Mind, Body and Soul Manifestations

Well, I had written last year in October about 31 things that I wanted to accomplish before I turned 31. I have accomplished 7 things on the list. I am very happy to have done those 7, but I certainly want to keep my goals going. One of the items I had on my list was to write a hand-written note to someone at least once a month. I don't think I quite got there last year, so I am challenging myself to do 30 days of hand-written notes to those people that I am incredibly thankful to have in my life. November is an awesome time to reflect on your blessings...and I certainly have a lot to be thankful for this year. I have always loved Thanksgiving and Christmas and I think this is the perfect time to let others know that you cherish their friendship and love. I hope that you will consider doing some random acts of kindness or even writing one note to someone that might need to hear that you are thankful for them this holiday season. I hung out with my mentee yesterday. She has be...

I am feeling extremely disappointed in myself right now. I have been super stressed at work and I am totally eating my feelings. I used to be able to relieve stress by painting or walking or lots of other things, but I feel like I'm distracting myself with food. I KNOW that I should be working out or walking the dog or doing pretty much anything besides planting myself on my couch and snacking at night after work. I feel like I can't control myself. Here's my conundrum - I have a paralyzing fear of becoming overweight or immobile or just not being a healthy adult. I realize that there are a ton of other things that I SHOULD be doing to prevent that from happening. I am consciously aware that devouring a quarter of a tray of brownies is only going to satisfy me for a minute before I beat myself up and feel guilty. I have been trying to "think positive" and "make small changes" and all of the other things that people tell you to do, but I'm strugglin...

I am sitting here on the verge of tears because I feel incredibly torn. I read an article this morning from the Washington Post entitled "How Hard is Teaching?" You can find it here . I probably should not have started my day with that, but alas, it is Monday and it caught my attention after my alarm went off. I absolutely love teaching. It truly is a great profession. However, I am not feeling respected lately. I do love my school, my administrators, and my students; but, it seems as though society as a whole thinks we are a bunch of whiny know-it-alls who just need to be grateful that we have jobs and that we get our summers off. I guess I just want other people to understand where we are all coming from. I am a teacher, but I have not had my summers "off" since I was a student myself. Even then (well, since I was 16), I worked multiple jobs to buy a car and pay for my insurance and my college education. I work a second job throughout the year and during the s...

I am slowly starting to realize that maybe I am a Type A personality. I always thought of myself as pretty relaxed and laid back, but through my experience as a real estate agent, teacher, waitress, and multiple other jobs, I am noticing more and more that I want to be in control of everything. This causes me stress and it makes me freak out prematurely about little things. I actually think this is one thing that makes me a successful teacher: I am in control of my curriculum, my materials (within the limits of my budget at least), and the way I run my classroom. It is a lot harder for me to give up this control in my second job. I have taught several large classes lately (30+ adults) and have not been in charge of tracing the canvases, gathering materials...in other words, I didn't have my hands in every step of the process. I realize that this stresses me out. It is no one else's fault but my own. I work with fabulous people who are on top of things and motivated and I have...

I have had this piece of writing by Maya Angelou on my mind this week, so I wanted to share it with you. I read it in AP English my senior year of high school and it has stuck with me. "Now that I am firmly settled into my fifth decade; and pressing with resolute determination toward my sixth, I find nothing so pleases me as much as outsize gaudy earrings, off-the-shoulder blouses, and a few red hibiscus blooms pinned into my hair. Do I look incongruous? Possibly to the young. Do I feel that way? Decidedly not. I have reached the lovely age where sensuality satisfies me as much as sexuality and sometimes more so. As a sensualist, I would have my ears filled with the world's music, the free laughter of old folks sitting in the last sunlight, and the whirr of busy bees in the early morning. I want to hear the sharp sound of tap dancing and the murmur of a spiritual half remembered, the whisper of a lover entreating a beloved. All sounds of life and living, death and dying, w...

I have recently begun attending Alanon meetings. For those of you who aren't familiar, this is the organization for families of alcoholics. It is a wonderful fellowship of people who support one another spiritually, emotionally, and anonymously. This organization has had a major impact on my outlook on life. I think that everyone could benefit from the program! The twelve steps of the program are something that I am still learning and figuring out, but Step Six was most recently discussed. It states "We're entirely ready to have God remove all those defects of character." This is a powerful thing. I know for a fact that I am not perfect, but to really sit down and think about my personal character defects and then give them over to God seems like a pretty daunting task. One defect that I know I possess is the lack of ability to accept the fact that I cannot control certain situations. We say the serenity prayer a lot and, as a teacher, I repeat it in my mind on a re...

So, I had a really good Saturday. I had breakfast with my Grandparents and my Aunt and Uncle, then I got the grass cut, and cleaned my car inside and out. I did my grocery shopping, my laundry, and got to start reading The Fault in Our Stars . However, I am having a little bit of a hard time now that I am sitting alone at 8:45pm with nothing to do but grading and/or house cleaning. Seeing everyone's pictures with their families on Facebook is making my heart ache a little. I had just hoped so much to have my own little family by now. While I am ridiculously happy for my friends, their husbands, and their beautiful kids, it is just so hard to have patience. I have so many thoughts running through my mind and it is hard to have a racing mind and a lot of time on your hands. I think I have gotten so used to being busy that when I sit alone quietly, I just don't know what to do with myself. I don't want to bug my friends or beg people to hang out with me. I don't want to be...

