Happy New Year!
After ringing in 2019 with friends last night, I planned to spend and have spent the day lounging in my apartment watching the third and final season of the Netflix adaption of Series of Unfortunate Events. (It’s good. It’s over. I’m fighting off the melancholy of finishing a good story with country music and writing).
I wrote about my word for 2019 already (Create) but I wanted to give a proper salute and reflection to my word for 2018: Rhythm.
Thinking back to the end of 2017, I couldn’t say exactly why I picked Rhythm as my word. I know I was seeking more routine and balance. I had just a joined a gym in early December and was committing (mentally and financially) to spend time with a personal trainer three times a week. I had purchased a Best Self journal with my friend and coworker (Ashley) and we had decided to spend the first quarter of the year diligently setting goals and tracking habits. All in all, I think I wanted to feel like I had some control over the beats of my day to day again.
I didn’t set specific long-term goals – I wasn’t really ready for that yet. I wrote the word Rhythm on the whiteboard in my room and kept it up as an aspirational reminder to how I wanted to feel all year.
Now that 2018 has closed, I don’t know what better word I could have chosen. I do feel like I’ve created a rhythm and balance in my life that has given me a foundation to create the life I want. On reflection, there are two cornerstones to my year of Rhythm: Meditation and Health & Fitness.
Meditation
I had done some meditation before this past year – on and off. In 2015, at the urging of a few coworkers, I read The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. It’s all about how your morning routine can change your life with these six habits: silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, and scribing. For a spell, I did my own version of Miracle Morning and the first habit – silence – meant trying out meditation.
Until then, I had thought meditation wasn’t for me (I remember judging my friend for trying it out in high school and when a therapist told me about it I had just politely nodded my head). But I had read the book because I was looking for any habits that could snap me out of a depression and I was ready to take any advice.
I used (and still use) the app Headspace for guided meditations. The app starts you off with foundational packs to teach you about meditation and how to go through the exercise. To my surprise, I liked meditation. And since 2015 I’ve meditated on and off – going long stretches without doing any and then a 90 day period of doing it every day. The app keeps track of your meditation streak and you get badges for your progress. I’m a sucker for a gold star.
At the start of
Some days I meditated for 15 minutes, some days for only one minute. Some days I did it first thing in the morning, some days I did it last thing before I went to sleep. I did it distractedly and imperfectly but I did it every damn day.
And it has mattered – I find myself remembering to breathe in tough moments, to name my thoughts and feelings more often when I’m about to spiral and to be okay with the quiet. Meditating every day was a small and important contributor to my year of Rhythm.
I’m planning to keep meditation as a daily part of my life. I highly recommend the Headspace app for anyone interested in trying it out.
Health & Fitness
In early December 2017, I had one of those lightning bolt days where I knew I had to move my body more. I had spent the fall studying for my Professional Human Resources (PHR) certification and generally doing little else but working and studying and rewarding myself for long days with unhealthy food and a couple of glasses of wine before bed. I got the certification, but it was obvious to me I wasn’t taking care of my body.
I articulated to myself right away that I wasn’t doing this to lose weight; I just wanted to feel strong and energetic again. I had struggled with body image in the past and had intentionally cultivated r
I looked up fitness clubs close to my apartment and my office – LA Fitness was closest – and went there after work the same day to sign up for a membership and some personal training. I knew I needed a kick in the ass to get me in the routine … plus I really didn’t know how to use most of the machines in the gym or what exercises I should be doing to build muscle. Before I just ran on the treadmill.
For the year, I met with a trainer in the morning three times a week. It sucked at first, but it also felt right. I noticed I had more energy on the days where I worked out and I could see myself getting stronger. Having the one-on-one accountability kept me in the routine of going three times a week, no matter what. The times I had to cancel last minute were few: a morning I woke up sick, a morning where my car wouldn’t start, and one morning where I really did oversleep.
Working out more frequently also gave me the confidence to start playing Volleyball again. I joined a social league (Austin Sports & Social) with some coworkers in the summer and immediately fell back in love. After the work league ended I joined again on my own with a group of random individuals – none of us knew each other but six months and three seasons later we’re still playing together once a week.
I had a hiccup to my fitness goals in September – I had plateaued with my personal training. I didn’t feel like I was getting stronger and my weight hadn’t changed in a long time. Again, losing weight wasn’t my original goal but it was discouraging to feel like I had made a lot of changes where I couldn’t see results.
My trainer pointed out what I had been trying to ignore all along: I needed to change what I was eating. He told me to download the MyFitnessPal app and track my food daily – the app helps you create a calorie deficit to lose weight, but truly just gives you more awareness of what you consume each day.
I downloaded and began tracking my food that day. I also made a commitment to add some more cardio to my routine. I had run and hiked throughout the year but hadn’t been consistent. LA Fitness has a plethora of free classes for members so I started going, specifically to Zumba and Kickboxing Cardio. A few months later and I’ve tried most of the classes – from cycling to boot camp conditioning – and continue to do Zumba and Kickboxing.
I still track my food every day (with built in occasional cheat days) and have kept up with my strength training even though my time with my trainer has ended. I lost twenty pounds since September, but more importantly, I feel strong and at home in my body.
Other Beats
Meditation and Health & Fitness were certainly the main beats of my year of Rhythm and they became keystone habits for me. For example, my sleeping habits got miles better this year because I was exercising and it was easier to go to sleep each night (plus I frequently did sleep meditations). I also drank less, killing a bad habit from the past years to drink on weekdays, since I had to get up to exercise in the mornings.
When I saw warning signs of a depressive episode, keeping my meditation and fitness habits helped pull me out of it faster. Having silent reflection and exercising helped get me out of my head long enough to use some coping skills. I also felt fiercely protective of the habits and life I was building this last year – I think it made me more fearless in dealing with tough situations that I would usually let drag me down and fester for a long time. Instead, I would say or do the tough thing sooner . . . I had a routine to get back to, dammit. Let’s move on.
Moving my office and my apartment threw out old routines and introduced new rhythms in my life. I struggle with change but I’ve tried to embrace it more this year. Some friendships got deeper, some relationships faded, some days I was content, and some days I still struggled to feel like myself at all. This wasn’t the best year. But it was better. And better is best.
With love,
Natalie
