ADHD

After sharing with the psychiatric nurse practitioner what brought me to this appointment and answering a series of questions, it seemed pretty obvious to her that my brain functions a bit differently from others and that I exhibit a number of ADHD symptoms. I have learned several new terms and phrases in the last few months such as neurotypical and neurodivergent. I’d never heard those words before. I guess, I’ve been living under a rock for a while now. And I’ve learned many other terms too such as time blindness. Oof, that’s a tough one. It’s one that makes me think so badly about and talk so negatively to myself. But seriously. There are actual names and phrases and definitions for the challenges I’ve had in life! Fucking awesome. 

Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. I thought this phenomenon only occurred in our youth. I thought that it primarily manifested in boys. I thought that by the time one reaches adulthood it’s no longer a thing. Apparently I was wrong. I’ve said in the past that I don’t want to pathologize myself or others. I’ve felt in the past that it doesn’t matter who we are per se and how we got to be who we are but rather what we choose to do going forward.

However, it sure is hella helpful to be able to name our experiences and understand our past to the extent that we may better understand ourselves. The more we know what drives and fuels us and what makes us feel defeated, the more we can learn how to work WITH ourselves and not AGAINST ourselves. To realize that indeed we are all different and there are often multiple paths to get to the same destination. The fact that we can learn how to rewrite our paths to our future literally in our brains is one example of how it can help to know who we are or at least how we behave.

I won’t say how this idea that I might have this disorder came about or rather who brought it up to me except to say that it’s someone very close to me who knows me extremely well. I would share stories of recent goings on in my life and this person would chuckle. I’m over here like why are you laughing at me for forgetting to bring something to work yet again as I share that literally, it’s always a mystery not IF I’ll forget something but WHAT it will be today. This person is like “yo, classic ADHD”. It became a running joke with many a story I would share. Sigh. I said, “Fine. I’ll read it” referring to a book this person recommended called Your Brain’s Not Broken - Strategies for Navigating your Emotions and Life with ADHD.

After I read it, I asked my mom if she would read it too. I asked her if the characteristics described by the author resonated with her at all because I found almost everything being described resonating with me. She said, “no, and it got repetitive so I skipped to the chapters that talked about strategies to help with managing life”. I was quite literally dumbfounded.

Previously, when asked about certain behaviors, I would say, “everyone does this. Everyone experiences these things. We just need to get systems in place to support us such as getting a good planner and writing everything down.” If any of you know anything about me and planners, you may also know that I have a planner graveyard. A location in my home where all the planners that I thought would finally be the thing to fix my life went used for a few weeks to a few months before getting tossed to the side in yet another pile I don’t know what to do with. I also have many a blank bullet journal in preparation for a lot more planning.

(Side note: My digital planner has actually lasted since August 2022, which is super encouraging! I think it’s because I can move things around and erase and redo it as much as I want. This helps make it easier to move to do lists forward more easily and keep my frustrations with other schedule changes at bay. I struggle with messy crossed out stuff in planners and small spaces to write and then just give up on them after a while. Also, there’s the matter of making sure it’s always with me. Digital planners eliminate these problems!!)

Some activities that fall into this category of behaviors that I thought applied to everyone include but are not limited to the following:

• Being paralyzed to do a basic activity of adult life like updating a drivers license address (I still haven’t done this almost 2 years after moving.)
• Leaving your house keys in outside front door key lock or even in your car. (That last one is especially not fun.)
• Forgetting to move wet laundry to the dryer multiple times necessitating multiple rewashes. Then leaving them in the dryer until the next load needs to be moved. Then leaving them in the hamper until time to retrieve clean clothes from it to wear.
• Struggling with procrastinating starting an assignment such as writing a paper and ending up in a state of paralysis for lengthy periods of time prior to a period of extreme hyper focus lasting 12+ straight hours with limited breaks to eat or go to the bathroom
• Forgetting important appointments
• Being chronically late to everything even enjoyable events such as massages or parties
• Missing a bill because it got lost in one of my many piles to be dealt with later. (Later means never really. Let’s be honest.)
• Overdrafting your account because your autopay hit and you forgot to move money into that account. (Thank god for savings account overdraft protection.)

