Hello Life! Here I Come!

I woke up the other day with a very strange feeling as I remembered the succession of strange dreams I had had that night. As the details of the dreams fade I still recount the common theme among all of them.  

I remember that each dream involved a situation in which I was called upon to step up, be brave and save the day. And each time I hesitated, I hesitated and in that second of hesitation and non-action, someone else stepped up to the plate and saved the day. The thing that gets me the most is that I was left with this feeling of regret because I wanted to be brave, I wanted to be courageous and I wanted to save the day. 

I've always been the type of person to step up and help when people are in need and usually without hesitation. And I think that's way these dreams bothered me so much. But then it hit me: I've been living my whole life lately in this state of fear, in a state of hesitation. 

In the past I've always done the things that needed to be done in order to help others, in order to get myself out of bad situations and in order to create a life I love. But lately I have been hesitating, I've been living in my comfort zone because of my fear and resistance and you know what: it's making me miserable. 

I'm the type of person who helps without hesitation, I'm the type of person who acts in spite of my fear and I am a brave and courageous person. So now it's time to start acting this way. I've been putting off too much and avoiding possibly scary but possibly amazing situations for too long. It's time for a change. 

So with the help of a Mark & Angel Hack Life article: '7 Reasons it's Time to Move On and Embrace Change'; I happened to read that same morning, I've made a commitment to myself to stop with the hesitation and to start living my life.

I've been in this new city for about a year and a half now and I haven't done a quarter of the things I wanted to do and simply because I've been scared. No more resistance, I'm going to do it all and it's going to be amazing. 

Time for my uncommonly wealthy life to take shape! Stay tuned! 😊 

Emotional Seasons

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my emotions and feelings and specifically emotional seasons. I believe that just as the Earth goes through natural cycles that are marked by periods of hibernation, renewal, growth and change; we too as humans experience similar seasonal changes related to our emotions. 

I know that I, for one, have experienced periods of joy, sorrow, frustration, positivity, anger, happiness and more. These changes may or may not be linked to external factors such as the weather but more than likely it relates to internal struggles or epiphanies. 

Let me give you an example from my own life in terms of the emotional season that I'm currently wading through. 

Recently I've been experiencing what can only be described as an angry season. I've felt like I've had a very short fuse in regards to issues that really amount to very trivial things in the grand scheme of things. I recognize that I'm being irrational and needlessly irritated but even with this realization I still find myself quick to anger. What exactly is going on with me and what can I do about it?

These are the questions that have been rattling around in my brain throughout this current emotional season. I'm already starting in a good place in the fact that I'm self-aware enough to recognize what's going on. Ok, great, I know what's happening but why and what can I do about it?

As a side note I want to make it clear that I believe it's important to feel your feelings when they happen without trying to suppress them and without being too self-indulgent. It's a fine line I know and one that I'm still working to define but I think it changes all the time. 

Now I'm at point where the same issues that are making me angry are coming up time and time again and I've reached the point of self-indulgence. It's time to either accept or act. As that old saying goes: something along the lines of give me strength to accept the things I cannot change and change the things I cannot accept...? Or maybe that's my version.

Action time: I start with some personal explorations of the deep recesses of my brain, then I think back to what has been happening in my life lately and then I dig deeper to reveal the real reasons for my anger and frustration and then I tackle them.

So after much contemplation about my life circumstances and my feelings surrounding them I've realized that it all boils down to expectations. More precisely unmeet expectations. I've always enjoyed dreaming and planning for the future and as much fun as this can sometimes be, it also has a dark side; the anger, frustration and resentment that can arise from reality being incongruent with my imaginings.

I moved away from my hometown about a year and a half ago and in doing so I left behind many friends and most of my family. As much as moving away and being forced to take care of myself has been a good thing for me and finally forced me to be an adult, It has also been very hard. When I moved to the 'big city' I had a lot of expectations about what my life would look like and I realize now how childish those expectations were. 

I've always enjoyed imagining that my adult life would look like a friends or sex in the city episode but that's all it is; fun and fanciful imaginings. However, I think that deep down a part of me did expect my life to look all fun and shiny like the TV shows of my youth, and it does not. It may seem silly but I think it's important to hold onto the childish and youthful side of ourselves as adults and sometimes children are mini philosophers and sometimes they're quite silly. 

I guess this is one of those times where I have to remind my inner child that TV and movies aren't real and that reality is not the same but that doesn't mean it's worse. The thing about TV shows and especially movies is that they gloss over the everyday and sometimes boring things that make up life and in doing so make it seem like life should constantly dramatic. Honestly though, life can be so much better than these portrayals if we take the time to stop, look and appreciate. 

