Thursday, November 16, 2023
I taped these inspirational thoughts into my journal back in January. It has taken me nine months to get it together and get a plan in place. This new me, the one I am working on so hard on is ok with it. This Laura Lee 2.0 or possibly 7.0, who knows, is finally treating herself with the grace she gives to others. It is ok to mess up, fail and even jump ship to try a new direction. I am a long way from the supermom want to be of yesterday. Now, I am ok with me as long as I keep moving in some direction, learning and doing my best. Which I now understand is not the same every day!
I am two weeks into this wellness journey and I can feel it. I have followed the ladder app workouts for 20 straight days. Before you freak out, some of those days are active recovery days with short stretching workouts. It is not hard core every day, but it is hard core enough that I can totally feel it! Out of the 20 days so far there have only been a couple that I had to force myself to head out to the garage. The workouts are all less than 40 minutes and broken down so they go by pretty quick. I have been really sore this week so I have focused on just the ladder workouts. Next week I will add back in my yoga and walking. I can feel myself getting stronger already. Probably the most interesting development is that I can feel myself standing and sitting straighter. I can understand why the doctors encourage women in my age group to add strength training to their workouts. I go back and read the pink quote regularly. It helps me to remember that even though I am working hard, it takes time to see the results of the effort.
I am making a few adjustments to the plan my friend I put together. The biggest one being that this month I am focused on making the workouts part of my daily habits. Trying to change too many things at one time I proving challenging for me. I know it will most likely take longer to see results, but I do believe I have a better chance of making the changes permanent lifestyle habits. I am keeping a high protein, low sugar, mediterranean diet as my ideal, but I am not being militant or ignoring cravings at this point. I think once I have made it through the holidays my mind/body habits should be in place and I can then shift my focus to food.
Last week I was reading The Dao De Jing and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read. Both are very good #readtogrowbooks and I will for sure be posting about them in the Read With Me section of the Coffee Clutch. I did take a break from those reads this week to focus on some ADHD reading. I have an appointment tomorrow with the neurologist to discuss the results of all of the testing from the past 6 months. I wanted to be prepared to have an educated conversation. I have to say, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of ADHD, but things have changed. The way ADHD was addressed during my teacher training and even in later workshops did not even begin to cover the many facets of ADHD. There are so many areas of my life effected by this condition. I have started working to really pay attention(haha) to my behaviors and habits, as well as reflecting on my past. So much of my energy has been spent covering up and/or masking my difficulties over the years. I do believe that this is very common for women of my generation. I am looking at this diagnosis as a gift, an opportunity to understand myself better and to seek new strategies and treatments that allow me to be the best version of me possible.
Taking Charge of Adult ADHD has been a great resource this week. I am about half way through and would recommend it if you think you might have undiagnosed ADHD. It gives a much broader picture of ADHD than the one we grew up with.
Thanksgiving is next week! I will get one child home. Yeah!! I am not sure if I will get a post in, but I will do my best.
Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving! Are you a Thanksgiving fan? If so what is your favorite part?