self esteem

When you believe it, you’ll see it

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“Watching for things” is one of my favorite leisure activities. When we’re driving through Florida, I watch the roadside ponds and ditches for signs of alligators. When I’m at the beach, I watch for dolphins. I excitedly point and take photos when the ‘gators and dolphins make their appearances. My family is rarely as excited as I am, but they humor me by participating in the excitement.

I’ll admit that I may, from time to time, watch for ‘gators and dolphins here in Ohio, even knowing that such creatures would not survive here in Ohio. My husband will see me, apparently deep in thought, looking out the window on a long drive. “What are you thinking?” he will ask. He just shakes his head when I reply, “I’m looking for alligators.”

I stop on my run to watch the waves on Lake Erie for signs of dolphins, too. I have yet to see one, nor a mermaid, but a girl can dream…

It wasn’t so many years ago that bald eagles were unheard of here in Northeast Ohio. I’ve lived here nearly my entire life. The first time that I saw a bald eagle in nature was in Alaska in 2007. It was a remarkable sight. I saw them again, a year later, on a trip to Florida (and I saw ‘gators, too!) Several years ago, I heard that several pairs (of eagles, not ‘gators) had established nests in Ohio. I began to watch the skies and the trees for eagles. I had a long wait.

One day, on a drive from Cleveland to Toledo, it happened. I saw two bald eagles perched side by side in a tall tree by the side of the highway. I could hardly wait to tell my husband that it had happened, at long last. Once I saw them that first time, I began watching in earnest. Now, several years later, their population has grown, and I see them at least weekly, and often more frequently, on my daily drive near the shores of Lake Erie.

Now, I watch the birds soaring overhead for white heads and tails. I can differentiate between a soaring hawk and a bald eagle by the shape of the head, or the angle of the wings when it is too high overhead to see the color of its feathers. Eagle spotting is one of my favorite ways to pass the time on my commute. I know I’m going to have a good day when I see an eagle on my way to work.

I recently told my husband that I see eagles often now, and it makes me happy every time that I spot one. I learned that he rarely sees eagles. I asked, “do you watch for them?” He told me that he doesn’t look for eagles, and I have decided that’s why he never sees eagles!

Last year we rented a pair of kayaks and took them out on a beautiful fall day on a nearby reservoir where there were dozens of other people in kayaks and small boats. As we paddled back to the kayak return, a young man in a boat with several other “youngsters” playfully asked, “did you see any alligators out there?” I quipped back, “Not yet, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there,” and gave him a knowing look.

Now that I’ve learned to like kayaking, I’m not sure that I want to see alligators in Ohio. As far as I know, there’s nothing local that will eat me, and I rather like it that way.

You do not succeed by picturing yourself failing. It’s been four years since I last attempted (and finished) a half marathon. On my first attempt, I started the race with a belief that I couldn’t do it, and I proved myself right. On my second attempt I took a different approach. I envisioned myself crossing the finish line every time I finished a training run. I saw myself (in my purple and black tutu), crossing the RunDisney finish line, and when the time came to run the race, I never believed that I could fail.

Diamond Dallas Page (DDP), started me on a voyage that gave me the strength and confidence that I needed to shed 130 pounds before crossing that finish line says, “whether you believe you can, or believe you can’t, you’re right.” With that in mind, I believe that I can cross the finish line in a full marathon. I will do it. Failure is not an option. That said, I’ve chosen one without a time limit.

Once upon a time, I never looked to the sky believing that I would see bald eagles, and alas, I didn’t see them, even when they were probably there. I will probably stop looking for alligators outside of Florida, because I really don’t think I want to encounter one at Old Woman’s Creek or Sheldon Marsh. I saw a mink running across a log on my last run, though, and I don’t believe that I’m likely to be eaten by a mink, so I will start watching for them, as well.

There could, one day, be fresh water dolphins, and as I’m not likely to be eaten by one, I believe that I’ll keep watching the waves near shore for them, whether I’m in Sarasota or Vermilion, watching the ocean or Lake Erie because I believe that when you believe it, you’ll see it.

What is Success, Anyway?

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I had the great pleasure of meeting some wonderful people on a recent trip to Colorado.  One of them felt like a “new old friend” – one of those people who for no readily-apparent reason I just instantly like and can talk with easily, as if meeting with an old friend.

Like me, she’s had setbacks, including painful injuries.  while admittedly, I don’t know all that much about her, but she is smart, pretty, and has accomplished a lot in her trips around the sun.  She told me, quietly, that she doesn’t think she’s successful.  I asked her, “what does it mean to be successful?

