My week, and blog, fell off the rails last week. I had a Psychology midterm dished up by a disrespectful professor, a frozen pipe attached to my sump pump, a furnace that had to be serviced by ATCO (which is free by the way!), a note from the bylaw officer about the dogs, and battle with Bell Mobility over a lost cell phone! It left me entering a new week in a poor state of mind with out my normal positive, the cup is always half full approach to life!
Today, this was completely turned around!! Today I was inspired by the beauty of nature and women. It started this morning when I went out for my morning run with Mackenzie. It was beautiful outside this morning, fresh, energizing, invigorating. The signs of spring were all around me, the beauty of opportunity and new life surrounded me!
Then I went to work and met with a ton of great women! One women inparticular was inspiring today. As a stay at home Mother she was doing something for herself for the first time in approximatley two years!! For two years she focused on everyone else, and it is a challenge for he to be able to come to the gym and train with me for two hours a week. Can you imagine, being so selfless as to struggle to give yourself two hours a week!! What a beautiful women!!
This inspiring women sent a HUGE message home to me though! Why in the world do we, as women, feel that is acceptable to give up our entire selves, with absolutley no love for me? And if we can't prioritize ourselves high enough to give ourselves "me" time then who will?
Today my clients were all about talking about the pressure's of spring. To these women Spring comes with the expectation of entertaining with a perfect house, a perfect yard, perfect barbeque and perfect patio. Spring brings the need to get a beach body for summer, and while most women do state they want this body to feel confidence in themselves, our media portrayal makes the image they describe to be the perfect beach body extremely difficult, and possibly unhealthy to maintain. Spring means soccer practice, yard sales, camping trips, government tests at school, a need to figure out how to get time off work for the family in summer....spring means beauty...but spring means stress!!
So today I challenge each of you to be a beautiful spring women. Spring is a time for new life, and each women out there is a beautiful life. So here is the spring challenge;
1. Reach out and say "I can be me, and I am worth it". Pick something that is important to you and make time to do it every day!!
(For example: my dream is to run, so I have made the resolution that as it is spring I am going to make time to go to bed earlier so I can add in a second morning workout each day).
2. Spring Cleaning. Use spring cleaning not as a competition to see who can have the most fantastic, magazine style, house. Instead use it as an opportunity to de-clutter. Clutter takes away from our ability to accomplish tasks in a timely manner and feel organize. So organize your house to fit your routine and help you survive the day with success! Then put 10 minutes a day away to do a "spot clean' that keeps the little things from getting to big things, and assures continued success.
3. The patio and the party. Your freinds are human and so are you!! When they go home they probably don't gossip about if the green cushions were the right colour, or if you have the best patio furniture!! They do talk about your hospitality and the great time they had with freinds! And for them to talk about this you need to be rested and relaxed enough to enjoy socializing. So stop sweating the small stuff, a normal backyard my have a few dandylions, it may have tired yard work, but it comes with a great friend to listen to you! A great BBQ dinner is full of laughs and health, so yes it's okay if you bought the premade vegetable platter.
4. Your body!! Embrace yourself, for you!! Your beautiful!! Then work your body into your me time. Do something to keep it healthy, buy healthy snack option even if it costs an extra dollar at the store, and embrace images of real world beautiful women!! A great place to start is with the Dove Natural Women Beauty Campaign website!! In the past two weeks I have had several people tell me I look spectacular, yes I am working out like crazy, yes I am toned and fit, but no I don't have a six pack!! I'm a women! And I'm proud of it!!
5. Respond to my blog! Let's keep a big list of all the great things that Women are doing to celebrate women!!