So how do I plan on getting over my angry season? I'm already starting to feel better having explored it and now written and shared about it. I'm going to lose the expectations and enjoy my current life. I'm going to make the best of my current situation and be pleasantly surprised by whatever life brings me. Honestly at this point in my life I'm enjoying the downtime, quiet and dramalessness that a boring adult life brings. 

As I feel the storm of my angry season lifting I'm looking towards the beautiful blue sky for the inevitable rainbow while enjoying and creating my uncommonly wealthy life. Cheers! 😊🌈

My Personal Truths

By looking at many of my posts from the past it seems I've made a lot of swiping declarations about getting certain things done and wanting to be this or do that. Most of the things I'd still out to accomplish I didn't follow through on and recently I realized why. I've realized that a lot of the things I set out to do didn't actually come from me, they came from external pressures such as friends, family and society in general. I was also putting the pressure on myself to achieve these things in order to get external validation which I believed would make me feel better about myself. Obviously this is not true and I've realized some universal truths that I'd now like to share with you.

The first truth being that external validation never leads to real longterm self-satisfaction and happiness. 

I feel like I've heard this so many times but it didn't really register until I experienced freedom from many of the external sources which had been adding pressure to my life for so long. In gaining this freedom I've come to realize that the only way to be happy is to live a self-approved life. The love, validation and approval that I seek needs to come from myself, otherwise I'll always be chasing the unattainable, like a metaphorical cat chasing the laser pointer.

The second truth is that self-approval doesn't happen overnight and it isn't something you do once and you're 'fixed', it's something that takes constant upkeep and re-evaulation. 

This may sound exhuasting but it doesn't have to be, it simply involves doing what you love, making time for yourself and your own needs and following your heart. This is obviously going to be different for every person and it's not something I can tell you. For me it's taken moving away from my childhood home and family as well as many of my longtime friends. At the time this seemed like it would be a really hard move and it was in many ways but it's turned out to be the best deicison of my adult life. In breaking away from many of the toxic situations and people that previously surrounded me I've been able to figure out that I'm a really capable human being who deserves love and I work on given it to myself everyday.

The third truth being that doing x, y or z will never lead to love and validation. 

Doing x, y, and/or z should be things that I love to do and that bring me personal satisfaction and self-approval. I've realized that I don't have to be or do anything in order to be deserving of love.  I'm perfect right now in all my messy and beautiful imperfectness and I deserve love no matter what. For example I've struggled for a long time with being overweight and I thought for a long time that all my problems would vanish and I would finally be happy if I could just lose the weight. I'm finally realizing that the fat doesn't matter, no matter what anyone says about it, I'm beautiful and deserving of love no matter the number on the scale. 

The fourth truth being that I'll never be healthy by bullying myself. 

Living a healthy lifestyle by eating good foods, working out and taking care of myself is important to me because it makes me happy. Prior to this realization I was making myself unhappy by berating and bullying myself into being healthy, which seems kind of counterintuitive now. I was unhappy and I was fighting myself every step of the way because I was being mean to myself. When other people have treated me in a similar mean way in the past I haven't reacted favorably and I haven't felt much like cooperating. So in a similar vein I was treating myself badly and I was reacting badly leading to an unhappiness spiral that didn't lead to a healthy me. So now in order to make positive and healthy changes in my life I do so with positive reinforcement, compassion and love. "Kill them with kindness" as I've heard said before. 

The fifth and final (for now) truth is that I've learned to take control of my life by realizing what is under my control and what isn't. 

I've realized that I have control over my feelings and actions and really that's it. I can take control in other ways throughout my life but these things can change at any time and most of the time the things that happen to us in our lives are out of our control. But what is under my control is how I react to life and what my attitude will be moving forward. I can choose to believe that life in unfair and blame the world for my problems or I can choose to believe that everything that happens in life is for me and move forward with this freeing notion. It truly is a beautiful and freeing feeling to know that I have control over what I choose to do and how I choose to react every single second of every day. 

Life isn't perfect but it's all we've got, this is it, this is life and we have free will and the freedom to choose how we want it to go, what are you going to choose?

Until next time, here's to your uncommonly wealthy life! :)

Welcome to the Future - 2015!

Welcome to 2015: the future, at least according to a childhood movie 'Back to the Future', which was made in 1985 (when I was 1 year old) and they traveled into the future and landed in 2015. The future doesn't look exactly as predicted in that movie, but I'm sure there were a couple things they got right...maybe? Anyways, week one of 2015 is over and I still don't have a hover board, but I have managed to accomplish a couple things and come to some life-altering conclusions. Last week, as 2014 was wrapping up I made some resolutions for the new year and now I'm going to talk about how those are going so far and also some tweaks I've made to the resolutions and my mentality surrounding resolutions in general.

