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!
Happy Birthday Oh She Glows! I am so happy for you Angela! Congratulations!
In one year from now I just want to be happy and healthy. I want to kick this disordered eating/eating disorders good bye and never look back! I want to wake up every morning excited to start the day because I have a passion for life. I want to feel totally and completely comfortable with my body, pursuing my dreams, and be able to balance everything I want to fill this crazy thing we call life with!
You are such and inspiration Angela. Keep it all up. I can’t imagine where you will be able to take this blog in the next year!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
I would love to figure out what my passion is. I’m in law school now and am pretty sure I don’t want to be a lawyer. Not knowing what I wanted to do was how I ended up in law school in the first place, so I’d love to have some direction!
One year from today…..
I hope to be content, either studying abroad (in France!) or here in CA. I hope to be one step closer to meeting the guy of my dreams, even if I haven’t met him yet. I hope to be doing what I love. I hope to have run the 1/2 Marathon that is nudging me in the back of my mind…
I hope to have adopted another kitten, not to replace my cat that passed, but to re-liven up this silent house again.
I hope to have a stronger idea of what I want to do for the rest of my life.
I hope to have made 1 new friend to whom I can really open up.
I hope to be FAR MORE fluent in French, Spanish and Italian, and more capable of speaking those languages, rather than merely understanding them.
That’s all for now :D
Happy 1 year blogiversary and happy halloween too! One year from now I imagine my life to be less chaotic and more settled. I know I’m going to be even more content and comfortable with myself(body & mind) because I’ve made such a huge improvement since I started reading blogs about half a year ago.
Happy birthday to OSG! One year from now I’ll be a senior in college. I’ve realized that my real passion is fitness/nutrition, and I want to figure out how to best incorporate that into a career!
Happy Birthday!!! :)
In one year I would like to have my Associates degree in History (should complete it in the summer!!) and be working towards my Bachelors. After I graduated high school I opted to work full time for 3 years, so I’m about 3 years behind all of my graduating class. I’m still so excited to be accomplishing this, though!
I’d like to get ENTIRELY on the eating healthy train, I have way too many slip ups with fattening snacks or eating lots of potatoes, I always feel so much better when I’m focused on eating healthy! I’d like to focus on running again, even though I have to start all over. I was in a car accident (we tweeted about it!) and had major foot surgery on my right foot and haven’t been able to walk since August. I won’t be able to start attempting to run again until January or February, so it can be very frustrating. However, I’m incredibly motivated to start again and be much more focused than I was before about living a healthy lifestyle, food and exercise wise.
My last goal by Halloween of next year, though, would be to move from FL to CA, where the love of my life got transferred this year for his job. It’s so hard being so far away!
Thinking about a year from now excites me so much. In one year from now, my son will be almost 5, I will have graduated from Nursing school and working as an Nurse (RN) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I will have lost 30 to 35 lbs, eating healthy and working out on a daily basis, and able to run 5 miles without stopping (I am currently a new runner). I hope to be in a healthy, good relationship, and own my own home.
One year from now I hope to be finishing off my degree, whie studying science (nutrition or astronomy) at the same time with a part time job as a yoga instructor. I have realised that a business degree is not my thing, so I want to transfer to get my BSC in Spa management instead of just Hotel Management. Your posts about how you realised your path was not the one ideal for you helped me admit the same thing. I only have one year left though, and it is not graduate school. I just have to make sure I don’t get caught up in the hype of working for a posh hotel chain like the school pressures us to do. I’m more for a vegan health retreat. I cannot forget that.
Happy Blogiversary to an awesome, always inspiring blog!
In 1 year… I want to have a better relationship with food. I want to feel more genuine love for my body (c’mon now–this body made two kids from scratch. I’m pretty sure it deserves a little more love than I give it.) I want to be a better wife and mother and learn to manage my time better so that I am less stressed and more enjoyable for my family to be around. I want to be training for a full marathon. I want to be 1 year closer to finishing my education and still loving the learning process. In short, I hope to be 1 year closer to being the person I was meant to be.
HAPPY BLOG ANNI TO YOU!!! I’ve told ya before and I’ll tell ya again…I love your blog, and it has helped me tremendously. Your journey has been inspirational.
A year from now I will be a 1st time mother to a 5 month old. I hope to be living a healthy, happy, and fulfilled life….maybe working in social services helping families, definitely volunteering.
Congratulations on your one year anniversary, and with your change starting from within, you can always have the confidence that just being yourself and the work you love is the best way to live.
I myself have been on an evolution of myself. I moved out to college, confronted my own negativity and eating disorder. I realized that my perspective on life is what was creating my suffering. The media tries to tell us what certain goal posts are for accomplishment and success are: perfect body, a college education, high paying job, a house, a relationship, 2.5 kids and a dog.
