The Dash Between

Last year was the year of the Unseen Transformation - the changes that happen in all the nooks and crannies of your brain that actually allow transformations to happen.

This year, I have decided and decreed, will be the year of the Visible Transformation.

Transformations don't have to be fast - they can be slow and steady, like that turtletype dude who won the race. TheBoy mentioned last night how we've been working towards so much for so long (years, seriously, in ways that are only manifesting themselves now), and I commented that it's not really the speed, it's the movement that counts.

As I walked on the treadmill this morning (one day down, 312 to go!), that thought hit me again - it's not really the speed, it's the movement, the counts. Both in my successes in exercise, and my reduction of weight. As long as I keep moving, I WILL get faster, I WILL get fitter. There's really no other option - as long as I keep moving.

As I start to mull over which of the two lunches I brought for myself that I will eat today - fully aware that both have major 'exceptions' that I am cleaning out of my diet - it's not the speed, it's the movement, that counts.

So often, I forget that, and I feel like I have to fly, fly, fly in order to have claimed achievement. Is my achievement any less great because it took two months rather than two weeks? Two years, instead of one? Not at all - it doesn't change the impact of my success, it merely shifts the timeline. Now, if there is a set deadline (I don't think the IRS would be down with my movement not speed concept) - that's a different story.

But honestly, how many things in life REALLY have a fixed deadline that achievement is DETERMINED by? Heck, even the IRS offers extentions! I think so many of the deadlines that we impose on ourself are artificial, and just a source of more added stress. If we could focus on the journey - honoring every step (esp. the slow and hard ones!) and KNOWING that the steps we are taking will lead us to where we need/want to be - I think so many things would be - not easier, but more peaceful. More calm.

At least that's how I think it would work with me. It's a release of impossible control. I can't determine how long it takes me to lose weight - all I can do is do the things I need to be doing in order to lose weight. I can't determine how long it will take me to get pregnant - all I can do is so the things I need to be doing in order to have optimal fertility. I can't determine how long I'll be working - all I can do is do the things I need to do in order to make my job less soulsucking and to get us to a point where I don't HAVE to work.

Being the controlfreak that I am, the choice (and it's a choice I've reminded myself of at least four times, today alone *lol*) to really examine what I'm trying to control/wrassle/make fixed and honestly decide whether I can truly control the output, is.......interesting, to say the least. It's a little less scary than I thought it would be, as I'm now even more focused on controlling the INPUT (which ya know, I actually CAN mostly control) and letting the output come as it may.

So. That's what this year has taught me so far.

What've you learned?