Sunshine Dreams to You: Health.

A friend of mine is starting a wellness company, and I am going to be their guinea pig. Word is that I am the poster child for their target market. *insert nervous laughter* Call it God or circumstance or whatever trips your trigger, but a few weeks ago while she was dreaming (out loud) about starting this company and her husband was "shaming" me for the chicken fried rice I had consumed for lunch while I was still reeling from a harrowing 40+ hours trying to get home from France which resulted in me hustling through multiple airports like a packmule and four layers of sweat-soaked clothes... #forthelove ...I guess I hit the proverbial wall.

When I sat down a week ago to start seriously dreaming about 2018, it wasn't the actual dreams that scared me the most (though they are all scary enough), it was that there were so many of them. Everyone close to me knows that the firm I co-founded five years ago has taken everything I had physically + mentally (and then some). The past 18-20 months as I started working on some additional dreams, I finally had to sit them each down one-by-one because I just couldn't do it all. I had the heart, but not the energy (mental or physical). So how do you balance all that you believe God is pouring into your hands?

First, you just have to lay it all down. Every dream, goal, idea...just lay them all down at the foot of the cross and ask, "Which one do you want me to pick up?" When he answers ALL of them, THAT is when you panic. I have spent a solid year (plus) panicking. I have pushed off all of these ideas for so long that even I wonder sometimes if they were ever truly for me.

Second...you go back to the well, the drawing board, and you ask, "How God? How do I do ALL of this?" In the past several months, he started showing me how by making me more and more frustrated with my lack of energy. I have to get healthy...physically. No more playing around. My problem is not a lack of dreams or a lack of faith, it is a lack of energy. Period.

Third, who doesn't want to be "fit" and wear one size smaller in clothes and all of the things we think about (especially women), but when I really started thinking about this goal and why I wanted/needed to make it a priority, I listed out all of the outcomes. More energy was the number one outcome I desired out of this, so while there are multiple VERY good reasons to make my health a priority (and I have them all listed in my planner), I am going to zero in every day on just one...Energy. Whatever the sacrifice, the output is I will have more energy to do ALL the things I feel called to do...dream of doing...frankly WANT to do. The desires of my heart take energy. Period. Full stop.

I am giving my friend free reign to revamp my eating, my grocery shopping (you should see what she did via my cell phone last night), my physical activity, everything that touches my health is 'on the table' and while I should be scared out of my mind, I am not. THIS is the only way. It is this or permanently set down everything else on my goal list for 2018. Not to mention that I simply do NOT treat my body well. I Band-Aid it with some super nice and cool things...take it for a walk every now and again....eat "relatively" healthy (or so I thought), but day in and day out I use it and abuse it as if it is disposable.....and eventually it will truly be disposed of, but until then, it is the one I got.

I am also going to let her guide me on what she wants me to share about this process as we go along because this is her own pretty cool dream to launch and help others with....but let me be clear....she has her hands full. I eat like a 16 year old boy who plays four sports. I skip all the important meals and then load up at the worst time of day. I don't work out consistently. I have forgotten more about nutrition than I know today, in this moment, at the age of 46. I don't understand nutrition labels, and to her horror - I don't read them. I am a creature of habit, eating the same thing over and over and over again - which again to her horror - is not the "best" things. I put my body and health dead last in the laundry list of things I care about...except when I have (had) a health crisis and it rears itself to the top of the heap.

The good news is that I like structure and am a creature of habit so if she can implement structure and help me (truly) create (permanent) habits, there is hope for me in all of this. Also, those newfound boundaries are going to serve me well as I implement some around putting the gym and a good breakfast above being the first in/last out in our office. Say what?!?!?! The truth is my team is getting leftovers now, this ensures that I am offering up my very best when I am there - mentally even more than physically. Just ALL good things can come of this priority-shift. *insert all the praise hands*