I realized this year through self reflection and paying attention to myself through yoga, biking, eating healthy, through your website and school, is that as humans we need connections to other people and we need to feel that we are needed and can make a difference. We are not as naturally selfish as people like to assume. We have desires and needs much deeper. So next year I hope to work towards better myself and the world around me.
Ultimately, my most tangible goal for next year is that i want to have traveled over the summer for my research, and i would like to have written my work and have it published in a academic journal, but more importantly i want to open the eyes of the people around me and help them help themselves become aware of their own bodies and needs. Especially here in the US during downturns and economic hardships the first thing people neglect are there bodies, but it is the most important and necessary thing to nourish when you are stressed. I want to help my parents and brother take care and nurture themselves after a stressful few years.
A year from today I hope to be feeling the same way you are. For the past 6 years I have obsessed over my weight and the food I eat and two years of that was a bad bad eating disorder. Now it’s more disordered eating and terrible body image. I started reading these blogs and actually felt kind of guilty because it was another food obsession – but through you I realized that I could use a blog to help me! So I have started my own (haven’t released it to the world yet and still need to get a camera) but I can already tell that it is helping me release my emotions, keep track of what I eat, and be accountable for my actions. The past week I have been more normal already!!
I’m going to be starting my first job and living truly on my own (financially too…yikes) next year so this is a big chance for me to set my real world life up right. I really hope that through my blog and by continuing to read others like yours, I can establish a healthy life –with a balance of work, friends, going out and drinking beer, and exercising. And maybe a boyfriend or something too :) But ME first.
Next year I want to be able to live happily and healthily without THINKING about it.
When you said that opportunities do not just happen to people, you have to make them happen, it really resonated with me. At the beginning of this year, I was a 200 pound, meat eating pack a day smoker! I finally quit smoking by enrolling myself into an intensive 6 week Boot Camp in February. I couldn’t afford to stick with it but managed to lose 25 lbs on my own.
I’m a junior in college and am now truly realizing its not the place that I belong and may not even be the program I belong in. I have felt this way all along, and am struggling with the intense and humiliating fear that I may have wasted two years of my life (and the last year, as I plan on sticking with it here). I know now that growth sometimes involves discomfort. BECAUSE I have moved to this specific town, and gone to this specific university I enrolled in the program that kick started my love of fitness. I also met a Yoga Instructor who has inspired me to pursue my Yoga Teacher Training Certification. Although I still struggle with social anxiety, which I never really considered a real disorder until I was a Freshman and experienced its debilitating effects myself, I am slowly convincing myself to openly feel and push through any negative emotions certain situations bring up.
In October I see myself getting comfortable as a Vegan (went Vegetarian in March 09′), teaching Yoga classes, getting my Group Fitness Certification and teaching Boot Camp circuits to people who may need to empower themselves through exercise just as I have! I see myself doing a thesis with the Sociology Department at my university on Community Supported Agriculture projects, environmental/vegan/vegetarian stigma and cultural norms. I see myself being more accountable, biking to school (right now I’m driving 50% of the time), buying mainly local produce and supporting organic products not only in my diet but in all of the products I choose to support.
I want to treat myself as well as I treat all of the people in my life. I see myself being happier in my own skin and being completely honest about everything I’m feeling! All of this feels pretty terrifying, but I know deep down it may be bitter sweet but its so worth it!
Love all these comments, One year from now I want to be happy and healthy. I want to be in a job I love and I want my husband to have a new job. We can do this!
In a year, I hope to be almost finished with the teaching credential program I am applying to, on my way to becoming a teacher and happy!
By the way, I just recently found your Blog and I love it and you so much!
As an American, I also must say I really appreciate your ability to acknowledge our country’s failings subtly, without overgeneralizing and completely bashing the U.S.
Hopefully my current actions have me on a path so that in a year I will have my Master’s Degree in Health Promotion, have a job with a federal agency in health education or program planning, have run 2 or more half marathons, have found peace with myself physically and emotionally, and making a happy transition from graduate student to professional.
Thanks for everything. Your blog has truly changed my outlook on life. Have a Happy Halloween & Happy Birthday OhSheGlows!!!
In 1 year, I am hopefully going to be one year away from graduating college with my bachleor’s degree. I too feel a bit “stuck” and “passive” in my life. So…in a year I also hope to have had an AHA moment where things click and I know what my true passion and calling is. I’m working on it, striving for it and hopefully all the working and striving will make it all clear to me.
Things have been pretty rough lately, and in one year I hope to have it all behind me. I hope that what I am currently going through will not take away from who I am and that on October 31, 2010, I will be a year wiser, yet no less loving, honest, open, and trusting. I also will have completed my first marathon!
I’ll be just getting into my second year of university, releived that I survived first year chem (hopefully). I’ll be as active as I am now, but not obsessive. I’ll be spending my time with friends instead of counting calories, and when I eat/work out, it’ll be because I want to, not because I feel obligated.