My resolutions for 2015 were vague and included all the standards in relation to money, health and general well-being. So after a week of trying to live the way I want for the year I've realized a few things when it comes to resolutions and making any life changes in general.

1. It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing game. Don't expect yourself to get it perfect the first time out of the gate. It's not going to be easy every single day and you won't be perfect all the time but not being perfect is not a reason to give up. We're all human and no one is expecting perfection, except yourself. Sometimes we set ourselves up for failure by setting such a high and unreachable bar for what constitutes success. If you messed up today, forgive yourself, make a promise to be better today or tomorrow and then move on. Just don't make it a habit; we still want to be doing the new habit more than we are doing the old one.
2. Do it for yourself and no one else. This is an important one that I'm only now just realizing. In the past I would make resolutions about weight loss, healthy eating and working out because of the expectations put on me by friends, family and society. And you know what: I never stuck to those ones, because it wasn't truly for me and it didn't truly come from my heart. Now I've accomplished a lot more by doing it for myself.
3. Be kind to yourself. You can't berate and shame yourself into the change; trust me I've tried it that way and it doesn't work. Being positive about what you want to accomplish and by using positive and motivating self-talk and self-love is the only way to change yourself. Are you doing these things as a punishment to yourself? No, you're doing it to become a better version of yourself so that you can live a better version of your life. Enjoy the journey.
4. Make it fun. Do the things you love and enjoy, don't force yourself to take up a new habit or hobby that isn't beneficial for your overall health, and that includes your mental health. If it's stressing you out too much then maybe it's not for you or maybe it's not the right time. Give yourself a break, this isn't a failure just a tweak. Also, give yourself rewards and treats for sticking to your habits on a regular basis.
5. It's not always going to be easy and that's okay. Making major changes to one's life is hard. We are creatures of habit and comfort and we don't like to change what we know and we don't like to be uncomfortable. Pushing yourself outside your comfort zone is a good thing and that means that you may have to break a sweat to lose weight and you may have to go through withdrawal when you give sugar. The thing to remember is that the discomfort will pass and you will not die and you will be better for it in the end. Keep pushing and stay strong: you can do it!
6. Break it up. I've made a lot of resolutions for 2015, which means I have all year to accomplish them, it doesn't all have to happen in January. So I'm going to break them up into monthly resolutions to help myself not get overwhelmed, which leads to frustration and then giving up. Here's my tentative monthly schedule for the first third of the year:
• January: setup a morning routine that includes making my bed, meditation, yoga and adding flossing to my brushing routine.
• February: budget and saving month, in which I do not spend any money on extras outside of my usual bills, transportation and groceries.
• March: yoga month, in which I go to a yoga class every day (I bought a Groupon to encourage this one).
• April: writing month, in which I finish a first draft of the novel I started in November.
• During all the months I will continue to go to the gym 5-6 days per week, read 2 books per month, save money and eat healthy.

Another important point is to appreciate all that I have accomplished so far, how far I've come in the past year and the things that I've accomplished outside of the standard resolutions. I look back at where I was just a little over a year ago and I'm so grateful for how far I've come and that gives me motivation to keep going. I know I can achieve anything I set my mind to and I know you can to. Keep enjoying your uncommonly wealthy life! :)

Year in Review - 2014

As per the tradition at this time of year, it's time to look back at the year that's ending and make predictions and resolutions for the year to come. As 2014 comes to an end, I find myself looking back at the resolutions I made last year and feeling pretty proud of myself for all that I've accomplished. I'm also feeling so grateful for all the wonderful things that have happened this year and I'm going to make some new years resolutions for 2015.

I made a bunch of resolutions for 2014 at around this same time last year that I posted to this here blog. Now I will go into a breakdown of those resolutions and what I've accomplished in comparison. In the financial department I made the resolution to payoff a quarter of my debt and instead I took out a consolidation loan and paid off my credit cards, was able to cancel one and then take a trip with the rest of the loan. At this point I feel like I'm sitting in the same, if not worse spot with my debt then I was last year but at the same time I'm in a better overall financial position and I'm confident that I will come out of this year in a much better position. I also wanted to put $2000 in savings this year and I did accomplish this, however I then also spent it on my European trip, which was so worth it.

Speaking of trips; I wrote last year that I was going to take a trip out to western Canada and I didn't quite make it all the way west but I did visit my sister in Winnipeg and then I also took a trip to Europe. In October for my 30th birthday I finally took a trip that I've been wanting to go on since I can remember: Europe. Even though this trip may have set me back in the area of my debt, savings and overall budget, it was so worth it. After all, what's the point of having money and savings if not to use it on the fun things I want to experience?

