and Happy Halloween to all!!!!!
It is hard to believe it has been 1 YEAR since I started Oh She Glows! A year really CAN change a lot.
Missed Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, or Part 7??
If anyone is looking for a last minute Halloween costume- you could go as an Operation Beautiful note! ;)
Here is the one I wrote today on my big ‘post-it’…
It’s going by the door!
One thing blogging has taught me over the past year is that being true to myself has dramatically changed my life for the better.
I realized that the ‘real me’ WAS good enough! In fact, the real me is what everyone wanted to see all along, but I didn’t know that.
I always thought I had to hide who I really was- a goofy, silly, shy, yet fun-loving and IMPERFECT woman.
Once I took my wall down and was true to myself I realized that good things started happening to me.
I was happier, less anxious, motivated, and peaceful. I fell asleep quickly at night. I woke up eager. I dreamed big.
People around me seemed to like me more, probably because I wasn’t walking around stressed out and counting every calorie in my head over and over again or thinking about how unhappy I was.
Oh She Glows got me through one of the most difficult times of my life. It is what made me realize that I could do something that I loved to do. I could touch people with my words. I could help other women overcome their disordered eating, obsession, and negative self-image. I could be silly, and weird, and goofy, and basically do whatever I wanted on this blog. I could take a picture of a beautiful flower and post it. I could vent about a problem or talk about ideas, goals, motivations, aspirations, and visions…
Oh She Glows made me finally feel in control of my happiness.
I started to think outside the box. I dreamed big. I knew that I deserved to be happy.
Things inside me started to click.
I had spent the better part of my graduate program miserable and now I was miserable in my career. What would have to change until I decided enough was enough? When would my life be a HAPPY life?
Well, something happened along my blogging journey. I realized that nothing was ever going to change unless I did something about it.
Opportunities don’t just happen to people, you have to MAKE them happen.
When I realized this, my whole perspective changed.
I knew that unless I took action, I would be miserable my whole life. I pictured myself in the same job until I was 50. Is that what I wanted, to be a passive recipient of what life gives me?
Absolutely not!
None of us know what cards will be dealt to us. I don’t know if I will be around next week, next year or for my 50th birthday. It would surely suck to piss away these amazing years being unhappy. Where is the fun in being miserable all the time? It was the same sort of realization I had when I decided to give up obsessing over my weight, exercise, and food. Was it working for me? Hardly- I was stressed out and unhappy day in and day out. I was hungry all the time. Eric broke up with me for a few months in 2003 because things got so bad. Being miserable did NOT work for me with my eating disorder or in my career.
Each positive step that I took, I felt like I jumped a mile. Positive things breed more positive things. As soon as I broke the cycle of negativity in my life, I was a changed women.
It just takes a series of small actions and then one BIG action (think- KABOOM!) to finally break away from the chains that you have in your life.
My KABOOM! moment was when I decided to tell my boss, in a heated moment, that I was done. I felt like a bomb went off inside me. Suddenly everything was changed.
I thank my lucky stars that I started Oh She Glows exactly 1 year ago. I was a very unhappy and guarded person. I felt like a drone. Some days I didn’t feel anything except nothingness and a void. This blog didn’t just turn a light bulb on in my head, it turned on an entire football stadium of lights. Everything started to click. I had these amazing women who read my blog and believed in me. After a while I started to believe in me too.
After a bad day I logged on and just wrote. Sometimes light topics like fashion or make-up and sometimes more serious ones. It was sort of like cheap therapy for me. I was on the couch indeed typing my heart out.
This isn’t just a healthy living blog to me.
It represents HOPE for change.
Hope that each and every one of us can find our own personal definition of happiness. To be true to ourselves, and to believe in our own authentic power.
I still feel like I have a lot to learn, but the only difference now is that I feel like I am slowly on my way, and better yet, I am excited about it. I am no longer stalled or going in reverse like I was for so long.
I truly think that all of us have the same basic goals…to feel loved and to feel like we have a purpose on the earth. To feel like our true self is in harmony with what we do day in and day out.
The power within all of us is so great. If we only touched on it briefly each day we could all do amazing things.
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And now it is time for Oh She Glows birthday giveaway!
HOW TO ENTER:
Close your eyes. Picture yourself on October 31, 2010. Now leave a comment and tell me how you picture your ideal life 1 year from today. Maybe you have goals or hopes. Tell me what you want to be doing, living, breathing…The first step is writing it down.
The giveaway is for one lucky US or Canadian reader to win everything below! (Click to enlarge).
All of this is from the Health food trade show I went to. Tons of teas, bars, beauty healthy products, etc! I’m not naming it all, but you get the idea. :)
I also added some of my favourite products to share: Glo bars, Mary’s Crackers, Organic raw Cacao nibs, and PC Sun-dried tomato no salt added seasoning (the LBD of seasonings!)
YUM!
Contest closes: Tuesday Nov. 3, 2009 at 8am.
Bonne chance!
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Thank you to each and everyone of you for your amazing support over the past year! If there are any of you out there who have followed my journey since the beginning- well, that is quite awesome.
ONWARD and UPWARD!!!!!!!
Now, BED TIME at 1:20am. Tomorrow AM: Finish making up the fake house, costume + party planning, and baking!
PS- There is also a giveaway for GLO BARs over here! Leave a comment to enter!
A year from today… hmm? I envision being married to my current boyfriend and helping him lead a healthy lifestyle. I envision helping my beautiful, extremely hard-working, busy mother to get healthy and feel confident in her skin. I want to be an aunt (my younger brother gets married in 14 days IN JAMAICA woot woot). I want my dad to be more active (he basically already eats healthfully) so he and my mom can enjoy retirement in its fullest.
