May You Try Again

I saw a meme yesterday which read; “for those of you that said that 2019 was your year, how’s it working out for you so far?”

The month of May always feels like a reset button for me. A beginning of a new quarter. Hence this question came at an opportune time.

“How is it working out for you?”

As for me, I’m casually going through anxiety. You see, for the past month (or two) for some lazy reason I had selective amnesia. I comfortably forgot that my intention for 2019 is to lose weight and get in shape. It seems I’ve let myself go. My low point: my cousin came to visit, she greeted me with the usual African-fat shaming-greeting, “ you’ve been eating neh?!” A very cruel way of saying I’ve gained weight. The nerve! I almost threw her out. But you know…family…*rolls eyes*.

Her unsolicited (rude) comment was the wake-up call I badly needed. So here I am, at the beginning of May pretending it’s the 1st of January all over again.

Truth be told I almost begun making excuses, not wanting to start on the 1st of May, as it fell smack bang in the middle of the week. “Which insane person starts anything in the middle of the week?!”, said my Sabotaging self. For a long while I was negotiating with myself; “let me start with a brand new week. I can’t do this in the middle of the week, on a public holiday even.” All valid “reasons”. Those valid reasons are the same one’s that led to…. “ you’ve been eating…neh?!”

NO more!

So maybe you’re like me and fell of a horse, or maybe after multiple failed attempts, this time around you were too discouraged to even try, you didn’t even bother to get on any horse at all. But I hope you and I have the courage to fight the good fight.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. -Thomas A. Edison

As for me, I woke-up at 4am yesterday (yes on a public holiday…the lunacy..the torture). I hit the gym, worked my lil’ heart-out. I hated every minute of it (I felt like a bag of ‘out of shape’ potatoes). But that’s alright, they say it usually gets worse before it gets better…you just gotta keep at it.

________________________________________________________________

Here is an interesting TED talk that’s helping me in my journey:
Psychiatrist Judson Brewer studies the relationship between mindfulness and addiction — from smoking to overeating to all those other things we do even though we know they’re bad for us. Learn more about the mechanism of habit development and discover a simple but profound tactic that might help you beat your next urge to smoke, snack or check a text while driving.

~Sibongile Tshabalala