Confident people avoid thinking in black and white. Here's how they use 'directional thinking' instead.

Business owners are being asked to create a vision and a strategy for an uncertain future. Many entrepreneurs are struggling to predict what the next six weeks might have in store for them, let alone having a strategy for six months or several years. In times like these, we need to examine our …

* This article was originally published here

I Gained The Quarantine 15, But I’m Not Ashamed

It has finally happened! For the first time in my life, I’m part of a current phenomenon, and not about five years behind, which is usually my style. No, this time I’m right in the front with so many of us who have all experienced yet another delightful experience of 2020: weight gain. As with everything else, some people have taken offense to naming it something amusing like “Quarantine 15” or “gaining the Covid 19,” but I like it. I appreciate puns and jokes, and I love people who find humor in everything. It makes life so much more fun.

As a woman, I’ve obviously been affected by everything surrounding dieting, fitness, eating, body image, feeling inadequate in my body, and all the other fun stuff that the patriarchy and diet culture have invented to keep women small and too distracted and hungry to protest the gender inequality that is still happening today.

I made peace with my body in my mid-30s. It was partly due to reaping some reward of the long-awaited, age-related wisdom that finally made it my way, but mostly it was part to me being in great shape during that time.

I was toned, fit, and strong. My yoga photos on Instagram took off like (a very small) wildfire, and I never felt better.

People I knew IRL commented favorably on my back muscles, my metabolism was still my friend, and I could indulgently look at my cellulite and meaty thighs, resting assured that they were in fine form, imperfections be damned.

I felt on fire, because I was. My body had never felt more like my own, I had never felt better, and best of all? I had finally reached that fabled destination by letting go of external pressures.

It was a golden, body-perfect time.

I didn’t diet. (And I never will again.)

I didn’t obsess. (And I never will again.)

I didn’t follow any diet, or plan, or “lifestyle change.” (And I never will again.)

I felt invincible. I believed in cutting ties with anything diet- or “lifestyle-change”-related (still do, always will), but I also was in my personal peak body condition.

I’m not anymore.

I’ve gained about 20 pounds over the last 2-3 years. It wasn’t all due to the pandemic, even though it definitely played a part. It’s so much more awesome to eat junk food as part of a social movement than it is doing it by yourself because you’re bored or stressed out, right? All the celebrities were doing it, too! It was like being let loose in a candy store as an eight-year-old, without parental supervision, for several months on end. How could I not participate?

So I did. And I don’t regret it. I’ve heard rumors of people using the quarantine to up their fitness regime or lose weight, and good for them. But I almost feel sorry for them. Talk about poor timing. They missed out on experiencing something essential: every agonizing, excruciating step that made up the collective social adventure of our first-ever pandemic:

Panic.

Buy toilet paper in bulk, then lie about it.

Watch Tiger King in one incredulous, deliciously disgusted binge.

Feverishly monitor your store’s website for news when the next truckload of sanitizer will be in.

Overdose on watching the news, get sick of it, then make up for it by binge-watching Friends.

Bake a lot of bread.

Say goodbye to your tightest pants. Who needs them, anyway? We’re all wearing yoga pants now.

Learn a new skill. (A lot of people will be getting poorly hand-knitted scarves this Christmas.)

Lie motionless on your couch, too overwhelmed by everything to do anything.

Discover that it’s not 5 o’clock somewhere, it’s quarantine o’clock everywhere.

Watch the news in an increasingly numbed, disbelieving stupor: Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. 162 more names for the first eight months of 2020. Everything Donald Trump says. The West coast burning. None of us being able to travel or see our friends.

Embrace pizza as one of the main food groups. (Did you know that it’s a terrific breakfast food? It is.)

Throw away the scale—nobody needs any more negativity in 2020.

There are a whole bunch of steps in between and after, but I’m summarizing. Long story short: if you’ve been paying attention this year, you may have been too busy to count calories and get regular workouts in.

It’s been the most unusual, unsettling year in most of our lives. And we’ve all been struggling to find ways to survive.

In my case, it consisted of working too much and spending the rest of the time thinking as little as possible. My favorite ways of drowning out reality, my thoughts, and too much awareness are losing myself in stories in the form of books, audiobooks, and Netflix; drinking wine; and sleeping.

I traded yoga for hours of Netflix, veggies for sour candy, and being mindful for trying my hardest not to think.

I’m not surprised that my body changed.

