Unstuck

This past weekend, I attended my church's annual women's retreat. It's one night and there is always a theme. This year, there was a 3 step process.

First, we talked about Hope.

Second, we asked the question - Where am I stuck?

Finally - What is my dream?

I left the retreat feeling as though it wasn't meant for me. I'm already a hopeful person so I don't need to refocus on Hope. I don't feel like I'm really stuck in my life anywhere. And in a lot of ways, I'm living my dream already. And I know that the retreat really did touch many of the women there and I felt like I made some great connections with others.

I struggled with the times of silence and contemplation because I wasn't connecting to the questions. I took time to journal. And what it boiled down to was what I now feel is a pretty important revelation.

The question was - Where am I stuck?
I reduced that to - Am I stuck?
Or am I exactly where I am supposed to be right now?

After getting home, I found myself thinking over the past year and realized that I've only recently become unstuck in some important areas - my health and my work.

In June of 2018, after a few attempts at starting to get healthy and lose weight, I suddenly kicked it into high gear. I wish I could say what made it work. I wish what worked for me would work for anyone else. Bottom line is that I knew we had a family vacation planned for October and I wanted to look good in family photos and be strong enough to have long days of fun at Disney! Thinking of a friend that I admired for her healthy lifestyle, I asked her to help me. She told me about Beachbody and happened to be at the coach summit at that exact time. She got me signed up - I started working out, changed my diet, and fast forward to Oct and a 35 lb weight loss.

I got myself unstuck. And as I face new challenges, hurdles, temptations, I'll keep working to avoiding getting stuck or get unstuck as needed.

My job has been challenging for several years now - some of it due to circumstances, some of it just the nature of the particular job. Just before my vacation, decisions were made to change up responsibilities in our department. This has completely changed my work situation so that my stress levels have seriously reduced. I enjoy my work again. I'm unstuck.

The lesson I learned is that sometimes, it's ok to just realize the good things. To stop and enjoy the good times. To breath in peace and joy and normalcy - to not be expecting bad news at every turn. To not feel like I'm failing with each bite of food.

Until next time,
Liz