Tonight I had two epiphanies. The first was about trust and connections between humans. The second was about my fitness level (and lack thereof).
*Epiphany #1 -- Trust:
I was outside in my car, allowing myself the opportunity to chill out my overfried brain when across my brain drifted thoughts about dating. You see, the past two guys I have dated have told me they want to be with me but they choose not to because I "don't have my career figured out."
Sidenote: When the second guy told me that, I promptly went home, printed out 17 pages worth of my Career Map and handed it to him, with the challenge "Don't ever tell me I don't have my career figured out. This is only HALF of it." :)
I am SO sick of people giving me feedback that I don't know what's going on in my life, or that I have no clarity, because I do -- however I don't have the funds or connections to get my plans in motion. So then my brain zapped over to "Well, then why the hell can't they trust me that I have my shit figured out??" and the other side of my brain automatically fired out an answer: "Because you have nothing to prove it to them. You hadn't mapped out your career until just recently, therefore you currently have no solid proof that your plans will come to fruition...a couple months from now, as my Career Map successfully unfolds, they will see that they can trust me."
Truthfully, at that point I got a little upset that they couldn't just trust me since I am the most upfront, forthright and trustworthy person they've ever encountered, and I cross-examined myself with: "Well, take a look at you, for example. When you start dating people, do you just naturally trust them?" "Yes," I responded proudly and triumphantly until I responded to myself again with "Really? Like, you would entrust your entire life and well-being to someone on the first date? Don't be ridiculous, you know that's not true." I agreed with myself, and added "I trust them -- to be a good human -- and then I look for things that can engender a really powerful bond based on habits that, as they interact with my belief systems, highlight and further create the type of trust where I could look at them and say 'I know I can trust you with my life and well-being.'"
The same thing goes with jobs. When I look at hiring someone to assist me in fulfilling my vision, I am absolutely METICULOUS. I don't want to give the job to just anyone, I want to make sure they will be able to lead their part of my vision to glorious success, and I base this largely on their resume, if they are not someone whose talents and history I already know and trust. Yet when I apply and interview at jobs, I get frustrated because I know I can do the job but I may not have had EXACT titular history in the position, though I have performed the EXACT duties necessary -- but they want to see a resume that has the exact titles for instance, because they are looking to invest their trust in me, and they don't want to make a misstep. And let's face it, the only people in an organization who are willing to risk anything are the entrepreneurs themselves, and sometimes their investors...not the management or other under-employees.
So I respect their position. I respect Man #1 and #2 for not seeing something in me that aligns with their values enough such that they could invest in me their trust. And I will respect #3 -- the guy who is currently interested in me that I just started dating -- if he feels the same way. It is only human to base the strength of our CONNECTIONS in TRUST.
*Epiphany #2 -- Fitness:
I realized tonight that I have always held this belief that being fit means that I am weak. Uh, can we just pause there for a second and all together laugh at how ridiculous that belief is?? LOL! I literally stopped in my tracks when I realized I had that belief. How could being fit possibly mean that I am weak? I have two clues to possible derivations of this far-fetched belief.
First, when I had money, I signed a 2-year contract with Gold's Gym (and then barely used it), and forgot about it, so it went into collections. I have been battling with them to pay off their exorbitant fees and cycles for about 3 years now!
In his book, "Killing Sacred Cows," Garrett Gunderson talks about the different types of liabilities: productive, consumptive and destructive. Though a gym membership is typically a productive liability, in my case, it was somewhere between consumptive and destructive...I got it because I had the money to afford it and I thought having one might make me want to work out [consumptive] -- but I only desired adding the idea of working out to my mind because I wanted to be skinny and feel pretty [destructive]. Since then, after watching my bank account being completely zapped to zero by Gold's, it is possible I decided that altogether, fitness was a bad thing and should be avoided.
Second, exercising has never felt good to me. It has always seemed like WORK and I always feel tired and energy sapped after working out. Also, when I did work out, I didn't do it consistently, and I didn't eat healthily, so any possible visible benefits that I could have received from it didn't register to me. As pointed out in my last blog, being anorexic seemed like a more valid choice because I could readily see myself getting skinnier as a result, plus the added benefit of not having to eat or buy food or work to make enough money to be able to eat properly, if at all...it obviously came out as the winner because it was much easier! However, that took a toll on me mentally that I would have never foreseen. So all of this means that working out is definitely bad for me! Haha. Yes, that's what I thought.
However, now as I am going to yoga, I am feeling pretty refreshed afterward, and I know I worked strenuously at it, but I feel good at it and can't wait to go back because I feel proud of myself for doing things I didn't think I could do, and for getting through times I thought would be too tough for me! Now I can look at fitness with a healthy mindset, realize it is truly a good thing, and desire to do it, knowing it will add much more to my life than would not being physically fit.
That's all for tonight, love you all! :)
Apollo
