This is definitely something I have yet to talk about on my blog. I’ve hesitated to write this for personal reasons and I guess I just haven’t really been ready to write this post.
Until now.
Sometimes life is scary and can change suddenly. You’re pulled out of your comfort zone and asked to react.
What do you do when that happens? Most of the time, if you’re like me, you retreat or just stop because fear can be paralyzing. Fear can take over.
Or you can accept the uncomfortable. Walk with fear. And keep going.
And at that point you’ve either succeeded or you’ve made a mistake which can only lead to learning how to succeed next time. It’s a win-win situation in one form or another.
In the last 3 months my life has been flipped upside down, done a few back flips, twirls, jumping jacks (for good measure), and landed again in one piece. My life has been just a bit crazy, to say the least.
When my dad went into the hospital in early June, the doctors told us he had a week left to live. What the doctor thought was true at the time and it definitely scared us all. But doctors were able to put an experimental stent in my dad’s heart and it worked. He’s now home and he’s alive and my family and friends (and me!) are so thankful.
When that happened, I decided to leave work and drive the three hours it took to get to the hospital where my dad was admitted. I didn’t know how much time we had left with him and I wasn’t about to spend it any other place but with him. I will never regret the decision to spend time with my family, but when I left work that day there were repercussions.
Those repercussions of the two days I took off work included having my job being placed on Craigslist without any warning. I’m not going to get into the details of any of that because this blog is my happy place and that wasn’t the happiest memories. The circumstances being as they were, it was truly a blessing in disguise. I was miserable at my job. I wasn’t treated fairly and I was certainly not happy there. And yet, at my own fault, I stayed for 3 years.
Now that I’m happily personal training, blogging, recipe-making, and repairing myself from those 3 years, I’m truly able to work on myself. I feel as though I’m more alive than I have been in a long time. I’m happy (most of the time). And new and incredible things are happening. More information on that is to come but for now I’m just glad to be releasing all of this from my brain emotions fingers. I swear, typing posts are my therapy. And I love my blog for it. And I love all of you for interacting with me through my blog.
Anyway, it’s time to explain the transitions to a new life.
In the process of learning more about me and letting life come at me full force, doors opened wide and I guess you could say that I threw myself into those openings.
I’m officially working a few hours a week in the Public Safety sector. I’m the newest member to the local community college’s Fire Academy exercise training program! My job is to safely and effectively kick some fire fighters-in-training booty with strength workouts, running, sprint and core workout. I’m assisting two other instructors in getting them in [better and best] shape to pass their physical training test. Ultimately I’m helping them in their quest to become Public Safety Officers. I’m shaping fire fighters.
The 28 cadets to be trained scared the living kale out of me. Me be a teacher? But after the first day I can honestly say it was well worth the nervousness because every new step is a new and incredible learning opportunity!
Oh, and that’s not all. Meet Lori, New Member Integration and Outreach Coordinator for the prestigious gym in my area. I’m meeting new members, integrating them into the club so they feel welcome and comfortable with all that the club has to offer. I’m personal training and eventually teaching group classes (it’s only been one week since I started). I am also doing community outreach to get more businesses and people of the community healthier (or giving them the option) and doing weekend farmers market and Organic Grocer, New Earth, exercise classes.
Can I just say that I love my job. Already? YES! So far I’ve gotten to know the most incredible people and I’m already learning SO much from them. I’m getting to try out different classes the club offers and I get to develop my own class programs with the option of starting my own class series to whip gym-goers into shape. It’s a new position design with me in mind so how could I ever not be happy with it?
I’m so happy now but taking the plunge into the unknown or something different is so scary. I’ve been building myself up, my self-esteem, lately to get the point where I can do those scary things. But it’s not easy to get to this place. Practice for any area of life makes perfect as they saying goes but I think something a little more accurate might be “Practice makes change awesome”. What do you think?
Where are you lacking confidence? Where and how have you battled it?
What area of your life are you going through transitions?
(p.s. all of these pictures are from a few months ago when I hiked Half Dome, Yosemite National Park and faced that fear. It was beyond worth it.)