Kansans and Friends In Weight Loss

Adolescence  as I mentioned in my earlier post  got much worse.  Hang on your in for a rough ride there were many bumps in the road.

Age 12

Positive- told someone  I was being molested

Negative- Grandfather bullied me into lying that it didn’t happen,wanted to run away that summer but I couldn’t because of my eye

Age 13

Negative- Made several attempts to run away all of them failed, hated Junior High

Age 14

Negative- gave up trying to run away,hated junior high, hated high school,lost four kids in our high school that year one a few months before graduation and three on graduation weekend, had to go to a double casket ceremony the morning of the class of “87’s graduation and one the following day.

Positive-liked band,got a B+ for a report on The History of Rock and Roll I did for history class, graduated from junior high

Between the ages of 13 and 14 I also attempted suicide two or three times. They all failed.

Age 15

Positive- got to go to a party and got drunk,finally placed in a foster home

Negative- the next day it was time to take drastic measures to leave home

Age 16

Positive- Moved to Topeka,also spent the last semester of 10th grade in a new school

Negative- Found out about my dad’s cause of death as actually being suicide, got stood up for my sweet sixteen date

Age 17

Negative- got raped,went to a foster home and stayed almost until graduation

Between 16 and 17 I left my mom’s house and spent time off and on the streets while going to high school because I got tired of being let down by people I thought I could trust

Age 18

Positive- Moved to CA,had my first son,moved back to Topeka

Negative- got pregnant,gave up first son due to the fact I wasn’t ready to mentally handle raising a kid

This exercise took a lot out of me having to go back into my past. I remembered more about being molested as well.

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I am combining the next two chapters because the questions I want to share with you in my self analysis are spread out within these two chapters.

Chapter 2

1. Were you ever afraid of the dark?Did you have bad dreams when were little? I was never afraid of the dark however, I did dread bedtime after my grandfather started molesting me. I would use every tick in the book to stay up a little later. The memories of that time in my life continue to haunt me. my dream patterns from childhood often involved deep water. Now that I am an adult my deceased grandmother is front and center in my dreams. 

Chapter 3 

3. Jesus knows our days have their cares. What are the everyday things you worry about? I worry about having enough money for food and gas for my car. I also worry that my son who has CP and a very noticeable speech impairment gets treated fairly at school. I am worrying about the now imminent release of my son’s father from prison. I know when he is released things are going to change up in my life again. That is another reason for really working on myself mentally so I can handle all the things that will entail dealing with him. 

5. Sometimes it’s hard not to peek ahead on our schedules and start to fuss about what will be going on later in the week. We know we shouldn’t be worrying, but it comes so naturally! It’s actually hard to face our days just one at a time. What Worries would disappear for you if you concentrated on the day you are in? I would have to say worrying about not having enough. For me that is trying to figure out how to make things like food and necessities stretch.

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In addition to working through the Living Above Worry and Stress book I am tackling the Life Strategies book by Dr. Phil.

I did my first task in the workbook the other night while my son played on the library pc. I have been getting us a study room so I can read and do some self discovery work. Anyway I have worked through two tasks I realize I am frustrated that I can make more money than what I know I have been able to, that I am capable of more than I am accomplishing, that I am suffering financial burdens I can’t handle and that I live with frustration and depression most of the time.

The next task is assigning a time line to your life starting with childhood, then adolescence,young adulthood,married or adult life and later life. Then he asks you to break them up into negative and positive events on either side of the time line.

My childhood was filled with more negatives than positives.

3 yrs old- removed from home,lost my father to suicide,went to his funeral, then immediately after was sent right back to my foster home.

4-5 yrs old- still in foster homes

5-6 yrs old positive:released to grandparents,negative:grandfather started showing his abusive side

7 yrs old- positive;got a dog, negative mom ditched us to be with some guy,lost my favorite uncle,got in trouble for flipping a girl off in first grade and for showing a boy my private parts

8 yrs old- positive: made my first communion

9 yrs old- hated fourth grade

10 yrs old- tried to start a fire at school. I actually started one at home cause I wanted to kill my grandfather, my grandfather started molesting me

11 yrs old- grandma was sick a lot,started to hate family vacations

12 yrs old- positive: confirmation, negative hit in the eye with a hardball(summer sucked that year)

There is more that I remember but these are the key things that stick out in my head. My childhood wasn’t a picnic and I spent most of it waiting to be old enough so I could move out and live my own life. Many years later I look back at all those who tried to manipulate things supposedly in my best interest. I get very angry thinking of all the crap that happened that could have been avoided. However, as the serenity prayer goes “Lord grant me the courage to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” I have prayed this many many many times in my adult life. No I am not an alcoholic,drug addict, overeater, or otherwise but I do have a seriously negative relationship with food.

