Support

A friend of mine shared with me at our regular Friday lunch that she feels like she is not achieving anything. That she isn't keeping up at work, and feels like she really should have accomplished more. That she feels old, and tired. And I was so surprised. This lady has recently bought a very large house right on the water in one of the best areas in Sydney. The house has a pool, multiple-spot garage, and more than three rooms. She is very well respected at work. She draws admiring glances from men whenever we are together. She has a great husband and two well balanced, gorgeous children. And yet, she is not feeling good about herself or her life.

I could not contain my amazement, and shared that I had also been feeling 'flat'. I had just turned 39 the week prior, the cusp of middle-age (cringe), and had spent my first few days of my last year of the 'dirty thirties' lamenting my single mother-corporate worker-cleaning-washing-press&repeat-life and what appeared to be a waste of nearly 4 decades (yikes).

As I sat listening to my friend's heartfelt dismay at how cowed she felt by life and how much I could commiserate, I made a decision. I decided I was not going to criticise her, or coach her, or compare her lot to mine. None of that would be useful to either of us, and would keep us in the negativity we were both experiencing.  I thought I would just support her. In fact, if I was being truthful, I, in fact also was really needing support myself.

For the remainder of the 35 minutes we had (she had forgotten she had to attend a lunch meeting); we created a plan for what we would set out to achieve in the coming week. As we developed our 'gameplan', it was like the clouds lifted and rolled away after a storm. She started sharing about accomplishments she had made that week that she had forgotten about, we had a little laugh at ourselves, and felt like we could pick ourselves up and 'have another crack'. It was a very valuable 15 minutes for us both, and I came away feeling that this use of time would support not just us but our respective families, our colleagues, our managers, our staff, but in fact every person that we would interact with from that point forward. A very different type of lunch to our usual idle chats.

So we now have a commitment to email each other with what we intend to work on toward our goals for the coming week, and catch up the following Friday, so we can accountable to one another for what we did or didn't accomplish. Support in action.

I'm now excited rather than dismayed. Maybe getting older includes getting wiser. The jury is out on that in my case. Either way, we're working on our journey together. I can only see our friendship getting stronger as we support each other on this game called life.

Who are you going to choose to support today? What about the most important person you know, yourself?

Being inspirated

I admit it. I am a fan of the My Kitchen Rules show. The premise of the show is to create a restaurant in your own home and cook for two judges (well regarded chefs) and your fellow contestants, one from each state in Australia. Its a brutal show. You get a time clock for shopping, and one for cooking. You have to make everything from scratch. You have to decorate your place to a theme. And you get scored by the judges and by your 'peers' who want to win themselves, so often have the knife out ready to stab you in the back. It has angst, emotion, intrigue and drama. That is why I like it. And I am very glad I'm not a contestant. Kind of like that car crash you drive by, and are so happy its not you.

One of the contestants, who is, shall we say, a little academically challenged, was saying to her fellow dinner guests that she thought their Wonderland theme was beautiful, and she felt "Inspirated" by it. She was ridiculed both at the table, and in virtual twitter/facebook land today. The word even made the serious newspapers. However, I was quite taken by that word. It had a certain flavour to it, a bit of pizazz and interest.  Hence, I have been thinking all day how to Inspirate myself in this journey of weight shifting that I am on as I have felt decidedly flat and uninterested by it all of late.

So. The word Inspirated looks to me like this.

It means to revisit and reinvent.

So I took down my vision board that I had already created, and made two - one for revisiting and one for reinventing. Inspirated is a big word after all, and needs some room to move.

To revisit, I put up photos of all the running and sports events I have already participated in over the last few months. Four in total over six months. I had never been in a fun run or anything similar ever in my entire adult life for fear of being ridiculed or singled out. What a big shift. I also put up photos that people have taken of me over this journey. And even I can see the difference. I am noticeably lighter and so much happier and more confident. Revisiting has made me feel proud and reinvigorated. Definitely Inspirated.

To reinvent, a concept I have been struggling with as I battle my urge to return to old habits and give up on my goals, I  put up key quotes that I really value, along with pictures of people I laugh with, and play with. They tend to be the same people who light me up and keep me strong and supported. I have also created a space for printing my little graph of progress from the 12wbt transformation page, so that I can see how far I have already come, so that when the late-night chocolate is calling, I can quickly reference my fantastic (!) work so far. Reinventing has made me feel fresh and ready to go. Most definitely Inspirated.

Who would have thought a throw away line of a mispronounced word could mean quite so much. I'm Inspirated enough to suggest the word for the next Macquarie Dictionary edition.