She told me that she’d have to think about it.   It told her that I would, too.

Dictionary.com lists three definitions for the word “success.”

  1. the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; the accomplishment of one’s goals.
  2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
  3. a performance or achievement that is marked by success, as by the attainment of honors.

I don’t really feel that any of those definitions defines what I look at when I attempt to define “success” as it applies to me or to those who I encounter in daily life.

If I accomplish one set of goals, I may have achieved success, but am I still “successful” if I simply stop there?  Are the possession of wealth, position and honors a good measure of success, really?

Is my success as a lawyer determined by my financial gain or by the number of people whose lives I touch?  Is my success as a measured by keeping my children alive to adulthood, or must they thrive on their own in an adult world?

I didn’t feel very successful as a young adult.  I don’t know what my personal measure of success was at 28, but I do recall that I was nervous about meeting my biological grandparents because I was divorced, a single parent and overweight.  I didn’t consider that the fact that  I was employed, working hard and buying my own home may have looked like success to my grandparents.

As a 33-year-old undergraduate student, I tutored a young man in math.  I was not a top math student, but my scores were higher than his, so I learned how to solve the problems and then I taught him to solve them, too.  We both passed the class.  That was definitely a success.

My personal framework for success is evolving.  At one time, I would have deemed myself a success having received a college degree.  When I attained that goal, I was proud for a moment, but I still didn’t feel successful.    Now that I have a BA and  JD and my own law practice, I feel successful when I win an argument and I don’t feel successful when I compare my paycheck to that of a colleague working for a big firm.

Since my conversation a month ago with my new, old friend, I have put some thought into answering the question of, “what is success?”

I’ve trained for two half-marathons.  In both cases, I logged hundreds of miles in training.  I did not finish my first attempt.  I did finish my second attempt.  Was I a failure the first time and a success the second time?  If “success” is measured by completing a race, then that is the case.  Although I felt momentarily defeated when I was “swept” from the course on that first attempt, I was proud of having successfully completed a training program, losing a bunch of weight, and gaining a lot of self-confidence.  I overcame a lot of obstacles in order to chalk up that failure.  Overall, that experience, and the fire it lit under me to finish the next time was definitely a contributing factor to my later “success.”

Speaking of that weight – I still have a sizeable amount to release.  am I a success for having lost over 100 lbs and keeping most of it off, or must I reach that elusive “goal weight” to be a success in the health arena?  Do my A1C, resting heart rate and blood pressure measurements contribute to success?

I’m very much a success story in some arenas.  In other areas, I’m a desperate failure.  I choose not to focus on those because I can only fix one or two things at a time.

One person who reads my musings may call me a “thought leader.”  Another recently told me I was full of Bull***t.  Guess which one I listened to (and then look back at the space between my blog posts in recent months…)

For today, I will define “success” as living a life consistent with my values.  That’s a higher bar than one would think some days.

What is “success”?  Do you feel successful?  What will it take for you to feel like a success?  Leave em a comment.  Let’s have a conversation.

Who are You Going to Listen To?

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Here’s a quick recap for those of you who don’t really know me or have lost touch.  I got hurt badly in a fall just before law school.  Already significantly overweight before law school, the injury, horrible diet (can you say free pizza?) and hours and hours of studying coupled with a completely sedentary lifestyle added up to a middle-aged woman who was not just morbidly obese – I was “super obese.”

Some years later, through changes in diet, DDP Yoga (check it out – it’s amazing) and putting on a pair of running shoes for the first time in my life, I lost over 100 pounds.

My Facebook feed was full of photos of the meals I prepared and notifications from Nike Running Club that I was going for a run.  When people “liked” my post, the app would cheer.  It was really motivating!  I attempted a half marathon in 2015 and was “swept” at mile 8 (I couldn’t maintain the minimum pace).  I didn’t give up.  I was training for a “rematch” with the same half marathon course when I read a Facebook post written by a law school classmate who I considered a close friend.

I don’t remember the exact words, but the gist of the post was that people who aren’t serious athletes shouldn’t post about their workouts – that we just are attention seekers and our “friends” don’t really care about our workouts.  Especially guilty were those of us who enter a competition and fail to complete it.  I was devastated.  He didn’t write my name, but I was all of those things.  I did manage to finish the 2016 half marathon attempt (just barely), but afterward, I lost my mojo.  I would run a few times a month, but I never got back into a predictable schedule.

I stopped posting, so I lost the “cheers.”  I stopped running, so I lost the endorphins that exercise releases.  I started eating potato chips again.  Life took some really tough turns, and instead of going for a run to ease the anxiety, I turned back to food.  Over time, I packed on nearly 50 pounds of weight.

