Self Love ....

I was out sick for sometime coming from my brief vacation in Manila in December.  Whatever bug it was really got me good.

The downtime, however, gave me a chance to reflect where I am at in my personal goals. What came up to me was that I get to learn how to love myself first — meaning, take care and love myself before I can truly look outward and take care of others.  SELF LOVE!

What is self-love?  I am sure if you Google it, you will find a lot of definitions and examples of what it may mean.  I did not want to do that.  I wanted to define it the way I perceive and feel it.

This is the reason why I went to the gym for the first time in years. I hate going to the gym but I get to be serious; forget the word HATE. There was a time that I enrolled and prepaid a 3-year gym membership and only went 3 times. Pathetic, I know. This time I have no excuses. Gym is just across the parking garage of our office. My trainer is very supportive and promised to be on my case so I don’t slack off.

I really thought I was in a fairly good shape but for the paunch that I carry around like a bloated frog. I was wrong. First 15 minutes, I thought I would pass out. Maybe it was the excitement of being back to the gym; maybe because I was sick the previous days; or for whatever reason, I realized that I am overweight, out of shape, and fat.  I gotta take care of my body.  As the saying goes, "mens sana in corpore sano."  A healthy mind in a healthy body.

How else do I practice self-love?  Keeping my apartment spick and span is one thing I can do.  Remove the clutter.  Put away unnecessary stuff that I don't need or never use at all.

Straightening my finances. Though I managed to get myself debt-free, I still have expenses that I could trim that are deemed wasteful like my subscription to Vonage which I barely use!

Why do I think that I will succeed this time?  What is different this time?

Well, I got the support of my fellow GOALIES!

I will explain what the GOAL GETTIN' GROUP is in my next blogs.

Lead with your heart ....

In my transformational training, I learned about "Get out of your head and into your heart. Lead with your heart".  I did not fully comprehend what these words meant.  I always wondered how that is possible.  Working with computers, I am trained to be logical.  If stuff does not compute, it is not worth the effort.

Recently, I realized what it meant.  One night, I did not feel like going to the gym.  I promised myself to go every night after work  but my head said: "Why do you have to go to the gym?  Why punish yourself?  It is sweat and pain.  Go drink beer and be with your friends.  Better yet, lay on your sofa and watch TV.  It is much cozy and warm on it with a cold beer in hand."

I previously declared self-love.  Meaning, I get to do what is good for me -- in thought, in deeds, in any choice I make.  I get to love myself.

And so my heart reminded me of my declaration.  My heart wins!

The following Sunday, I had all the reasons (excuses) not to attend my GOAL GETTIN' meeting.  I was in auto mode.  My head was saying, go to the movies, go see the football playoffs on TV.  Pressure was on!

My body was moving, getting into the car and what do you know, my heart took me to Pasadena for my meeting with friends.  My heart after all was with them.

I am getting the hang of this.  "Lead with your heart ...."  Yeah!