retaining yourself

Its not my first time writing on this subject, I have a hard time saying no. I'm a natural pleaser, a caretaker. Of late I've been working on being more careful with how I go about putting those efforts out into the world. I've realized I don't want to change who I am, I love taking care of the people around me, I just don't want to get taken advantage of by people who don't care for me back. I want to retain who I am by surrounding myself with people who get it.

Yesterday I got a text from someone who hasn't treated my particularly well asking me for a favor. It was so in my nature to just do the favor for them that I had to stop myself from responding right away and think it through. How would I feel after I did the favor? Like garbage was the answer. I would resent that I had taken my time to do something for someone who would never appreciate it or thank me. It was hard for me but I referred them to someone who would be able to help them and stepped out of the situation.

 

 

 

Now obviously that didn't work perfectly because here I am writing about it the next day. There is a part of me that is still worried that I might have been too harsh or that I should have just done the favor because it wasn't that hard for me to do. The stronger part of me knows that had I done the favor I would be upset with myself. Its a growing pain for me.

A few weeks ago I traveled with a friend to the middle of Florida for a race she was competing in. Not to sugar coat it, it was a pain in the ass to deal with. I had to sub my classes, board my dog, and spend my weekend in a podunk town. And I loved every second of it.

So what's the difference? A tiny favor for someone vs. an entire weekend away - on the surface the weekend away seems like the greater effort. The entire weekend I knew how much my friend appreciated me being there. I didn't feel for a second like I was "doing a favor" I was just hanging out with my buddy and I couldn't help but feel all the love she was sending my way.

My work is surrounding myself with people for whom giving my love and effort to, doesn't feel like work, or a favor, or an effort. I'm working on curating relationships where I can just be myself and trust that the people I have surrounded myself with are there with all the right intentions.

I hope you find the same.

Namaste, Rachel

resolve

I'm a goal setter, I love a new year's resolution. I always find that as I start to think about my resolution, or goal for next year, I look back at last year and assess what I'm leaving in my wake.

self- practice with the puppy at home

I am of the strong belief that every moment of your life is a lesson. If you choose not the learn the lesson the first time, life will let you keep repeating that experience until you learn. That can lead to moments of incredible frustration. As you've heard me say one too many times, I over commit myself. In the moments that I think I can't possibly keep all my balls in the air I have to smile and realize I'm just not learning this lesson. You might remember my goal to wait 30 minutes before comitting to anything and I'm proud to report that I have been abiding by my waiting period as well as saying no more often. So, while that would have been a perfect resolution for me, I'm just going to have to find something else.

My resolution last year wasn't too lofty, just to waste less food. I tend to buy more than I need and let food go bad and throw it out. I did a pretty good job this year of buying fewer groceries, and throwing less out in the end. In the past I've resolved to be nicer, slow down, do more yoga, and call my mom more.

leading FREEdOM Flow 

I'm in a plane right now on my way to family vacation (mind blown by technology, wifi in a plane, who knew?) and I can't help but reflect on my year as I sit in my seat. 2012 has been one of the craziest years of my life without question. I completed another yoga teacher training, started teaching at Green Monkey, painfully ended a long and amazing relationship, started my LLM in Taxation, secured my dream job for after law school, and started a brand spanking new relationship that I couldn't be more head over heels about. Just writing it all out is exausting. I am beyond brimming with gratitude for my year, but I can't help but remember (with thanks to this blog) some of the tougher moments that I have gone through this year. It's with all these changes in mind that I've been trying to work out an appropriate goal for 2013.

This upcoming year promises to be another year of change, only this time I know it's coming, where as last year I seemed to be blindsided by change. I'm looking ahead to my last (thank G-d) graduation, studying for the bar, traveling back to Israel, starting a new job, and my first trial as a big bad lawyer. So when it comes to goal setting is setting a goal for the entire year even reasonable? I think that it might not be, I'm a big fan of small digestible goals, so I'm going to go for four smaller goals.  So here they are, in cold hard ink, which means you get to hold me accountable to them, which is very very very very scary.

1. Run my second half-marathon, beat my time from the first one.
2. Master my headstand.
3. Blog more than twice a month.
4. Keep in touch with the people I love more.

I wish all of you a great finish to 2012, fill it with the people you love, tell them that, maybe even a little more than you usually would.

Namaste,
Rachel