Many events have played out over the weeks since my last post. As is often the case, there were a variable of good, as well as bad situations. Fortunately, the good has outweighed the bad over these weeks.

1) Don’t Cope With Hardship By Keeping To Busy To Face It:

For starters, I’m still having challenges within myself on coping with my failed marriage, I have internalized many of my hardships on the situation, and although I’m doing well overall, I still find myself saddened to know my heart still wishes her and I would work things out in the future. However, that does not seem to be neither what life has in store for me, nor what she wants, at least not that I can see. She and I remain friends, and keep in touch, although I often have mixed feelings of doing so at this time I’m trying to heal, I know I prefer to keep peace between us and for as long that is possible. She means a tremendous amount to me, even after all that has happened, I don’t feel anger or resentment of what has happened (although I did in the beginning), I simply feel understanding of the situation and how things unravelled. Sadness does strike me from time to time, but I don’t let it control my day. I have momentary lapse of sadness ,yes, but not dwelling in sorrow, no.

What did cause me to suffer recently was the collection of my sadness exponentially compounded by the interest rate of being so busy throughout the weekdays as well as the weekends working or helping others with their life changes, that I forgot to leave time for myself and my life changes. I knew I was instinctively keeping busy to avoid being left alone with my mind to think on my separation and to be in the house that now feels empty with memories playing like a movie at every corner. I knew I kept busy to avoid these feelings, but over the course of weeks, and nearly two months of staying busy to avoid facing things, I burned my candle at both ends and wound myself up so tightly that last week I had a mini-meltdown.

I felt an incredible amount of fatigue in my body and mind first, but kept driving myself into the ground further, and then my spirit and soul went next, that’s when I lost the battle in myself. I was so angry and exhausted from helping everyone that I love with their life changes because I knew I had left myself no adequate amount of time for myself to help my life changes and goals. I felt resentful, I felt ashamed, I felt burdened, and worse of all I felt I failed yet again in my life goals to help others with theirs at the expense of myself. I’ve been trying to break this habit of fully expending myself until I have nothing left to give. I need to ensure I have some left in the tank, and create reminders for myself to check in with myself throughout the week once or twice minimum and make time by not always saying yes when anyone asks for help, or at least set a time limit of the length I can help.

2) Don’t Try Organizing Everything And Thinking Things Need To Be Perfect In Order To Begin Following Through:

I have created nearly a book-size of all the various workout and eating regimens over my years, as well as watched hundreds of hours of fitness videos trying to find the BEST of fitness. When in reality, what I needed to do to get the BEST results, was to NOT BE THE BEST, and instead BE DOING. If I spent equal or even half the amount of time I’ve spent on developing the PERFECT “__fill the blank__”, and instead applied that time to DOING that activity, I would be FAR AHEAD of my experience and success that I am currently. Granted I have come up with many fantastic collections of BEST “_____” to help myself. And had I followed them through, instead of starting a NEW BEST “_______”, I would have the body I want, the mind I want, the spirit I want, the soul I want (or at least far closer than I have now). Do As You Learn To Do Better. Analysis Paralysis has been one of my greatest enemies in my life, through everything for studying, to socializing, to nutrition, etc. I become so passionate on a topic I want to learn as much as possible on the topic, but then I either burn myself out of the topic, or come across another topic I want to learn as much as I can (until the cycle repeats). What you want to Do, Learn what you Need, THEN DO and Learn More AS YOU DO, Don’t Focus on Learning Until You Don’t Do. Get better by doing more and learning from mistakes as well as learning along the way. Trying to learn everything before making a move will often lead to more failure by loss of time to grow. For example, if you want to learn how to save $1,000 the best and fastest way, then just start saving $10, then save another $5 or $10, and continue to save money as you learn to save more or invest/earn more, until finally you’re above your goal. Don’t let your want and research to reach a $1,000 in “the best and fastest way possible” stop you from taking baby steps along the way to reach these goals. No you way not reach the $1,000 as quickly as you could have had you known everything that you could potentially learn, but with the experience you gain from mistakes and successes of saving that $1,000, you can most likely save another $1,000 or maybe even save $2,000-$5,000 in the same amount of time that it took you to save the first $1,000. There are many exceptions to this rule, for instance brain surgery, don’t start doing brain surgery and then try going to school to become a doctor, no no no. That is not what I’m intending. This rule applies to smaller less consequential items you want to learn, not to potentially dangerous tasks or skills. 

