I joined sports teams, because I wanted to be a part of the team. I see where I ran for student office not once but TWICE, and bombed miserably....but still tried. I see it in how I was a "Natural Helper" (it was a group) and was chosen for Mr. Turman's leadership class, one of the only Freshmen in the class.

I see my drive in how I always wanted to be first chair in Orchestra, how I was a section leader in choir, and how I won the most-improved plaque in Color Guard on my very first summer with absolutely no experience or knowledge of the sport. (nevermind I joined guard to follow a boy....well two....well maybe a few) I never wanted to be a follower, I wanted to be a leader, but you need confidence in yourself to accomplish that goal. You need to believe that anything is achievable, and be willing to take the risk...that was the magic formula I was missing.

I don't exactly remember when I learned this valuable lesson, but maybe it wasn't all at once. Maybe it came in bits and pieces, as I stumbled through the wreckage of my life in my early to mid twenties. Maybe I learned pieces of self-confidence after literally being beaten down in Texas...maybe I learned that if I set my mind to it, I can achieve anything when I made the decision that no person will ever control my life ever again. Maybe I learned how to be strong and independent while working as a Deputy Sheriff in Lincoln County, or maybe I had already learned that lesson before getting there. Maybe being chosen #1 out of 600 (yes SIX HUNDRED) applicants for a position helped with that confidence.

Maybe it was Mia Tuan, my amazing professor at the University of Oregon who inspired me to achieve, or maybe it was Dr. Robert Proudfoot who really gave me the lift, when he asked me to run for Co-Director of the Native American Student Union.....when I had absolutely NO intention of running for the position. Maybe it was earlier, getting support and encouragement as a student at Chemeketa. It could have been something I learned in the classes for Human Services...it could have been anything, but all I know is that I am glad that I found it.

I am driven. I am inspired. I am passionate. I am a leader. I may not know how I got here, but I know where I am going, and I know what makes me happy. I know what drives me. I almost think I know myself, and that.....that is a very very good thing. I may not become the "Politician" or "Corporate Trainer" that my profile suggests, but I will do great things, I will.