For a while I stayed in blissful ignorance: not weighing myself, ordering clothes a size up, telling myself to appreciate my ass getting bigger, approaching Kardashian-dimensions without having to pay a dime for it.

But the other week I did reluctantly step on the scale, just to see what I already knew: I had gained weight.

Did it shake my world or my self esteem? No, it didn’t. Success!

Did it annoy me? Yes, it did.

For about 10 years, my weight has been stable. Without deprivation, diets, or any “program,” I’ve been maintaining what has been right for my body.

This new weight doesn’t feel comfortable. It doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure if it’s mainly due to my lack of exercise and trading veggies for junk food (even though I have a strong suspicion that it has a lot to do with it) or if it’s also due to me being in my 40s.

All I know is this: I want to return to my healthier habits.

I’m not going to restrict anything. I’m not going to go on a diet. (Never again!)

But I’m ready to be more mindful again, to do yoga regularly again, and to listen to my body’s clues. This is not the beginning of a before/after. This is not a weight loss journey.

This is me waking up from a stupor.

Taking a step back from numbing myself.

Making choices that serve me more than my ego.

Getting prepared to face my innermost thoughts and demons on the mat once more.

Getting strong again, mentally and physically.

And observing where those changes lead my body’s physique. Maybe I will lose some weight, if that’s what my body needs. Maybe I will stay where I am now. It doesn’t matter. 

The only thing that matters, the only thing I’m really excited about, is to get reacquainted to my body again. I used to know her intimately. I used to know exactly what she could and could not do. 

But I lost her. I lost the knowledge, and the close connection to my body.

The last few years have been an intense roller coaster of my husband’s mystery illness, then coming to terms with his chronic illness, me taking several new jobs, publishing two books, and dealing with some private issues.

I didn’t realize it, but I’ve lost myself.

And my body, my reliable, trusty, incredible body, has been doing everything it can think of to get my attention.

It developed a persistent, wheezy shortness of breath with no discernible cause.

It gave me an allergic reaction to a wasp bite for the first time in my life, forcing me to take a day off work.

It took my voice earlier this year, rendering me effectively speechless for three days.

And now it’s been plumping up my butt, belly, and thighs, just like it did 20 years ago when I was at my unhappiest.

Is it a last-ditch effort to get my attention?

Or just the consequences of “being bad”?

I don’t believe in vilifying food or body movement (or the lack thereof).

But I most definitely believe in our bodies trying to tell us something.

I hear you, body. And I’m listening.

* This article was originally published here

When Things Fall Apart, Read This

Energy. When we dream, plan, and strive to reach our goals, we are expending energy. And do you know why that is such a big deal? Because we are energy. We are literally investing ourselves into everything we do. At the end of a good day, we are exhausted, but we go to sleep, we rest, we restore ourselves and push forward into tomorrow.

That’s on a good day. What about a bad day? What about an unimaginable day? What happens when, by some twist of fate, everything you’ve worked so hard for falls apart? What if, like a favorite sweater with a loose thread, your dreams unravel before your eyes and you’re left with a tangible mess where your life used to be?

Picture yourself sitting on the ground with a pile of yarn in your lap. Some wise inexperienced fool would tell you to stand up and dust yourself off. Well, that’s just silly. Anyone who has ever held a lap full of yarn knows it’s full of kinks, and if you try to get up without untangling it first, you’re going to trip and land on your face. Trust me.

Take a moment. Take a breath. You don’t have to have a new plan this very instant. Find one end of that thread and follow it slowly, consciously. Eventually it will lead you to the first knot and then the next. Be careful to gather and care for the fiber as you unravel it—you don’t want to create more chaos. Focus on one tangle at a time; don’t get ahead of yourself.

I know it is tedious work. I know you are tired, but it has to be done. It will require more of your precious energy (more precious “you”). You must be tenacious. You must push yourself forward until what was once mess becomes material, and with this material you will create something new.

You may not have what you once started with—the texture has changed, the pattern appears different. It may even seem strange or foreign, but stand back and look at what you have created. Can you see the beauty? Those are the pieces of you that have been woven into this beautiful tapestry of life. You are an amazing work of art.

* This article was originally published here

A Story On Finding Faith Through Depression

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:12-14

I never thought depression was something I would have to deal with. Anxiety, stress, a tad bit (maybe more) of OCD, yeah, I could handle that. But depression was never on that list. Because what did I have to be depressed about? I have an amazing fiancé, a supportive family (and a wonderful upbringing to back that up), great friends, a wedding to plan, and a whole future with the love of my life ahead of me. So, what could I possibly be depressed about?