As a self-employed person, my health insurance premiums became really expensive.  I switched from traditional health insurance to a health share plan, and in order to be approved, I had to agree to work with a health coach.  He doesn’t tell me what to do.  He helps me to set goals, and when we check in every week or so, he asks me how I did.  With his help, I’ve dropped 30 pounds.

I’ve missed running.  I’m very slow, so running any distance requires a significant time commitment for me.  My “homework” from my coach a couple of months ago was to sign up for a race.  I signed up for the Cleveland Rite-Aid Marathon Weekend 5K / 10K Challenge which was held this weekend (May 19-20, 2018).  The “overachiever” in me couldn’t just sign up for the 5K.  I had earned 3 medals in 2016 for completing a challenge, so registered for both the 5K and 10K and I set out to repeat that feat.

Here in Ohio, the weather has been miserable.  To top it off, my left foot has decided to grow some benign, but uncomfortable “lumps.”  These two factors combined to make a very serviceable excuse to skip training runs.  I skipped lots of them.  Basically, I didn’t train – I just ran a couple of times when the weather was nice.

I checked the weather forecast mid-week.  Saturday and Sunday were supposed to be stormy.  I ran the 5K / 10K in 2016 when Cleveland had sleet, hail and thundersnow (yes, that’s a real thing) in mid-May.  I nearly didn’t pick up my race packet.

By Friday morning, the forecast had improved.  The forecast showed clear windows for both races.  I posted about not being ready and about my food hurting, and a running friend (an ultramarathoner, no less) encouraged me to join the ranks of the injured and undertrained and do it anyway – so I did.

Saturday was the 5K.  I did really well.  I ran the fastest 5K I’ve run since I started running again.  I was stoked.  Sunday, I arrived at the start and it started raining.  I very nearly turned back, got on the train and made my way back to my car.  The voice of my “friend” was back in my head.  I was going to finish near the very back of the pack.  I hadn’t made it to anywhere near 6 miles in my training runs, and to be honest, other than yesterday’s 5K, I had only run once or twice in the past month.

I was just about to allow my “friend’s” imaginary voice that was telling me that I did not belong on the course to persuade me to return to the car when another  law school classmate saw me and talked to me for quite some time.  He was running his first race.  That brief conversation gave me a minute to chase the other classmate out of my head.

I was sore from the 5K.  I held back the first half of the race because I knew that I was under-trained and I was virtually certain to run out of steam.  I was fine until about mile 4.5 when we had to climb a really steep hill.  I was really tired.  I wasn’t in pain, but it was hard to make my feet go faster than a slow walk.  My pace had dropped, and that guy’s voice in my head was working on me again – “You didn’t train for this.  Nobody cares about your posts.  Nobody cares about your run.  You’re a fake!”

I was discouraged.  I felt like crying when a voice cried, “Betty!”  Yet another law school classmate stopped in the middle of her own race to grab me and wrap me in a hug.  Take that, “mean guy.”  People do care.

The last mile and a half was slow, but I didn’t care.  I was soaked to the skin (the rain never did completely stop) and out of energy, but I had a grin on my face that nobody could erase.  I crossed the bridge over the Cuyahoga River that was just before the finisher’s chute.  I collected my medal.  I found my way to the tent where I received another medal for the completing two races in one weekend, and ran into yet another law school classmate.  She cared, too.

This is a long, long story.  The moral of the story is be careful who you allow as a “tenant” in your head.  Nearly every time I post on social media about a run or a race, I receive a whole bunch of “likes,” which I translate as a positive thing.  Maybe it *is* attention seeking, but if that little reward keeps me on the track or trail, I think it’s worth it.  Anyone who is not interested has the power to block, unfollow or simply “mute” me on social media.

I allowed one post by someone who was probably going through his own issues YEARS ago to be an excuse not to do things that are good for me.  Even sadder, that same guy wrote a post a couple of months ago apologizing to his social media friends for basically being a jerk a couple of years ago.  Months later, I was still allowing his years-old post to be my excuse for not trying.

I ran more than 9.3 miles this weekend, most of them in a cold, miserable rain.  I didn’t use an app that “cheered” me, but I received live, in person love from people I haven’t seen in person in years.  I collected 3 medals to hang from the cane that I used to need to hobble around my law school.  Most importantly, I’ve issued an eviction notice to the imaginary “friend” in my head because I don’t want to renew his lease.  It’s time for him to go.

