You've probably noticed, I don't write very often. Motivation and inspiration are often hard to come by when it comes to creative pursuits. It's a lot easier to sit down at the end of the day and play a round of Candy Crush than to face the challenge of a blank page in front of me. It'a also a lot easier to sit down and read than to go for a walk. Or to practice yoga. Or to work on my push-ups. Things that are hard are things we tend to avoid, unless they have become habitual for us.
I'm happy to say, however, that while writing has not become habitual for me, fitness has finally become a priority for me. I now feel a bit restless if I don't get at least a half hour of exercise in each day. If I don't start my day with a few sun salutations or some form of yoga, it feels a little off. A few months ago, on my birthday, I set a goal to be able to run a mile without stopping and to be able to do 15 push-ups. The mile turned out to be pretty easy to attain regularly, especially on a treadmill (it's too icy outside for running) and although I definitely can't do them all at once, I can do 15 push-ups in a day too. My goal on my Fitbit has been to rack up 7,500 steps per day. Now that seems like it might be too low, and I feel like maybe I should increase it.
It didn't happen overnight though. It was a slow, gradual process. That's how change works. Little changes, over time, add up to big changes. It's a good reminder as we start up a new year and have our many resolutions and goals. It's so easy to grow impatient when the changes we seek don't happen right away, but if we keep at it, we will eventually see results. And if we really pay attention, we will notice the subtle changes each day, and then one day we surprise ourselves by doing more than we thought we could.
I have to keep the same mindset when it comes to my scan results. While I was super happy to learn that everything was stable, I was also disappointed that I didn't see reduction. My goal, you see, is for my scans to show nothing. NEAD - No Evidence of Active Disease. It's frustrating to me that I'm not there yet. I'm already taking advantage of everything Western medicine can do with my Perjeta and Herceptin treatments, so now I'm exploring other healing avenues as well. I've changed my diet even more. I've changed how I exercise, and I'm changing how I think. I'll share more about all of those changes in future posts, but the bottom line is that I'm making lots of changes. I'm also trying to stop giving a set of scans so much power and start to reclaim my own power. After all, does it really matter what the scans say?What good is a clean scan if I feel lousy? How I feel is what really matters in the day to day.
And I feel pretty great. I hope you do too. If not, I hope you can see that you have the power to effect change in your own life. I will not sit here and pretend that it is easy. It's not. Some days I really just want to curl up by the fire and not go out in the cold for that walk. Some days, I really, really want to eat that chocolate covered doughnut. Some days, meditating for 5 minutes feels like painful hours. But I'm learning that it is the hard things that make us grow. It's the challenges we overcome that make us feel strong. We just have to stay focused on the direction we want to go and keep trying and keep on doing the hard work.
Change does happen. Things do get easier. We do get stronger. We just have to decide to do it.
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