As I hit adolescence things got worse. More to come on that one.

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I have been doing some work recently from a book produced by Women of Faith called Living Above Worry and Stress and since I am an emotional eater I felt like this was a good book to have in my arsenal of tools to keep me motivated to at least keep from gaining weight.

I have managed to work through four chapters so far. One thing I want to mention is that this is progressing slowly on purpose. Going through the work in the book I mean. I want to take time to really work through each chapter and also give myself a break between each one as I am washed out emotionally after working through some of it. There is a reason I am on Zoloft after all.

I want to share with you what I am working through so far and I am only going to post one chapter at a time in the next few weeks.

Chapter 1

1. What are your responsibilities around your home?You know,the things you absolutely have to do to stay afloat and can’t delegate to anyone else in the family.

1. cook dinner
2. do laundry
3. clean house
4. pay bills
5. car care
6. check mail
7. pet care
8. PC maintenance
9. shopping

2.What are the occasional, maintenance-type tasks you have to make sure get done?

• PC
• car care-trash,vacuum, windows
• filter(heater),smoke alarm

3. What activities do you attend on a regular basis, or act as chauffeur on your children’s behalf? This varies from week to week, it depends on my classes on campus, my WELCA meetings and related activities. It also depends on when the church library decides to meet. It also depends on how many parental involvement activities are going on at my sons school.

4. What responsibilities do you hold in your church? How much preparation time do these responsibilities take? Since I am the WELCA leader for our group I have to call everyone the night before to make sure everyone is attending. I also have to review the WELCA monthly budget to let my group know of anything relevant to our groups expenditures. I also have to hostess once or twice a year and do a lesson once or twice a year. Then there are the other activities that I am asked to let our group know about like the Spring Banquet and the cluster meeting. With the library committee I just attend the meetings and work shops we have and I also spend an hour or two per month doing routine maintenance on the libraries computer.

5. Birthdays and holidays take a lot of planning.These annual events are traditions , and you are the keeper of the traditions. What seasonal celebrations do you “make” happen for your family? Christmas,Easter,4th of July,Thanksgiving, and Anthony’s birthday.

6. On top of all of these things, many of us have also taken a job. Some of us are self-employed while others are working outside the home. How many hours do you work each week? Also is it a job that your responsibilities weigh on your mind even when at home? I run a non profit message board and website for weight loss support. There is no way I can leave work at work as this has been my life’s work for almost 4 years now.

7. In the midst of all this busyness and business, what would you say are the most important things in your life? My son, my faith, and being a good student.

8. Look at these last few pages. Here are lists of all the people you are responsible for and all the jobs you must do. Do you feel overwhelmed by all of these responsibilities? Doy you have any fears or worries that crop up because of them? I do feel overwhelmed at the moment due to the fact that I am for the first time in five years a single parent again. I knew it would be hard leaving Mark, but I had no idea I was in for such a rocky start as I go it alone. Mark isn’t Anthony’s father but he is the only male role model that my son has had in his life. I left Mark due to many issues within our relationship. Anthony’s father is serving time in prison for aggravated assault with a deady weapon with intent to do bodily harm. Not to me but to another guy while our son was in his care.

9. Look at David’s prayer in Psalm 102:1-3. How is he feeling? distressed and as if time is passing by too quickly

10. We know from the Bible that “God is not the author of confusion”( 1 Cor. 14:33). Fear, worry, and stress are not a part of His plan for our lives. When He made you,what did He have in mind for His workmanship? Look in Ephesians 2:10. For Good Works

I know that for some the Biblical work end of this may be too much or not their thing. I am saying up front right here right now that is not my intention to force another way of beliefs on someone. I am turning to the Bible for my own personal benefit in doing this book study. If you get something out of what I share great either quietly keep it inside or share it with me. If you choose to criticize please do it constructively and diplomatically. I don’t want any drama on my blog and to share this part of my soul has taken me a lot of courage. I have other things in the pipeline that I am working on in regards to getting right inside my head this year. This year is the year for me.

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Here are five goals for this blog to accomplish over the next 30 day’s.

1. Work on layout
2. Transfer health related posts from 360 to this blog
3. Build my link list
4. Find all of my diet pics and sprinkle them in with transfered health posts
5. Compile a list of my resources here at home and add them to my blog for a reference list

My 6 month goals are:

1. Actively spread the word
2. Continue to look for local and national relevant material to blog on
3. Get people who are local to notice and comment on my blog.
4. Look for health related widgets or modules to add
5. Survey consistent readers as to usefulness, their perceptions of how informative I am and so forth at a 3 month period and at the 6 month mark to evaluate any needed changes.