Then in the realm of health and fitness I pledged to workout at least 3 times per week, eat out less and make and eat more healthy food. At the beginning of the year I really didn't do that great with the healthy living, eating and exercise but I made some really great strides in the second part of the year. I began working with a personal trainer in August which was great motivation for exercising that minimum of 3 times per week. This new found motivation also lead to better eating as well, which was great. I did take a 3 week break in October for my trip, in which I wasn't going to the gym regularly and I was eating and drinking whatever I wanted and again it was so worth it. I got myself quickly back into working out and eating right once I was back to real life. As I currently pass through the holiday season I find myself having trouble sticking to my healthy lifestyle but it felt good to do some clothes shopping this week and buy a few outfits that were a size smaller than what I would previously buy. That's great motivation for me to keep up the healthy changes and make a commitment to get more serious about my healthy goals going into the new year. Another goal I was hoping to achieve this year was to lose 50 lbs and even though I didn't lose that much weight I've made some great strides towards improving my overall health and getting into better shape and I've realized that the number on the scale isn't the be-all and end-all of my healthy living journey.

I also made some pretty general resolutions about doing well in my job, exploring the city, making new friends and expanding my horizons, which I believe were all accomplished. The ones I didn't accomplish were to start a cake decorating business, write a blog post every 2 weeks and write a screenplay. I did continue the blog but not with a specific schedule, I made a couple cakes and I started writing a novel this year. Looking back at the year as a whole I'm very proud at what I've accomplished and now I want to continue with all this positive momentum into the new year.

So for 2015 I commit to continuing with the positive and healthy lifestyle I've created for myself and setup some more healthy habits and do some more fun things this year. This includes:

- Working out 3 times per week including weight lifting and cardio like running and swimming.
- Signup to run a 5k race.
- Eating healthy and organic by cutting out processed foods, minimizing sugar and alcohol and making homemade meals and snacks.
- Continue to cleanup my health through buying and using healthy hygiene, cleaning and makeup products

I also want to start scheduling my life and making some of my healthy habits automatic and natural and part of my morning routine including daily meditation, yoga and flossing. In regards to my writing I'm going to commit to writing a blog post once a week, finish writing my novel and I'm going to read at least 20 books this year. Obviously paying down my debt, travelling and continuing to do my best in my job will also be on my list for things to accomplish in 2015.

Another really important resolution to me in 2014 was to work on being more assertive. Even though it wasn't always an easy ride, I did become more assertive in owning my own life and happiness this year which I will definitely continue into 2015. In that vain I would also like to work on decreasing my procrastination when it comes to the everyday and sometimes mundane life tasks that I often drag my feet on completing.

I'm really looking forward to all that 2015 will bring and even though I have a lot of things I want to accomplish I'm also going to be easier on myself. I know that self-love is a very important part of making important and lasting healthy lifestyle changes so even if I miss or fall down or fail once and a while I won't be too hard on myself, I will allow for rest and recuperation and I will take care of myself and my needs first. Do you make new years resolutions? And if you do what are some of yours for 2015? Here's to your uncommonly wealthy New Years and 2015! :)

I'm Back!

The wayward traveler has returned to her long neglected blog. I have a host of updates pertaining to what I've been up to while I was away and what to expect from me in the future. I plan to re-dedicate myself to writing and especially to this blog as the year winds down and heading into the new year: 2015!

Here is what you can expect from me in upcoming posts:

- Health & Fitness Updates: where I'm at and what I've learned along the way;

- Career Updates: working on a career change and the path I'm taking to accomplish this;

- Healthy Beauty Updates: my quest to become more healthy in the hygiene products I use. This will include reviews on products I've tried and help from my sister S.A. Wilson over at Sense of Aesthetic blog; [PS there's a video and a new vlog series in the works!]

- Writing Updates: I'm currently participating in National Novel Writing Month #NaNoWriMo and my plans for the novel when it's completed;

- Travel Updates: I spent most of October gallivanting all over Europe; (Includes a video and lots of pics!)

- Friends and Family Updates: some loses and gains in this department this year and what I've learned from these experiences and how I'm feeling going into 2015. 

That's it for now. Stay tuned for all the wonderfulness that is my life currently. And as always here's to your uncommonly wealthy life! Cheers! :)

Enough with the Excuses!