I also learned the term rejection sensitivity dysphoria. I thought I was just a sensitive person, but RSD involves more than just being sensitive. According to the website www.additudemag.com, a site dedicated to educating people about ADHD, RSD is “extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also be triggered by a sense of falling short—failing to meet their own high standards or others’ expectations.” Oh this one is a doozy too. 

There are several neuropsychiatric disorders that can include RSD and ADHD is one of them. If you are interested, you can read more about it here. https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/ This article alone describes a lot about who I am and how I function. It says that adults with ADHD often manage their RSD by becoming people pleasers or they stop trying and hide away from potential RSD igniting situations or both.

What it doesn’t include in here is how I, Rebecca, am learning to manage this. If I can get past the negative feelings or at least the initial stages, I can make a conscious choice to face these emotions and fears head on and put them out there in the world for others to see and read about. I mentally fight against the potential embarrassment and judgment in order to share with others what it’s like. I do this because I refuse to stay hidden away curled up in my little ball of shame like I have in the past.

I KNOW I’m not the only one that experiences these feelings. I know this because I DO share. And the more I share, the more people open back up to me. That said, literally everyone I know that has opened up to me has done so privately (with one exception being one particularly “open book” horse friend of mine). They don’t want their business out there in the world for all to see and to be scrutinized by others. They don’t want their kryptonite to find its way into the hands of others to be used against them. I know I run the risk of this happening to me. Once I put something out there on the internet, it is forever available to anyone who wants to use it to harm me.

But, you see, when I keep this stuff balled up inside of me, I harm myself so much more than you, my reader, or anyone else can harm me. I put my metaphorical armor on against my own self attacks best by being bold and daring. I heal myself by standing up and fighting for the support that I need and on behalf of my friends and family members who are fearful of doing the same. I heal myself by sharing what I learn along this journey of life in order to communicate to others that while not everyone is the same, each of us has our own challenges. And now I’m choosing to heal myself by sharing things that have kept me in a cycle of shame and wanting to hide away from the world. 

This metaphorical armor is actually a stripping down of myself for all to see. And by fighting my urge to hide, it actually makes me free…

ADHD comes with many amazing talents and gifts as well. Though I’m talking about some of the challenges here today, I’m fully aware of the gifts that it also brings. My impulsivity led to me switching my career entirely while having two young children at home and going back to school to get an advanced degree. My ability to hyper focus when I want to allowed me to relearn all the basic sciences from my classes 10 years earlier in a matter of months to prepare for and then ace the pharmacy school

entrance exam (PCAT). These gifts along with tactics to make my life easier with my newfound vantage point will be a huge focus of mine going forward. 

I went through periods of skepticism about all of this, then minimization, then denial, then lots of observation, then a realization that ya maybe this is the ticket to a bit of what makes me tick, then anger and annoyance, then sadness and questioning of lost opportunities and missteps and misunderstandings in my previous marriage and with other close relationships had I understood sooner, then acceptance and hope that this awareness of myself will help me more than any book on habits and behaviors ever has before. 

My biggest hope in all of this is by having words to describe some of my characteristics, ways of thinking, and my behaviors I will be able to search out tools to help me with these behaviors. And that these tools will then help me with communicating and improving my relationships with my current husband, my children, my family, my friends, and my coworkers. I have already begun to work on this aspect and my life and my relationships are already so much better for it!!

Here is what I wrote in my notes last week to prepare for my appointment…

I’ve been trying to figure myself out my whole life. Why do I always have a “floordrobe” and a messy and disorganized home even though I want desperately to have a clean home and find peace in a clean environment? Why am I chronically late even to enjoyable appointments like massages? Why am I so unorganized compared to my sister? Why am I so passionate and have such highs and lows? My sister has same many times that she envies my highs but is grateful she never has my lows. The excitement and exuberance I felt for a full two months after running my first half marathon for example is something she has never experienced with all of her life’s accomplishments.