This sounds cliche’ but I want my blog to represent trustworthy information. I want people to feel they have a true friend in their weight loss wellness battles. I also feel that through my blog people will see that i am a human being behind the screen instead of some faceless entity that puts together the sites that they visit. I am also hoping that people who are in my profession come and offer their help in the way of doing guest interviews or posts, offering their resources in whatever form they have at their disposal. I am not great at public speaking but I would love to participate in conferences and other events related to my blogs target audience and even some general web or internet conferences.

Ultimately it is all about reaching customers and getting out there and walking the talk for me. In terms of long term success I would like to still be blogging three years or even ten years from now, even amid whatever changes there are on the horizon for the internet,social marketing, and web 2.0 as we know it today.

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I decided to start a business blog again to have a place to jot down my ideas and other relevant things I need to share or put out there in order to make some clear cut decisions about how to best run my business.

I recently visited a site called eMoms and they had the following questions in a post. I am going to try to answer them and maybe it will help me with figuring out if I am on the right path or need to make modifications to the way I am currently operating things.

What would be a fun way to attract 10 new visitors to my sites?
On a chance I went to my latest Search Engine Marketing newsletter and found this incredible site called MyBlogLog. I had to sign up for this. It was a must. Since then my traffic has increased from 1 to 2 hits per week to 1- 6 hits per day. I have also joined a work from home mom networking site that has helped my exposure as well. I am participating in the banner pool exchange from mompack too. I also need to attract more people to my Cafepress shop but for right now I am thankful that I am getting more hits on my main site.

Why am I so grateful to have this opportunity to pursue my dreams?
On this one I just want to say that through a set of circumstances beyond my control I have been able to be a single parent and still stay at home. I am thankful that I have been able to be on assistance so I can still live and go to school and run my sites without having to work outside the home on top of it. I am also thankful that I am in great health in the areas that matter most so that I can get up every day and get on the pc and motivate others to be the best they can be as well.

What resources DO I have NOW that could lead to future growth?
I think the first question addresses this I have mompack now and MyBlogLog and the banner exchange pool at mompack and also their filler list and their contest and promo lists. I also have gained a huge amount of info from going to school that I can use as well. I have the small business development center at the local chamber of commerce and i have various things at school that I can utilize when I need to.

How will this add value to the publics lives?
This is a no brainer actually by me promoting health and wellness and weight loss it will help people to see they are worth what it takes to make themselves healthy from the inside out.

What is my ultimate outcome?
I would say I want to be like Dr. Phil or Bill Phillips but right now I think my outcome is just to be a positive enabler for people. I think if they can see all the struggles I have been through and have managed to stay positive and healthy and sane then I’m hoping that they can learn to find that inner strength to do it for themselves as well.

What do I want my business to look like?
Well we all want the brick and morter store front which I will admit I want however for the moment I think the more practical thing is to build myself on the internet and then when I get to build my store I will have my internet success on my portfolio to help give my loan request a boost. So I guess I can say I want it to look like a successful internet business at the moment.

What values have I upheld to get to this point?
Hard work, diligence, perseverance, determination, trustworthiness,dependability

What are the beliefs I have had to adopt along the way to get me this far?
Oh man this is a big one. I would have to say keeping an open mind and learning that I still have so much to learn that I have to keep at this everyday to make myself look credible. I have also had to develop a thick skin and realize not everyone is going to jump on my bandwagon.

What have I had to let go of in order to succeed?
I have let go of procrastination. I have found that in the world of the internet if you dilly dally around you will get left in the dust quickly and no one will bother to take a second look at you. I have had to let go of anger and resentments of my past and turn them into positives so that I can use that to focus on my business instead. I have had to let go of all the meaningless things like partying,drinking, and sleeping all day so that I can be productive. Well I am a parent anyway so that is out of the question all together, I have had to sacrifice some sleep in order to get things done late at night when I haven’t had time to get on the pc.

What are my daily must do’s?
These are a few, things change on a daily basis

• Have to check my email to see if I have anything relevant from my newsletter providers that I can use on my sites
• I have to answer any emails that need to be answered
• Check all of my sites to see what new activity is going on and if there are any issues that need to be addressed
• Look for new graphics that I can use and any other elements to make graphics for my site.
• Look for relevant content that I can use on my sites

What are my daily must nots?
I tend to get off track sometimes but it is necessary to break things up a bit as I spend alot of time on the pc. I think I am going to have to really evaluate this one cause I do alot of things on the net that require networking and keeping people interested in what I am doing.

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