I've had a lot on my mind this week and I feel like I need to put it out to the universe. I recently lost a very good friend. She didn't die or move away or anything. It just came to a point where we needed to be out of one another's lives. This situation has caused me to do a lot of reflecting on myself. I'm a brooder. I always have been and probably always will be; however, I believe that with everything I've had going on the past few years, I have tried extremely hard to be positive and get on with my life. Sure, I have days that are horrible and days that are wonderful, but I think everyone goes through ups and downs. This friend that I lost said that "my negativity had been pushing her away for a while." This just made me think about the past few years and whether or not I have been negative. I certainly don't wake up in the morning and think "I'm going to be miserable today," but I do have mornings where it feels like the weight o...

I was just reading an article before I went to bed last night called "Happy at work." It is in Real Simple magazine. There were tips about making your job "more likeable" and "even fun." To be honest, I do have fun doing my job. I love working with kids and generally feel like I am making a positive impact in their lives; especially since starting the mentor program. However, there are so many things that I have absolutely no control over in my profession. There were a ton of tips about "how to get a fatter paycheck, a promotion, a more flexible schedule," etc., etc. These are all things that are completely out of my control. As a teacher, you are pretty much at the mercy of your union. I have stood up for myself and my colleagues by speaking at our hearings and attending budget meetings, but I feel utterly frustrated with the concept that all of us, effective or not, are lumped into the same general category. I so desperately want to be in contr...

I have been discussing with my Quest students this week how we have choices in controlling our emotions. We all have the ability to choose our reactions to external events. While I know that this is true, I just don't feel super in control of my emotions right now. Perhaps I am still stuck in adolescence when it comes to handling my feelings. I'm not sure why, but I have always been incredibly self-critical. It's an annoying trait that I wish I could fix. I remember being hard on myself even in Elementary School. As a teacher, we sometimes have to fill out surveys on our students with IEPs or 504 plans. One question that always reminds me of myself is "cannot get a scolding out of his or her mind."I feel like I'm a dweller. When I make a mistake or take action on something and it doesn't go the way I had hoped, I over-analyze and dwell on that thing until it drives me crazy. I am working on trying to let things go a little more, but it seems tough right ...

This may seem silly, but I watched an episode of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" this evening that just struck a chord with me. Seeing Khloe go through filing for a divorce because of Lamar's choice to stick with his addiction over her was very hard to watch, but I could definitely relate. It is so incredibly hard to put all of your effort into one person and one relationship for such a long period of time only to have it fall apart. Sometimes, no matter how much you want something to work, it just isn't in the cards. Her Mom said that she needed to focus on herself and "get happy again." I feel like that is what I've been working on for the past 6 months or so. Last year, I was in such a dark place financially and in my job. I thought I had an amazing relationship, but when that fell apart too I thought that I would just break. I felt like I was giving and giving and giving and nothing was coming back in return. However, I think I am starting to recov...

My mind has been racing all day and I was just watching "World News" with Diane Sawyer. This episode sparked my desire to write about addiction. There has been a ton of coverage about Philip Seymour Hoffman's overdose. There was a story on this news program about the heroin epidemic in our country. Apparently there are over 600,000 people addicted to heroin. This is sad and troubling. I have been personally affected by another type of addiction: alcoholism. I always thought that if someone I knew and loved had an addiction that I would be able to tell and that I'd be able to help them. That simply isn't the case. I can tell you for a fact that there are millions of "functioning" addicts in our midst and they are truly struggling internally. It's easy to judge someone with an addiction when you've never experienced it first-hand. I have never been addicted to anything myself and I don't have a great understanding as to how people become addict...

"Be what you would have your pupils be. All other teaching is unblessed mockery." -Thomas Carlyle This is a quote that my pastor shared during her sermon this morning. Her words struck a chord with me. I have always loved Pastor Sandy's sermons and teachings. She is a former teacher herself and has been a great influence on my life for the past 10 years or so. I found out that she will be retiring in July, which made me a little sad, but I am thankful and blessed to have been inspired by her words and her actions. A lot of our service today revolved around teaching and being a disciple. Sometimes in life, there are these moments where you just have an epiphany. When I was listening to her stories and the bible verses we read today, I realized that I truly am doing what I was meant to do. I struggle sometimes with whether I want to stick with teaching, but I cannot imagine myself doing anything else. Pastor Sandy shared another story about a graduate study done at John...

"It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home." -Nick Hornby, High Fidelity We're going on the third snow day in a row. As a teacher, these are the kind of things I live for! Don't get me wrong, I really do love my job (especially this year...last year was a s%*$show!); however, it is really nice to have extra time to get your grading done, plan your lessons, watch a few movies, and even catch up on reading a book or magazine. When you're a teacher, you get so consumed by work that you forget about living a little sometimes. Everyone needs a day or two to just breathe and relax. Anyway, let's get back to the title of this post: High Fidelity . This just happens to be one of my top 5, all time, most favorite movies. (Others include Love Actually, When Harry Met Sally, What Dreams May Come, and Bridesmaids .) It combines a lot of my favorite things: relationships, J...

Everyone always says patience is a virtue. I just wonder sometimes what is so virtuous about having "the ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay." Obviously it depends on the situation. I pride myself on being very patient with my students, my nephew, the line at the grocery store, the person driving too slow in front of me...those situations seem appropriate for patience. However, I am feeling quite impatient and restless at the current state of my life. I am trying so hard to be patient and pray and "let go and let God" and all of that, but it just doesn't seem to be doing much good. I just finished watching the Season 3 finale of Downton Abbey and I couldn't believe how overwhelming my feeling was to have a family of my own. I feel like I have been waiting patiently my whole life for that part of my life to start. I always imagined that right after I graduated college, I would have the perfect husband an...