When you’re absolutely ready

Today marks Day 7 of a 30-day Reboot healthy eating programme I embarked on, along with about 15 others, under the guidance of Chantel Erfort Manuel.

Throughout 2017, I observed as Chantel steadily lost weight, the result of significant lifestyle changes (diet and exercise) she had made. Everytime I saw her, or saw photos of her on Facebook, I commented that I was inspired by her.

Towards the end of last year, on 30 October, I started working through The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron, a book I’ve referred to in recent blog posts. Through the exercises in the book, I developed a feeling of urgency about changing the areas of my life where I felt stuck. My physical condition was just one of them. I contacted Chantel and told her I wanted to start the journey she had taken, and she informed me that she’d be doing a 30-day reboot programme, which she would invite others to join. We started on Monday, 8 January, and I am officially on my way.

I won’t write too much about that, right now, although it’s so exciting, I could talk about it for hours.

What I want to write about is readiness. I have come to the conclusion that we can make certain decisions in life only when we are ready. Absolutely ready. You can leave a toxic work environment only when you are absolutely ready. Until then, you’ll complain and complain, but you’ll stay put. You can sever ties with a partner who makes you unhappy, only when you are absolutely ready. Until such time, you might complain to your close friends, you might even break up a couple of times, but only when you are completely ready to go through the pain of a break-up and walk into a new, unknown, scary future, will you actually leave. It’s the same with platonic friendships, which can also become unhealthy, for various reasons. You might put up with someone’s inappropriateness, disrespect, lack of support, or shallowness, for many, many years, but when you are ready, you will find the strength to walk away.

Being absolutely ready to break a pattern in your life means you fully understand that it no longer serves your best interests, and that it is, in fact, holding you back, preventing you from thriving. You know that the road ahead is unfamiliar, and you know that you might fail, but you so badly want to break with the past, that you take a leap of faith, knowing, in a way that you often can’t put into words, that this is RIGHT for you.

I am 56 years old, and I have changed the course of my life many times, each time knowing that I had outgrown the former course. And you know what? I don’t have a single regret about any of those decisions. Now that’s a good feeling. And you know what happens when you make changes in your life that turn out to be the best things you could’ve done? You start to know yourself, and - even better - trust yourself.

In 1985, I decided to stop eating red meat. In +-1990, I decided to stop going to church. In 2011, I decided never to drink anything alcoholic again (I wasn’t such a big fan anyway). In 1992, 2000 and 2011, I left serious relationships that had turned out to be stifling and wrong for me.

In 1996, I left my first job, as a primary school teacher, after 14 years. In 1999 I did a TEFL course and discovered a teaching methodology and industry that fascinated me and was to shake up my world for a total of ten years. I met amazing people from all over the world, as well as very special teachers, and I’m still friends with many of them today. Departing from my former occupation and lifestyle opened up my life in wonderful ways.

Life took some unexpected turns, and I found myself returning to teaching in the state sector, which was not something I thought I’d ever do. Then it was back into TEFL, but retrenched after almost 3 years. Ouch! Rug pulled out from under my feet! In 2011 and 2012, I did short stints as a substitute lecturer at a college, which eventually led to my accepting a permanent post there, a year later. However, after 3 years and a bit, the restlessness returned, and it was time to move. This time, I didn’t change just teaching posts – I changed careers. And that, at age 54!

I’ve grown to appreciate that this is a personality type, and that, for many people like me, it’s not at all how we were raised. But it’s who you essentially are that ultimately pushes through – regardless of your socialisation. Live your truth, figure things out as you go along, don’t be scared to change your mind, be unapologetically yourself, take calculated risks. Not easy, but oh so doable.

Which brings me back to the 30-day reboot challenge. Unlike other times when I’ve gone on diets, I have a completely different set of goals, this time. This is about so much more than losing weight: it is an investment in myself, an investment in a healthier life in my 60s, 70s, etc.

These are some of my thoughts, 7 days into the programme:

1.    I enjoy everything I eat.

2.    I am not missing any of the carbs I thought I couldn’t live without.

3.    I have a feeling of excitement about life.

4.    I am happier and lighter in spirit.

5.  I am becoming more organised in other parts of my life, as a result of having to be so organised with my meals.

6.   Eating in such a disciplined way has reminded me that I am capable of being extremely disciplined, and I am dancing regularly again.

7.    I am on a Whatsapp support group with the others on our programme, and on a Facebook support group with people from all over, who are on various weight-loss and fitness programmes -  these people inspire me immensely.

8.  The person coaching us through the journey lost 33kg in one year, through sheer discipline, determination, and with the support of her loved ones. Her success inspires and motivates me.

9.   Today I rediscovered something about myself: I am intensely motivated to succeed by something really strange - someone’s belief that I will fail! Haha!