The other day I had a visit from my sister and she gave me some really great advice that frankly I needed to hear. Her simple advice was to just start writing: she told me that I can publish what I write instantly chapter by chapter using the website wattpad.com as she has been doing. She also told me that I have a lot of great ideas and that I should just write them because they deserve to be shared with the world. It seems like simple advice but it was exactly the kind of kick in the butt I needed. 

I interpreted this advice as: 'enough with the excuses, just do the work already!' Which is nothing new, this is the advice I've read and heard before many times, but I guess I just finally got it. I got it in a new way, in a way that I've never experienced before. I've had the experience many times in my life of understanding many different concepts intellectually before truly understanding it on the other important levels: emotionally, spiritually and physically. This is an example of a piece of advice that's gone in one ear and out the other so many times and I finally get it, I really do!

To me it means so many different things and it can be applied to so many different areas of my life that it feels like a game-changer, like this is a really important turning point in my adult life. I've made excuses about my life circumstances, I've made excuses about why I won't lose weight, I've made excuses about my finances and I've made excuses for myself. And these excuses are all lies, lies that I tell myself to feel better about the reasons why I'm not achieving the things I want to achieve, why I'm not where I want to be in my life and why I'm overweight and unhappy. In their truest forms they're all just different names for the same thing: resistance. 

Resistance rears it's ugly head every time we attempt or even think about trying to improve ourselves in anyway or any time we venture into the realm of creativity. I've experienced resistance in creative areas such as writing and acting, in financial and freedom areas and in the area of health and fitness. I started this blog as a 'lifestyle design' blog because I wanted to design my life a certain way and I've made a lot of strides in this regard but I've also made a few stumbles. And that's ok, I'm not here to beat myself up about it, I'm here to acknowledge how far I've come, what I've learned and what I need to do to keep moving forward. 

I was looking back at some of my previous posts and it's amazing how many of my resolutions and other commitments I've made in this blog that I've actually completed. Here's a breakdown:

New Year's Resolutions:

- I've paid off all my credit cards by using a consolidation loan which I now pay back in smaller monthly increments with a fraction of the interest,

- I have money in my savings account and it's more than what I originally predicted,

- I took a trip out west to Winnipeg to visit my sister in the spring and I'm going on a dream Europe vacation this fall,

- I've started working with a personal trainer and I have a gym membership,

- I've gone through ups & downs when it comes to the eating heathy but I'm re-committing to making more of my own meals because I love to cook,

- I haven't lost the weight I wanted but I've set myself a new goal of getting heathy, strong and in shape. I want to look and feel better even if the scale doesn't change a whole lot,

- I've excelled in my job, I feel like I get better everyday and I'm still learning, I stay out of the politics and I try my best always. I'm loving my job and that's a choice I made, 

- I've actually started to make new friends in toronto, which is awesome! I've reconnected with some old friends, I've maintained most of my old Ottawa friendships and I'm learning a lot about my new city. Unfortunately I did say goodbye to a longterm friendship this year but in the end I think it was for the best, it had become a toxic friendship that was no longer benefitting either of us. I haven't closed that door forever though, maybe sometime in the future when we're both more mature and have forgiven each other we can be friends again but even if not, it was great while it lasted. :)

- I've done a bit of cake decorating this year but I think it'll remain a hobby for now as I concentrate on other life endeavors,

- I've haven't been blogging as much as I wanted to but that will be changing. I have a lot of fun ideas for future blogs in the next few months as we closeout 2014 (including a rundown of my Europe trip),

- I haven't written a screenplay but I've started writing again. I'm going to take my sisters advice and just start writing on wattpad and I'm also committing myself to the November novel writing month challenge this year,

- And lastly the acting career I was hoping to start once I was in Toronto: I haven't done it and frankly I'm not sure if I will. I have some soul-searching to do in that respect but for right now I'm happy focusing on my writing. :)

In terms of a couple more things I mentioned:

- I've started my 3 stars blog and I've posted my first post!

- I'm still on the fence about my favourite things and a baking blog/vlog. I think at this point concentrating on the 2 blogs and a novel (or 2) is my priority. I can always come back to them in the future. 

All in all I think I've come a LONG way this year and I've made some great progress. I still have a long way to go but that's ok, as long as I'm working, as long as I have creative and important (to me at least) things to do then I'm happy. I just have to keep moving forward and realize that everyday will be a new struggle against the resistance demon. I won't win every day but it's the small battles that add up to the big victories. I just have to keep moving forward and winning the little battles. Enough with the excuses because when I look back on my life in 5, 10, 20 or more years I don't my days to add up to a big pile of excuses, I want them to add up to an amazing and uncommonly wealthy life full of wonderful experiences and adventures. So now you just have to go out there and do it! :D