Progress and Patience

I wonder if it is just me, but does anyone else feel as if it was just yesterday that we wrote the unit 3 blog post? That week we were asked to assess ourselves in terms of personal health and wellness and as such I had mentioned that my changes are coming along slowly yet steadily, this has changed just a little as of now as I have found renewed purpose and a great goal in terms of physical fitness. Have I yet gotten more sleep? Uhm, no, not quite yet however, I have been much more conscious of the hours. For one, I have made myself turn off the light upon crawling in bed, in fact I have started leaving my iPad downstairs at night, so that I am not even tempted to browse the web, read Facebook (where nothing is new anyway), or a book. I have gotten better with my regular meditations, but by no means has my practice even been remotely predictable, I hope time will be the answer and I am still vowing to make this a regular habit of mine.
As to my physical well-being, I am proud to report that I have been working with a trainer/nutritionist for about four weeks now and have been very compliant with my prescribed diet (yummy stuff, just no junk stuff at all) and BOY do I feel the difference, so much so, that I went out and bought myself new swim wear last week for my upcoming Hawaii vacation! It is absolutely amazing what just three weeks of full dietary compliance will do for ones self esteem, weight, fitness and well-being. In this respect as well I had to learn patience and come to the realization that true success is not one of those "flash-in-the-pan-starve-and-don't-eat-12-week-total-body-transformation" deals, anyone can pretty much do that (I say this with the conviction of having been there). Real success ONLY comes from being consistent and as my trainer just today wrote on Facebook in this true statement:

"Commitment is the thing you said you would do, long after the mood you said it in has left you."

These days my grade in physical well being has certainly gone up, I would safely venture to say, that it is now a nine, I am feeling wonderful, strong and energetic. My workouts are really coming along and muscular definition is slowly returning, my mojo is back so to say. I still have not gone to the yoga class, but plan on doing that down the road, for right now I am happy to say I go to the gym four times per week and that is right on plan. With this good diet/good workout schedule comes a noted improvement in my psychological well being, I am more confident, don't beat myself up and see things in a much brighter light, its probably all those endorphins kicking in?! Even my girls and husband noticed the difference.
The nice thing about going through all these processes is that I know first hand how it feels to be happy, sad, frustrated, curious and all the other emotions so commonly felt by everyone at one point in their lives - I feel that this knowledge, coupled with a solid foundation of traditional teachings, will help me one day become attuned to my clients and patients needs, subsequently being able to better assist them in finding their health, wellness and inner peace.

Live well everyone, respect yourselves, don't let the nitty-gritty of life get you down, and enjoy happiness wherever you can find it.

Dunja :)