The announcer at the race said that 15,000 people were registered for today’s events.  The fact that I found three people I knew, some at just the right moment to keep me from “throwing in the towel,” and one to share my joy in having finished went beyond coincidence.  I believe in miracles, friendship and a bit ‘o luck.  Today I experienced all three.

To all of the people who have told me that I am an inspiration and the reason they started doing something hard – whether it was going back to school or exercising – even running: I’m back.  Being told that you’re an inspiration can be uncomfortable.  I wonder why people say that sometimes because I am so imperfect.  Perhaps it is that very imperfection that inspires.  I get back up time and time again.  It’s okay to stumble.  It’s okay to lose your way from time to time.  Finding your way back to the path  is what matters.  Thank you for believing in me when I stopped believing in myself.

To the friend who accidentally found his way into my head:  I didn’t write this to call you out.  It looks like your life today is going in a fantastic direction.  I miss you and I’m proud of you….I just don’t want you in my head anymore.  Okay?

The moral of the story is:  when you have to choose between listening to people who love you and want you to succeed and people who are going through a hard time and complaining about something they don’t like on social media, choose wisely!

Peace out, I’m going to go hang up my medals!

~Be~

 

My Secret Weapon

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This morning as I was preparing for a contested court hearing, I couldn’t help but miss my mom.  Mom was my “secret weapon.”  She was proud when I became a lawyer.  She always asked about my work.  I didn’t give her much detail, but I told her about the kinds of cases I was working on.  “I represent a mom in a nasty divorce,” or “I’m a guardian ad litem for 3 kids who love both of their parents.”  Sometimes it was “I have a bankruptcy hearing and my client is really scared,” or even, “the attorney on the other side yells a lot and it makes me anxious.”  Mom never asked for more details.  She just said, “that sounds like hard work, but it’s important and I know you’re making a difference.”

The night before my very first contested hearing, I called Mom and told her that I was nervous.  I didn’t really know what was going to happen.  I was afraid of looking unprepared and making a fool out of myself as well as doing a bad job for my client.

Mom asked me what time my hearing was.  She told me she was going to pray that my hearing would go smoothly.  My hearing didn’t go perfectly, but it did go smoothly.  I didn’t feel anxious or nervous.  I asked the right questions.  All-in-all it was a great success.   My client ended up with a good result, and I gained confidence.

I called mom that night to tell her that the hearing had gone well.  She answered, “I knew it would.  I prayed.”  We have had many of those “night before a hearing” conversations over the past seven years.  She said a lot of prayers for people she didn’t know, and I had a lot of hearings that went smoothly, where I didn’t feel nervous and didn’t make a complete fool of myself.

I’m not claiming to have had divine intervention in my cases – but I can’t recall ever having a hearing go badly when my mom was praying.  Mom’s prayers were my “secret weapon.”  Mom believed in me, and knowing that she believed that I was “making a difference” gave me confidence.    I want to be the kind of lawyer that my mom believed I am.  Sometimes prayer changes things from the inside.

 

The Wo[man] in the Mirror

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I’ve never had a good relationship with my mirror.  It shows the wrinkles, the stray hairs, gray hairs, and flaws in my physique.  In the mirror, everything is backwards to me.  Because I’m used to seeing only my reflection, photographs look off to me.  My hair is parted on the wrong side. I just look a little different.

Truth be told, I don’t like many photographs of myself either – for much the same reason as I don’t like my mirror much.

This past week, though, I had an unusual experience – I saw myself in the mirror and I LIKED what I saw.  In fact, I liked what I saw so much that I took a picture of myself.  I took that picture and placed it side-by-side with a picture of myself near my heaviest weight.  I even had my husband take photos of myself from every angle.  

Looking at that comparison, I saw, for the first time, the remarkable changes that have taken place during my journey thus far.  I realized that because I tend to avoid mirrors and looking at full length photos of myself, I have a skewed self-image.

In the shower, I see the way the skin sags and the remaining fat rolls.  I see each part in isolation.  Although I live my life in this miraculous machine – my body – because I’m am in the inside looking out, I do not see myself as others see me.

I shared one of those comparison pictures on a facebook group for members of DDP Yoga with thousands of members.  It even showed my tummy, but I was so thrilled that I didn’t care.  I didn’t worry about judgment.  I knew the people in that community would be supportive.

Comment after comment referred to my transformation as “inspirational,” and I resolved, in that moment, to try to see myself as others see me.  

This week, a wall of mirrors went up in my workout room – my “fortress of solitude.”  I look at the woman in the mirror.  She has skinny collarbones, and I can see a hint of definition around her abs.  She smiles at me – and I smile back.