10.  And lastly, I would like to eventually inspire others to take the same journey towards a healthier lifestyle, just like Chantel inspired – and continues to inspire - me.

I have 23 more days on this programme, and I would like to lose at least 3kg in the 30 days. And what will I do after the 30 days? I’ll know when I get there. All I know is, I’m in it for the long haul. This is about my quality of life.

Like I’ve said before: I’m alive, so I might as well be very alive!

The passage of time

My last official day of holiday. I could never understand why people said that kind of thing, before, but now I do: I would’ve been home for the weekend anyway, so the last two days of my leave aren’t really leave days.

Recently, I’ve found myself waking up with a feeling of dismay at the passage of time. So weird! I don’t know if it’s an omen, or just part of the Standard Middle-Aged Package. Of course, by the time I get out of bed, I have a mental To Do list and I’m up, up and away. But the next morning, the feeling is back again. A close friend who died in 1984, at the tender age of 24, described surfing to me. He tried so hard to get me to move from being curious about it to actually learning to surf, and he died before I’d taken the plunge. He told me to close my eyes and imagine myself standing barefooted on a very slippery surface, cool to the touch, that was moving at an immense speed over which I had no control. That’s how I feel about life, right now.

About three years ago, I read the book, Quiet, by Susan Cain; the by-line is ‘’The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking’’. She deals with, amongst a host of other things, our personalities, our peculiarities, what we contribute to group situations, and our preferred ways of going through any activity. I finally learnt to fully accept myself, while reading that book. I’d always known that I abhorred superficiality, but I finally understood that the reflective style of my journalling and blogging was about not wanting anything I’d experienced to go by undocumented. Of course, this style of living can be extremely frustrating, because life is just too busy for everything to be documented – but that’s part of my Trudy dilemma. I have a hunger for life, for experiences that feed my soul, but I have an unslakeable thirst for recording and reflecting on those experiences, as though living life is somehow incomplete without a written record of it. It’s like a more cerebral version of the modern-speak expression, “Selfie, or it didn’t happen.”

In the book I’m working through at the moment, The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron deals with the topic of perfectionism, in Week 8 of a 12-week course in rediscovering your artist self.  She writes about how we’re so steeped in the mindset that things have to be perfect, in order to exist at all, that many of us simply don’t produce anything – we’re in fact paralysed by our belief in ‘’100% or don’t bother’’. I reflected on how, despite my raising my kids with an encouraging philosophy of “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing”, I myself am guilty of this quest for perfectionism. The day I read that section of the book, I posted a video of a recent performance on Facebook. I didn’t care how many people viewed it, I was just ready to put it out there, even though it wasn’t perfect. And it felt good. It felt like a celebration of my art. 

In the latter half of 2017, I was given a new set of responsibilities at work. It took me two months of grappling with whether I was good enough or not, to finally be at peace with the new role - which I’d actually been doing, during the two months of grappling! What was the turning point? Accepting that no-one (besides me) was expecting me to be perfect at it, and that it would be an interesting new skill set that I would acquire, over time. Once I understood that it was a process, pretty much like everything else in life, I exhaled, and found my peace.

So maybe that’s how I should deal with my morning dread about how quickly life is passing me by – and I suppose I do so already – and that is to yield to the aspects that are out of my control, like the fast-moving ocean beneath a surfer’s feet, and immerse myself in the beauty and joy that are all around me, waiting for me to live every day of my life to the fullest. Even though I haven’t tried surfing yet, that curiosity has never left me. Maybe, in my life, the call of the ocean is not merely symbolic.

I will continue to live with all my senses at full alert, taking in the many sights, sounds, tastes, smells, feels and other-sensory stimuli all around me. And when I find time, write. 

Because that’s how I make sense of it all.

                               South African (Capetonian) surfing champion, Cass Collier.

   

When ignorance is NOT bliss

Don’t ask someone suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease a string of questions, like you’re quizzing them, and then look pleased with yourself when they answer one or two correctly. It’s not about you. Would you ask a quadriplegic: "Can you lift your left arm? And your right arm? And your left leg? Ok, and your right one?"

And don’t say, when the person replies, in response to your questions, that she has forgotten all about the family history, “Oh?! But you just told me all of that information a few minutes ago!” as though you’ve won some kind of competition.

You don’t understand the condition, you have no idea how your response humiliates the person, and you should rather shut the f**k up, go and read up about the condition, and THEN try, the next time you see the person, to behave like a decent, compassionate human being!

I can fully understand why families might not want to take a loved one with Alzheimer’s into a social setting. 

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This link shows a concise explanation, in animated form, of what Alzheimer's Disease is:

http://onlinehealth.wiki/mind/animation-what-alzheimers-disease-looks-like