Happy Valentines Day

My husband gave me the cute wee guy above for Valentines Day. When you push the little button on its foot it plays "Ma na ma na - do do do do dooooooo" and its little antenae lights flash and its little feet wiggle. HEHE ... in all 17 yrs of being together, this is the first time I've got a Valentines gift ... WOOHOO ... now if this is what it means when hubbies turn 40 ... yippee for meeeeeeeeeee! The gift was so cute, but the card he got me made me cry ... the card said ...

Life can be
so hectice sometimes,
but no matter how busy I get,
I will always save
my best moments
to spend with you ...
You
are the most important person
in my life,
I love you,
I need you ...
always.

*teary sigh*

that is just too adorable for words. Right now that the soppy shit is over ...

I went to my meeting today. I didnt weigh. I felt like a huge weight (pardon the pun) was lifted from my shoulders, for the first time in a long time I enjoyed the meeting not thinking about how heavy I was, how sad I was for gaining/maintaining - I just enjoyed being at the meeting and listening to others experiences. I left there in such a positive frame of mind and now as I sit here and reflect on my day of eating and drinking ... it was a good day! Today we talked about portion sizes - measuring and tracking. I've been a slack tracker lately. Where I used to religiously write everything down, I only started to total the points at the end of the day. Where I used to measure everything, I now eyeball it and think oh yeah "xx amount of points". I havent tracked sugar points in months. A bit of a picture is being painted here. So it was a great meeting.

Fear ... what is it? Is it about rejection? Is it about letting other people down? Is it about letting ourselves down? Is it about reliving past bad experiences? Is it a genuine heart stopping emotion that makes us hyperventilate? Is it an excuse to get out of doing something? Or is it really because you dont want to do something?

I received a lovely email from a friend today, congratulating me on my triathlon success. She said she was so close to giving it a go she really wanted to enjoy the feeling of succeeding at something like this but bottom line - she was petried! ... too old (never too old) , cant swim (dog paddle), cant run (walk), havent ridden a bike in years (old saying "practice makes perfect") ...
so what really is the fear? maybe its making the commitment to do it and failing? maybe its the thought of letting other people down by not achieving the goal? Who do we fail when we dont meet our goals - especially when the goal is about ME ME ME ... all we do is let ourselves down - not because we fail, but because we never gave ourselves the chance to prove otherwise. Fear is such a huge emotion and after a while the brain starts to believe in it. I'm learning to eliminate "cant" from my voculary and replacing it with ... "I tried".

Craig and I met some amazing people on Sunday. The lovely lady who was huge - it was her 3rd tri. The lady in my wave who doesnt run, but she walked it! Craig talked to a guy whose wife had only learnt to swim last year - she was in her late 40's. There were women recovering from breast cancer, car accidents and other scarey and tragic circumstances that fuelled them to give it a go.

When I think about myself and my fears - Weightwatchers was a classic example. It took me 3 months to walk through the door and commit myself to a new lifestyle. What was I scared of? wow - where do I start? ... the scales wouldnt go up high enough (they have fat scales!), the other ladies would stare at me (they didnt, instead I saw the respect they had for me being there), people would think I was on ANOTHER weightloss kick (I've had nothing but support from everyone I've talked to), I'd never be able to stick to the programme (as the ad says, you can have your cake and eat it to!), I would never be able to become regularly active (ok so that one is just laughable now! LOL), I cant afford it (I cant afford not to!), I dont like eggs, tomatoes, beetroot, tuna (I've either learnt to like it or I eat something else), I like my savoury foods & takeaways (I still do and I eat them in moderation and without guilt!) ... all these fears buzzing through my brain before I even gave myself the chance to give it a go - took three months to walk through that door and prove myself wrong and that was nearly two and a half years ago.

I'm not wonder woman, I'm not super human, I'm not trying to prove something - I'm just wanting me to be the best I can be and to do that I have to genuinely assess my fears. No one likes rejection or failure or humiliation, but I guess by understanding it better I can deal with it should it ever arise.

I would have been gutted if I didnt finish on Sunday, I had thoughts of flat tyres, falling off, slipping over, being eaten by a shark!, race being cancelled, running out of oomph ... etc etc etc - but at least I was at the starting line and gave it a go. It might not be a triathlon - it might be something like saying NO or taking up a hobbie or even trying new foods - just get yourself to the starting line and kick those fears in the arse LMAO!

Whew that was pretty deep!