Well its done, I did it. I took the final plunge and I’m nearly ready to enjoy life again. Saturday I got my second shot and in two weeks I will be 95% immune. Maybe more since it was nearly two full months between shots. I’ve reacted well for the most part. My arm was sore, but all of Saturday I felt fine. Sunday and today I’m  just dragging ass. I slept through most of Sunday and at this moment as I type I’m fighting to keep my eyes open.

Every muscle in my body feels like rubber. I would spend today in bed as well, but I have a lot of work to get done. I’ve fallen a little behind on my word count for #DarknessLooms book one in The Young Chronicles.

The good news is that Meredith is finished and has been through the editing stages twice now. It will be ready for release by November 2021.

On the health and fitness front, well this past week has been a struggle. I’ve been having headaches and overall not feeling well. Then of course the shot on Saturday and yesterday were both no goes. So it has been about three days since I have worked out. Today no matter how much I’m dragging I must get in my day 27 of the Morning Meltdown 100.

This has been the longest streak for me in months for workouts and Friday I was starting to feel my old habits creep in on me. The self-talk of giving up, that it’s getting too hard and I just don’t want to do it anymore. The little voice is fighting hard to keep me in place. It’s a constant struggle.

It’s fascinating how the brain really works. It doesn’t like to do hard things, doesn’t like to be challenged. I promise you that there isn’t one person on this blue marble floating in space that doesn’t have that little voice. Some are extremely good at quieting it and moving past the struggle to not be challenged and others not so much.

I believe when we are able to fight back that voice and achieve all those difficult and challenging tasks makes those victories so much sweeter. I stand taller, I feel better both mentally and physically, and I feel like I can take on the world. When we let that voice win, when we give in and not try is where our depression and anxiety come from.

I know when I was suffering from depression that voice was the only voice I could hear. It screamed in my ear about staying where I was, that nothing was worth working toward because I would never succeed. I wouldn’t gain followers, people don’t want to hear from me anyway, readers don’t want to read my work. I was worthless.

These words, this self-talk, that little voice pushed me deeper and deeper into a depression I thought I was going to be lost to. Forever. It scared me; I knew I needed to pull myself through what I was suffering. To this day I still struggle to stay out of that state. That voice is strong, it’s what makes me not want to work out, it makes me not want to write, not want to talk to friends. Right now it’s telling me to just forget about this post, because no one is reading it anyway.

It’s a tricky thing, it’s ugly, and it’s a part of all of us. It sneaks up behind us and hits us in the back of the head and we seldom see it coming. Other times it a slow motion punch in the face, you see it coming but just can’t get out of the way.

For me, right now in this minute the voice is so loud because I’m tired. But I’m tired because of the side effects of the second shot, nothing more. But it’s the perfect opportunity for the voice to sneak in.

So for me, I have to push past and ignore the voice today. I must take everything I have to get not just my work done, but my workout as well.

So to that I say:

Suck it little voice, I am fierce like a lion and I will take on the world! (Then take a nap like a baby kitten, cause dang...shot two is no joke!)

Stay Safe, Stay Healthy, Love Always, and Follow your Bliss!

I had to check when it was that I posted last. It’s supposed to be twice a month but it appears I haven’t posted since April. I’ve fallen a little behind on my tasks this month.

On my health and fitness front, well I don’t want to jinx it, but if you’ve been following my Instagram you would know that I’m documenting everything daily anyway. Today will be day 15/100 of the Morning Meltdown 100 on Beachbody on Demand. It’s still a bit of a struggle and fight to get to the workout, but it just speeds by while I’m doing it and I’m always happy when it’s done.

My knees are posing a bit of a problem when it comes to doing any floor work, but I did some research and have found an alternative. I’ve been trying to modify the modifiers in the program but it just wasn’t working. I’m hoping this solution, that I found on a yoga site will help. If I can’t find an alternative soon I’m going to be horribly uneven, where the front of my legs will be strong, but my back will be super weak.

It’s in those moments when I can’t do the exercise because my knees hurt too much that makes me want to quit. There are a lot of squats and variations of squats and of course lunges and that can be extremely difficult as well. I find myself in a great deal of discomfort when trying to keep the pace. So I do probably half the amount of reps because of it. This all makes me want to stop because the negative self-talk roles in and the feelings of uselessness and failure runs through my mind.

It’s said that it can take up to six weeks to develop healthy habits, it’s been two. It’s also said that for every bad thing said to you, it takes at least twenty good to erase the damage. That includes what we say to ourselves. It can be a hard habit to break, everyone does it. We achieve a goal but instead of celebrating it, we say things like, “It’s not that big of deal, I’m sure others have done better.” “I could have finished faster if I just tried harder.”

Why do we do this? My guess is because most of our lives, and I’m speaking from a woman’s viewpoint, we are told that if we boast about our success’s we are arrogant, if we fight for what we want, we’re bitches. So most women don’t celebrate the greatness that not only what they achieved but of the greatness of who they are. They let others tell us who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to see ourselves.

Not pretty enough, not sexy enough, not skinny enough, not smart enough, not funny enough, not fit enough, not talented enough. These are the words that run through my mind almost every day. These are the negative words that I struggle to replace with “I am pretty, sexy, smart, funny, and talented.” Yes, I know I left out skinny and fit. I am neither of those, but it’s not negative talk. It’s just a plain fact and its okay because I’m working on getting to a better me. And truly that’s all that matters.

I’m going to end it here for today. There isn’t much to discuss on the writing front. The Meredith short story is running through its final edits and will be released to subscribers of my newsletter in November 2021. Darkness Looms will be going to beta’s in July, 2021 and will be going on pre-order around November, its release date set for March of 2022.

So that is it, that is all I have, all she wrote, I now have to go do day 15 of mm100!

Stay Safe, Stay Healthy, Love Always, and Follow your Bliss.