Back to School!

Today I returned to school!  Yay me!  LOL

It is funny how at 44 years old I forgot how the back-to-school jitters feel, but I experienced them fully yesterday at our Orientation mixer and again today at our Graduate School Orientation!

As I looked around the room at the 80-or-so Graduate Students in the room I realized something.  I realized that THEY probably felt like ME and that, really, no one is immune to the back-to-school jitters!

We are all just people!  And there was nothing, absolutely NOTHING to be afraid of, or nervous about.

Sure this is a "status" change for me, in that I now have a bonifide Arizona State University Student ID card (AGAIN LOL!), and I am embarking on "the next challenge" for me which deals with my personal growth.  But I can HANDLE this!  I can DO this!  I will succeed and I will accomplish what I have set out to do, because I have made the decision to DO it.

It is much like our health journey.  We see something we want to accomplish and we MOVE TOWARD it.  We CREATE what we want!  Seemingly out of thin air.

But it isn't out of thin air, it is rooted in our deepest-held dreams and our deepest-held priorities and is simply an extension of who we are and who we WANT to be.

You see, I didn't enter this Master's Program because I felt like I NEEDED to.  I didn't enter this Master's Program because I thought I HAD to.  I wasn't ESCAPING something NEGATIVE that was in my life and trying to move AWAY from something that was UNCOMFORTABLE or causing me emotional PAIN AND CONFLICT. 

I entered this Master's Program because I want to continue to organize my life around what matters most to me. 

The Master's Program is a Master of Science in Obesity Prevention and Management.  I have a passion in this area, because I lived for SO long in the chains of Clinical Morbid Obesity and I saw that the life I was living in that condition was SO FAR REMOVED from the life I WANTED to live, the live I so DESIRED to live but the life that had SO FAR eluded me living 20+ years as a morbidly obese adult. 

In that creating optimal health in my life was borne out of a desire to bring AWESOME things INTO my life as a result of getting healthy, so embarking on my journey to obtain my Master's degree is borne out of a desire to CONTINUE becoming the person I want to be. 
I am she, I am continuing to BECOME her even more every day.
I have all the tools I need in Take Shape For Life, Master's degree or no, to live IN health and help others do the same.  The MS after my name isn't a necessary component for me, but I am taking this opportunity to immerse myself even more in a local community where I can make a difference.  Where I can make connections with like-minded people and show THEM what works, because let's face it, the Academic world and Health Professionals need hope too!  They have been stuck in the world of statistics and a "problem solving" orientation which, frankly, hasn't translated to real-world results in the long-term.  I intend to show them things CAN be different for anyone who makes a fundamental decision for health.  It will be a lesson in time-management to balance my full-time career with my classes.  But I can do it.

Here's the thing I want everyone, including myself to remember.  And I need to remind myself of this almost daily.  THERE will be times I don't feel capable. THERE will be times I feel like Eeyore, and get down on myself, and view things through an Eeyore filter.  I'm not immune to it.  The same fears of inadequacy and the same questions of "do I really have what it takes to create optimal health in my life" still do seep in on occasion.  It is at those times I have two choices.  I can BELIEVE those thoughts, and focus on the difficulties of accomplishing my dreams, and reap the consequences of giving up, OR I can press forward in confidence that the part of me which has the bulldog-never-give-up tenacity CAN do whatever I set my mind on doing.  The only questions that are really pertinent are:

Is it physically possible to do?

YES.

Am I willing to do what it takes to make it a reality for ME?

YES.

So, dear friends, I will be embarking on this journey in FAITH, because I don't have to believe in myself 100% of the time, I only have to believe in myself ENOUGH to show up, do the work, and give it my best.

And those moments where my faith in myself of my abilities waver I just know enough about myself to know NOT TO MAKE ANY decisions or changes in course when I'm in the Eeyore Mindset. 

I hope that makes sense.  I don't have everything about everything figured out but I DO know that about myself, that the decisions I make that are rooted in hope and optimism and the actions I take based on those decisions are things that move me TOWARD my goals.  The decisions I make in an Eeyore mentality don't.  THOSE decisions, if I act on them, move me to a place I don't want to be, move me farther from my health goals and my life goals.

So when you hear Eeyore, send him home. 

I choose to be a Tigger.