3) Be In The Moment Of What You’re Trying To Do, Be Focused:

I’ve been reading up on Mindful meditation, and although I liked the idea of it, I hadn’t put it into practice very often. I didn’t see how it really benefited in a daily life that much, THAT WAS UNTIL I SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISHED the focus. I’ve done small amounts of Mindful Meditation on such things as stuck in traffic and just breathing, or in the shower relaxing with my eyes closed feeling the warmth of the water, but it wasn’t until I decided to take Mindful Meditation into the gym that I realized how great it can be. I had been going to the gym and being focused on what I was doing, but my mind would still drift in between sets and I let outside emotions drive the energy of my workouts, which often wasn’t a good thing.

Then a few weeks ago I had finished up at a job site late at night, and was at the gym alone around midnight, and I mean alone entirely at the gym to play my music and just do my thing. Instead of doing a 30-45min workout as I had planned, I ended up being there for nearly 2.5-3.0hrs. Now, 2.5-3.0hrs at the gym is something I can’t do on a regular basis, and wouldn’t want to, but this time was different. I changed up my workout plan from something structured, to more feeling the moment and relying on instincts of my body to direct the flow of the workout. I also increased my sets from 1 or 2 sets with about 4-5 exercises (quick 15-25min workouts is what my time usually allows), to 3 sets each with 12 exercises.

What was significantly different about this workout was not the sets or reps or even the exercises, it was what I DIDN’T DO that was significant. I normally rest for only 10-15sec between sets and at most 1min, but this time I rested 3min after the 1st set (1st set was with lighter weight to fail around 10-12 reps), and when I rested I set a timer and closed my eyes and ONLY FOCUSED ON MY BREATH slow in and slow out for 5sec in 3sec hold and 5sec out. I kepy my mind on focusing on my breath during this time and anytime thoughts would veer off track, I’d quickly steer back and focus on the count and breath. After the 2nd set (heavier weight at about 3-6 reps to failure) I rested for 5min, again setting a time (10sec shy of 5min to account for the time to set the timer, as did for the 3min timer), and this was a bit trickier because 5min felt like 30min when focusing on your breath in the dark (eyes closed) mind kept trying to play tricks on my making me believe I didn’t set a timer or that my phone quit working. I peeked several times at my phone to make sure it worked, but I didn’t however let my mind think about life and it’s current issues, I kept focus on my breath and the time for these 3min and 5min rest times.

Focusing on the task, focusing on my breath, and keeping outside distraction out of my focus, kept my mind clear and fully charged to complete the task at hand. Of course the added rest time between sets helped me complete more sets, as well as more exercises, but being Mindful in-between sets and focusing on relaxing, I lifted heavier weights than I had in the past, as well as felt an overwhelming sense of achievement and happiness throughout the majority of the workout. I kept laughing to myself and how strange it was how fantastic my body felt even though I felt drained from lifting, I felt more at peace and relaxed than I have in as long as I can remember. Like I mentioned, I couldn’t dedicate this amount of time for each workout, as great as it felt, that’s too much committment at this time for me. However, after experiencing Mindful Meditation at a heightened level, I have managed to keep this in my quicker routines, and often my rest times is not counted on a time, but I simply decide on whether to take 5 or 10 concentrated breaths between sets and/or exercise and just focus completely on my breath, recharging myself even in the brief amount of time more so than I use to feel after resting as I previous did.

Focusing on a task entirely helps to achieve better results, in less time, and create more time later for other activities. Multi-tasking is a lie, a trickery of the mind of staying busy with little getting done, or at best doing two or more things at less than 100% your best. It’s better to focus, complete, and move onto the next. Yes, there’s circumstances you’ll have to multi-task, but real focus is the goal.

Until next time, keep LivingLife, and take care of yourself and those you love!

Have comments/questions? Please feel free to email me at my2cents@livinglife-blog.com

“Remember, I’m NOT a qualified doctor, trainer, physiologist, philosopher, or have any other certified qualification. I’m only someone who’s passionate to learn & develop personal skills, habits, goals & finding a balance life-style, while sharing my journey through experiences.

– Developer of LivingLife-Blog”