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Two Months From Today

/ Sloan / 3 Comments

If all goes as planned I will be embarking on the biggest adventure of my life, thus far. I will be arriving in Bangkok, Thailand for my teach abroad orientation. I have made a one-semester commitment to teach English in the Kamphaeng Phet Province. So currently I am working and working and working really hard to earn enough money to pay for program fees, plane tickets, doctors appointments and vaccines.

One of my biggest goals for the adventure is to really hone in and take this blog to a new level. I plan on traveling on the weekends, running in the lush green jungles, climbing the mountains and swimming in the Ping River. This blog is meant to be a self-learning experience. I want you to read it and be inspired and go off and do your own adventuring. I want you to write to me and tell me about it, I want everyone to know how great this country and this world is! Let’s discover it together.

Right now in this time of ‘getting ready’ any support you can send my way would be amazing. Positive thoughts, words of encouragement, emails of support would be amazing. I’m very excited but also really nervous about this whole thing. I will keep you all posted on my happens over the next two months and then while in Thailand I plan to take this blog to a whole new level!

 

But for today I’m headed to the Redwoods!!

Negativity

/ Sloan / 3 Comments

At the gym yesterday (I know, gym? In the summer? Believe me, when its 103 outside the gym is way better than running the streets, and mooching the a/c and watching free Olympics coverage…it was a win-win.) I was in the woman’s locker room using the restroom and notice a naked woman standing in front of the mirror alone. As I closed the door to the stall I kept my eye on her (in the least creepy way as possible) starring at herself, clearly judging body.

She was touching her belly button, noticing the curves of her breast, the stretch marks on her hips darker than the rest of her skin. Her hair still wet from the shower, she threw it behind her shoulders in frustration. Naked woman was probably in her early 40s, had enough confidence to stand completely and utterly stark naked in the middle of the gym locker room and stare herself down, yet I could see in her reflection the judgment she was passing. The hate she had for the bit of un-toned arm between her breast and armpit, she judge it and dropped her hand and her side, brushing her rounded bottom, annoyed with this action too.

Sitting on the toilette spying on this woman through the crack, I wished I could hear her inner dialogue. Suddenly she moved out of view, I finished up my business and stepped out only to hear the crash of the analogue scale being thrown back to zero. She was clearly unhappy with the weight the scale told her.

scale

This made me start to think about myself, how I view my body, how I’ve viewed my body in the past and all that negative self-talk that we all create from time to time. I remember being 11 years old and grabbing my belly crying wishing I could just some how cut off the fat. When I was 14 I figured I was going to be heavy my entire life and feeling bad about it would ‘just go away’ when I got older. As I lost weight as a 19 and 20 year old I heard older women in my life have negative self-talk about how jealous they were of my youth and ability to lose weight and how they were not feeling good in their bodies. Does this negative inner voice ever quiet itself?

How can make sure we treating our bodies, minds and souls with the respect they deserve.They are the only ones we have, so we need to keep them healthy and happy. What are you doing today to keep your body, mind, heart, soul healthy?

Just a Few More Minutes…

/ Sloan / 2 Comments

Today was one of those mornings. One of those mornings that I planned on getting up and getting to the gym early. I planned on doing walking lunges, squats, kicks…I basically planned on kicking my lower body’s ass. But today was one of those days that I woke up 10 minutes before my alarm and reset for an hour from then. Then woke up 10 minutes before that alarm and did the same thing. I struggled to get out of bed, I didn’t even make coffee right away. It was one of those mornings I could have easily stayed in bed until work beckoned and I dragged my un-showered self to go sell shoes.

 

Instead, I forced my shoes on and laced up unwillingly. I walked out my front door with sleep still in the corners of my eyes, restarted my watch and started running. If I can go for 10 minutes, I can go for 30, that was this morning’s mantra, and it worked!

 

I’ve known for awhile that I generally can force myself to get out and exercise even in the most horrible conditions: weather, sickness, injury… rarely keeps me from getting out there. Now it’s time to take this mantra and use it in other aspects of my life, other goals I have for myself. It only takes a few minutes to start something and a few more moments to keep going at it. Starting is always more than half the battle for me—finishing is easy and is just a matter of pushing through.