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.
~~~~
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!
~~~~
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!
I hope to be working for myself a year from today. I actually started working part-time at my job almost two years ago so that I could transition to working for myself full-time. Things haven’t worked out like I planned, but I haven’t gone back to working full-time because that would be giving up on my dream, and I can’t bring myself to do that. All I have ever wanted since I was a child was to work for myself — no joke, I was dreaming of entrepreneurship at the ripe age of four! (I just didn’t know the word for it back then. ;)) I have let myself get discouraged too many times in the past two years and have had a lot of false starts. As inspiring as it is to read your blog, sometimes I want to kick myself because I see what you write and think I should be writing it too — and in some ways it’s the economy that has caused me setbacks, but in others it’s my own.
Anyway, I am in the process of selling my condo and moving back home so that I can leave my job and pursue my dream of working for myself full-time. It may not be the most elegant way to do it, but I have to do what I have to do. Although I love the people I work with and the work isn’t bad, my job is draining me of my happiness and making it so difficult to focus on what truly makes me happy. So in a year, I hope to be doing what I really want to with life and, as you said, not a passive recipient of what life gives me.
Sorry for the ramble… it’s been one of those days!
When I close my eyes, I see all my dreams that I hope will come true. And it is possible to compare them to where I was just last year.
10/31/2008: Senior year of undergrad. I spent the day working on my thesis so that I would be able to graduate with my BA in international relations.
10/31/2009: Post-graduation, I’m unemployed. I think I know what I want to do with my life now, but it has nothing to do with international relations.
10/31/2010: I’ll be back in school, taking all of my pre-medical science courses. I will be studying to be a pediatric oncologist. I have always wanted to work with kids. This way I get to do something good for the world, and spend each day with children – who really do say the darnedest things.
Great post, Angela! Love reading your blog.
In a year I will have just turned 30. I will be as happy as I am now. I will have finished my second half marathon, will be packing to take my kids to Disney (they will be 5 & 4 then and might be pregnant by that time). I will still be a nurse in the same ICU because I couldn’t ask for a better job!
CONGRATS ON THR 1-YEAR! the blog world would NOT be the same without you. in one year, i hope to get my financial life in order and have saved enough money to take a fabulous adventure to Argentina!!!
most importantly though, i just want to be happy :)
In one year I would love to have my own healthy bakery. I am currently have an engineering degree but would LOVE to go to culinary school and eventually fullfill my passion for cooking.
In one year I hope to continue to be a good role model for my children which involves working outside the home on a part time basis. Now that it is said, I hope I can make it happen!
Congratulations on your first year – you really inspire me and I’ve made a lot of changes in my life because of you. I want to continue to eat healthier, exercise more and get fit again. I want to have more energy and patience and be more at peace with myself. With your continued support, I can do it!
congrats on a fabulous year!! In 1 year? wow, I see myself truly happy again, enjoying my job and working hard, still with time to get outside and play :)
In one year, I only hope I will he happy. That would mean I’m healthy, confident and in a good place for my relationships and career.
Thanks for the inspiring post! You’ve shown a lot of courage to make the choices you’ve made over the past year. Way to go!
In a year from now, I’d like to have our house renovations complete and possibly have a baby in the house!
I hope to become stronger this year! I am finally able to get back to the activities that I love and I want to take full advantage of the oppurtunity. I also hope to have completed a half marathon. I will continue to blog and anticipate growth in my blogging family. There is so much inspiration and support in this community of bloggers and readers! Of course,my next Halloween will be spent taking my daughter Trick Or Treating and watching her enjoy one of the few times of the year that I let her OD on processed sugar and HFCS ;)
In a year, wow! That seems like a long time from now but hopefully I will be finish with law school and maybe already be working in the DA’s office!!
Hmmmm a year from today I would like to be in a HEALTHY relationship, to be loved for who I am, quirks and all…I would also like to be doing something that “Matters”. Having been in the Mortgage industry for 24+ years and feeling a little burned out I would love to be working with people, animals or the environment and feel like I have a purpose and that because of what I’m doing, the world will be a better place.
Congratulations on all of your success and Happy One year anniversary!! Here’s to a bright future ahead of you!!
xoxo
Berni
I see myself thriving, happily dividing my time between family, college, new friendships, and fitness. I hope to have grown so much in so many ways, but to have returned to “the girl I used to be, when I was me and worry free”. (and maybe by then I’ve seen Colbie Caillat!) I’m so excited for the future ahead of me!
In one year I hope to be traveling around Europe!!
By this time next year, I want xveganx party to be an entire website, which my art will be apart of. I want a zine to be written and released about vegan-straight edge entertaining. I want to have a good internship behind me or one very close on the horizon. I want some freelance work behind me. I want an established circle of friends in my second home (Georgia). I want to start dating again. I want to feel satisfied with my weight.
Wow CONGRATS!!!! And— holy moly what a giveaway!! In one year I hope to see myself and my hubbie making our new home ours. We will be moving back home after I graduate in May and cannot wait to actually “settle down” and hopefully I will be pregnant too!!!!
In my ideal life this time next year I would be attending the University of WA for childhood psychology and preparing to leave for the world championships in figure roller skating :)
Hi Angela,
I have been reading your posts for a while and let me just tell you that your journey is WONDERFUL… and I hope you keep getting more and more joy and peace and are able to follow and fulfill all your dreams, God-willing. You are a truly amazing person inside-out =).
For me, a year from now, I’m going to be married, God-willing, be a great wife, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law. Responsibilities that come with marriage are huge and I hope to fulfill all of them to the best of my abilities. I will be studying hard and have already improved my GPA in the upcoming months… but continue improving it with daily study until I graduate with my Bachelor s in Business Administration in June 2011, God-willing. I hope to just live every day to the fullest… take things as they come, love and care for those around me, love and care for myself, love and care for the world in general.
I want my MOMENTS to be lived to the fullest, God-willing. :)
I hope to be celebrating life and starting my second year of graduate school, pregnant, still being true to myself and making continual progress on my healthy lifestyle!
I love your blog! Keep it up Angela!