Depression is a funny thing. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it. It pulls you further in the harder you fight to get out of it. It makes you feel useless and unmotivated, like what you’re doing is worthless and irrelevant. So why do anything, right? I tried exercising, reading, writing, doing the things that normally made me happy, but they just weren’t having the same effect. So why continue to try to fight back against it when it’s just easier to give into it? Why work to fill your day with what feels like meaningless tasks when it’s easier to just lay in bed—or on the couch—watching endless hours of TV (that you aren’t really paying attention to anyway).

Let’s back up a bit so you can understand how all this began. I became unemployed in March due to COVID-19, and I didn’t realize then that my job wasn’t the only thing I lost in that time. I lost my sense of security. I lost my confidence, my self-esteem. I felt like I lost a part of myself. And it wasn’t because I lost my dream job. I was just waiting tables at my fiancé’s restaurant. It was a pit stop to the next step. The only problem was, I didn’t know what the next step was. I used the waiting tables as a way to just keep going until I figured it out. So, when there was nothing left for me to distract myself with, it made me face what I had been trying to avoid—the truth. And the truth was, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next. I was surrounded by people who knew what they wanted in their lives, who had their careers ahead of them, and I didn’t.

Constantly hearing about people’s passions and what drives them made me realize that I didn’t know what mine was. I didn’t have that one thing that made me excited to get up in the morning every single day. I didn’t know my next phase and I felt lost—personally, financially, and spiritually.

My relationship with God has surely been tested. There were moments where I thought He gave up on me. Moments where I didn’t believe in myself, so how could He possibly believe in me? Moments where I begged and pleaded for him to help me find my way only to think he wasn’t helping at all. Because when you’re constantly told that God has a purpose for you, that you were saved and chosen by Him for a reason, it’s sometimes hard to believe that when your mind feels like a blank slate.

But there is a glimmer of hope in this story. I’ve begun to find slivers of happiness lately, and think I’m finally starting to build a foundation (albeit maybe a small and rocky one) for the next step in my life.

I have a new business venture with my fiancé starting soon. A business we’ll build together and use it to support our future family. I started a new internship that is leading to a part-time position in an industry I really had a secret passion for but never gave it a fair chance in the past. Even the small stuff, like finding joy in my dog and the comfort he brings, trying a new recipe for dinner and being able to impress my chef fiancé with it, running a mile every day (well maybe not fully loving this one but it makes me feel good afterward and that’s what counts), or just sitting out on my back deck and feeling at peace with the sounds of the lake waves crashing against the shore.

But most importantly, my faith and relationship with God is slowly starting to build back up. I’m feeling a bit more grounded, and while I still have some rocky days, the good ones are coming ever so frequently. I’m focusing my time and energy into the things that will matter, the things that will make a difference, the things that will make me feel whole again. Daily readings, daily prayer, relying on Him to lead me to the answers instead of trying to find them myself. I’m not about to say that this has been easy, and it definitely didn’t happen overnight. Heck, I’m still fighting to get myself out of bed to actually do something every day. But I know this is all part of the journey, all a part of my healing.

And after seven months of being unemployed, I’m still not 100% sure what my purpose is and don’t quite know where my life—and faith— will lead me to next. But instead of fearing the unknown future ahead of me, instead of burrowing into the depression and letting it take hold of me, I’m starting to fight back. It may be small, but I just might see a sliver of light at the end of this tunnel. And maybe, just maybe, I’m actually eager to see what’s waiting for me on the other side.

* This article was originally published here

10 Ways Mentally Strong People Think Differently

10 ways mentally strong people think differently. What sets mentally strong people apart is their ability to make decisions and take action. Mentally …

* This article was originally published here

Read This If You’re Having Disturbing Dreams

Have you been having strange dreams? While nightmares are more common in childhood, most adults have disturbing dreams at least occasionally. Naturally, any additional stress can make scary images more likely. Dreams are rarely a cause for much concern unless they’re interfering with the quality of your life. However, you might like your nights to […]

The post Read This If You’re Having Disturbing Dreams appeared first on Personal Development.

* This article was originally published here

Eight Ways You Can Find Confidence in Your Career

Your career may be a big part of your identity, so lacking confidence in that area can be incredibly demotivating. Confidence is one of the most …

* This article was originally published here