Basically I want the people I love to experience life the way I have the past few years. There’s a huge difference in life when you take care of your body. If there is any way I can help them, I want to do it! I’ve learned, however, that you can’t change or help someone if they don’t want to change or be helped. I can only do so much, but you better believe when it comes to the people I love, I’m not backing down and WILL give them MY ALL! :)
Congrats Ange – what an accomplishment! I can honestly say your blog has changed my life and inspired me so much in every aspect of my life and even to start a blog of my own – I am so thrilled to have found your friendship and look forward to having it continue to grow over the years :)
Not that long ago when I closed my eyes I could not see any hope or dreams for myself – all I saw was negativity – all I heard was that ED voice telling me I was no good … That voice is now gone and when I close my eyes I truly believe now that the sky is the limit – my dream is to inspire young women, women of all ages to live their best, healthiest lives and to love themselves for who they are – I want to make sure women believe in themselves and see not only their outer but inner beauty! How I am going to accomplish that? I’m not entirely sure yet – but I definitely know I am on the right path – and now that my heart is open and that ED voice is gone I know only good things are going to come my way!!!
xoxo LOVE U GIRL!!!
Happy One Year Blogversary!!
One year from now I just hope to be happy and healthy. I am a senior in college and am starting a full time job next July so I’m hoping I made the right decision and am loving what I’m doing. I also hope to be happy living in NYC and hope to have more direction with where I want to go in the future. And.. I really want to run a marathon [hopefully next year]!!
Right now I’m a frshman in college, and I’m struggling with whether I’m in the place I’m supposed to be. I’m not sure if this is the part where I’m supposed to push through the difficult parts or to make a change. In a year, I want to know my next move and to know exactly what it is that I want out of the rest of my life.
Great post! And Happy Birthday ;)
A year from now is a scary/exciting place. I just withdrew from university because I don’t think it’s going to be able to get me a job (BA in Sports Psych). So now I’m just working, and I suppose in a year I would like to have lost the weight and be training to be a personal trainer or at least enrolled in a natural health program. The possibilities are endless I suppose!
Happy anniversary to your blog! In one year I hope to feel more confident and secure in my job, to be able to balance work and social life better, to be in great shape and ready to run the 2010 NYC marathon, and I hope that the bf and I are continuing to plan our future together.
I’ve been laid off since March. So it would be nice to have a job to go to without stress and where the people are great! I would also love to be at a point where I can stay around my happy weight without overindulging after bikini contests.
Thinking positive thoughts, taking deep breaths, living a balanced and healthy life, loving each moment of the day instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, finding my true passion and … acting on it! I’m going to start today!!
Happy OSG anniversary – I have really enjoyed reading your blog… maybe on this day one year from now – I’ll be a blogger too!
In one year, I see myself happily married (our wedding date is 9/26/2010) and I’ll actually probably be on our honeymoon, since we are thinking of taking one delayed because of my fiance’s school schedule. As for goals, I would like to continue working towards my dream job. I’m starting my study of Arabic in January, after I graduate from grad school, and I hope to be at least able to speak on a basic child’s level by next fall. With work, I’ll be fully ingrained in a new position (I’m training now), so I hope to be making good strides there by improving processes and really clicking, out of training mode. Personally, aside from learning to be a great wife to my husband, I hope to be really clicking on the healthy living front. I’ve spent the last year reading blogs, books, and really trying to figure out what it means to be healthy and live healthy – not on a diet. I hope by next year, I will be easily living healthy and have dropped a few clothing sizes, moving towards a healthy weight. I have a good plan right now, and by the fall of next year, it should be firing on all cylinders. In general – I hope to have found my happiness, instead of just planning for it.
Congrats on 1 year!! Here’s to many more.
in one year, i hope to have a fresh loaf of bread in the oven ;)
a nice place to call home, and doing a job that i am excited to get up early in the morning to do!
I’d love to have reached my goal weight (another 30 pounds down, I’ve already lost 50!) I can’t wait to be moved in to my new house (we settle on November 16th.)
A year from now I hope I am doing more food writing and am out of the job I dislike too. Wonderful post Ange! :) Loved it.
Happy 1st birthday Oh She Glows!!!!!
in 1 year, I see myself:
– Married
– graduated
– working my first real nursing job
– paying off my loans
– moving to our new “married” apartment in a different town (Britton has some post graduate education to finish!)
– mooning over all the wedding and honeymoon pictures
wow… big year!!! Can’t wait!!!
My ideal life a year from now: Mirza has graduated, we’re living together, and both happy. Maybe we get to travel somewhere?
Your story is so inspiring Angela! I think I’m in that place where you were a year ago . . . stuck in a job that does not inspire me and struggling to find my GLOW. A year from now I hope to be doing something that excites and challenges me, and to have found that inner peace. Happy Birthday OSG!
One year from now, I will be a mother. I can’t even imagine how the birth of my first child is going to change my life.
A year from now I hope to be the proud mama of a newborn baby to put a Halloween costume on and show off!
This post speaks VOLUMES to me Angela!! I just quit my job this week and do NOT want to stay in my current profession. I was miserable, and couldn’t wait it out any longer, and I’m sooooo glad I gave it up. But now I haven’t a sweet clue where I’m going to be a year from now! That actually excites me. I don’t want to have it all planned out :)
Happy one-year Ang!!!! :D
A year from now I hope to have a job as a school counselor in a unified and supportive school. I want to live in a place and town that I absolutely love. I hope that I am healthy and more accepting of myself. Lastly, I want meet a man who I can really connect with and who I can picture spending the rest of my life with. – I should write things like this more often!! ;)
Happy blogiversary! I completely agree – life has to be what you make it. In one year from now, I would like to see myself at peace – not constantly struggling day in and out to make the right decisions. I want to be easier on myself, and not categorize decisions as good or bad! I want my husband’s business to take off by then as well.