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 Bday OSG!
I would like to run a 1/2 marathon and just roll with whatever life throws at me!
Here’s to another fantastic year of OSG!
happy first birthday!!!
I will still be on college, but I hope to be doing AMAZINGLY well on my first few takes of the MCATs. I also hope to be a little less of a perfectionist so that I can spend more time doing what’s important, like being with the people i love! I look forward to a year from now :)
Oh my gosh, I’d love to win this! In a year, I see myself still serving my purpose as a social worker and school counselor and I hope to start planning to have children! Eeek!
A year from now I hope to still be enjoying grad school, but seeing the end in sight! And continuing to run and blog :)
Hi! I just found your site recently and I had to bookmark this wonderful post. When I visualize myself a year from now, I will be much further along in the process of accepting myself and loving who I am. I don’t think there will ever be one single high point to reach; it is a learning process and I have to “un-learn” a lot of the negative things I’ve taught myself over the years. I have to echo what you said about how important being true to yourself is and realizing that the real you is good enough. My whole life has revolved around seeking physical solutions to “fix” who I am, because I’ve always felt like I’m “too this” or “too that” FOR SOMEONE ELSE. I was always too quiet, too shy, and everyone around me felt the need to notify me of this. Then I discovered alcohol, misused it and became too loud, too obnoxious. I had a chubby face growing up, so I starved myself in my teenage years; then suddenly I was too bony and too flat in the wrong places. I gained some weight back and now my butt is too big for some people’s liking!
If you would have asked this question a year ago, all I would have said was that I hope to weigh ___ lbs. one year from now. I finally realized that a weight on the scale is not going to set me free from negativity, redeem me from all past mistakes or make everyone like me and accept me. I’m tired of worrying about what people think. So a year from now, I see myself continuing this positive journey and learning new lessons and growing more each day. I’ll also be in my last semester, finishing up my degree at this time next year, which is exciting. I feel it’s time to be an adult and stop getting in my own way!
Happy Birthday Oh she glows!!! :)
I hope that in a year from now I’ll be in a job I love (or at least don’t mind too much,lol) and that I’ll be able to afford to buy a house with my boyfriend.
I’d love to win all those goodies! :D
I want to be a healthier, happier person a year from now. I’m working on it right now but I’m not completely there yet and it’s not something that is going to happen over night. Right now I’m not very focused. My future isn’t black and white. What I want to do for the rest of my life is a puzzle that I really want to have figured out by this time next year. When it comes to my running (this may change depending on what my body tells me to do) I want to be training for at least a half marathon. It’s one of the items on my mental bucket list and not something that I only want to do once. When it comes to my relationship, we aren’t perfect but in a year I hope that the problems we have right now will be settled.
One year from now, I hope to be doing an AmeriCrop program in NYC, doing community related to healthcare!
Congrats on your bloggiversary! Long time lurker about to delurkify :)
This is a bit odd, but I hope that by that time I might have a dream in a foreign language! I have the great opportunity to do a summer language immersion program ( you can do yoga in french!) this coming summer so if all goes well I’ll be on my way there! Other than that, I see myself happy in my second year of college, maybe there will be a gentleman caller (so much classier than ‘boyfriend’!) on my arm, dominating my classes and hopefully finishing my first book and becoming knowledgeable about myself as a whole.
:) Honestly I can’t help but look forward to the next year. I’m about to do a happy dance just thinking about it!
I hope by October 2010 I can run a half marathon! Baby steps but that’s my dream right now! Great giveaway! And happy birthday OSG!
In one year from now, Oct 31, 2010, I very much hope to still have my good health. More importantly, I hope that my kids continue to have good health!
In one year I hope to be a certified yoga instructor and be teaching yoga and my first year of medical school. I want to have a healthier relationship with myself and I hope to have a man I love in my life.
Angela,
I love your blog and have gotten much inspiration from it. In one year, I hope to be at my goal weight (have lost 40, have 5 more to go), and do more yoga.
Thanks for the great giveaway.
Happy Birthday Oh She Glows! Thank you Angela for creating such a wonderful blog. I have learned so much from you and you continue to inspire me every day.
A year from now I would like to continue to be healthy, happy, just enjoy life, have more fun and to stop stressing too much over the little stuff!
Congrats! This time next year I hope to be a full time student again. I have decided to go back to school to get my Master’s in Speech Pathology. I am an elementary school teacher and will most likely not have a job next year due to budget cuts and being a new teacher. I love children and want to continue to work in education and have decided to just go back to school instead of sitting around waiting for another teaching job! I am excited to see where God leads me to go to school! I am applying to schools all over the US which leaves me feeling a little nervous and excited all at the same time! I have never lived away from my family, but I think it is something that may be necessary for me to truly grow as a person! I am inspired by all of the blogs that I read seeing as so many of you have made career and life changes and have come through the changes as strnger women! Thanks for such a positive and uplifting blog!
Happy birthday Angela! :)
Half marathon for sho, sho with my very best friend from school!! Kristy :)
I want to be binge free and at a happy weight which requires accepting my normal weight and not striving for crazy low numbers. I want to pull that energy back to make joy in my life and focus on my beautiful kids and be a role model (even when no one is looking) especially for my little girl.
Thanks for your positive blog
a year from today, i hope i have a firm idea of my undergrad major, some good work experience behind me, and lots of opportunities in my future. i hope i have a solid group of friends and perhaps a relationship, and above all, i hope i am happy!
happy anniversary! thanks for the giveaway.
I would like to have a job I enjoy in a new city such as Chicago, San Francisco, or New York. I’d like to be comfortably supporting myself, have friends close by, and be happy with where I am in life.