I know I’m not bipolar. Bipolar traits don’t fit me. My highs are not extreme enough to be considered manic and I don’t exhibit manic related behaviors. I also don’t have severe depression lasting for months at a time. But I get incredibly passionate about things and go from zero to 60 in two seconds flat with just about every new passion whether it’s training for a marathon, learning to ride a horse, studying to get into pharmacy school, bodybuilding and more. I deep dive head first into any new shiny object of my passionate affection. And I share anything and everything about said object with everyone around me like it’s the next best thing since sliced bread and how on earth did I not know about it before?!

I’ve had depressive thoughts many times in the past. Only got close to plan development once during my divorce. Otherwise it’s just: why am I like this? Why can’t I do better? How can I be so successful and be so stupid at the same time? Why are we here? What’s it all for? And I go through periods of life feeling like I have no meaning. No purpose. Subscribing to an existential nihilistic point of view rather than my much preferred and more optimistic stoicism and Buddhism philosophical views. Admittedly, seeing a lot of death and suffering at work can make this harder at times. But this isn’t always the initiator of these feelings.

So what is it? Is it ODD and I just a rebel? Good lord. No. I’m incredibly concerned with how others view me and want to be loved. Though I admire those that are able to actually believe the saying “what others think of me is none of my business”. Is it depression? Sometimes yes but never long enough to be considered major or even moderate depression (except perhaps during my divorce). Mild depression? Yes. But it’s usually short lived and I’m able to quickly find a new shiny object in life to focus on and then I’m all in. But inevitably I find that I’m “too much” for people. I overwhelm them with my enthusiasm. And then I have self loathing and want to crawl back into a hole. I thought many times about trying antidepressants but I don’t want to squash the essence of who I am - my personality. And I do not want the potential side effects that come with them or the possibility of side effects coming off of them. I was willing to try Wellbutrin for a little while though years ago. It helped a little. But not enough to be worth remembering to take it daily.

I thought maybe my struggles were from my concussion except these qualities existed before that. I thought maybe the cause was secondary traumatic stress or my shift work and lack of sleep. But these qualities predated my job in the ED and there are many times that I know I’m not severely impacted by trauma. I’ve taken STS tests and the results are minor most of the time (3 drownings in one week on top of traumas and new cancer diagnoses may be the exception). 

I’ve read books on sleep, got checked out for sleep apnea, bought a fit bit. I compared my sleep to my sister’s sleep and mine is actually quite comparable or better (if you base off score and not hours). I was prescribed several sleep medications before ultimately deciding not to take any medications for sleep: these include hydroxyzine, trazodone and ambien. The first two made my memory and focus worse. The second I was hesitant to even try when it was first suggested. I finally agreed to give it a go and got it filled but then never took it and finally threw them out. Too scared of potential side effects and how much it might affect my memory. 

I thought it might be alcohol but many of my traits and behaviors still occur during the times when I’ve been alcohol free. Alcohol makes these focus and memory related behaviors worse though so I hardly drink now.

Sometimes I feel very fractured. I can be a bit impulsive and get super excited in the moment. I then want to share my exuberance with anyone and everyone. This next best thing will then become my hyper focus. Only to dive deep enough to then find out I don’t want to do it or it interferes with my schedule or is too much work or whatever and then it’s on to the next thing.

Friends and family tell me it’s because I have too much going on. And I need to have rest days. And I need to say no to big commitments. The thing is that whenever there is ANY time in my schedule, I instantly fill it. I WILL FILL IT.

The Promise of Spring

After 12 years of working in the ED, I have never witnessed an emergent birth. I came close one cold night in winter some years back when a woman didn’t quite make it out of the ambulance bay to be transferred to an adult hospital before delivering. But I still missed the birth itself. In mentioning my desire to witness a birth to our docs at work, the response I have gotten has not been as enthusiastic. We are a pediatric facility and our physicians are specialty trained to care for babies AFTER they leave the comfort of their mother’s womb and not a second before, let alone the moms. 

I’ve seen the last breaths taken of so many little ones that it dawned on me this week how lovely it would be to see the first. Though I understand where our docs are coming from. It is in the best interest of mom and baby if this process occurs in a place more equipped for deliveries. There is a reason it’s called the miracle of life. And we all want to keep it that way. A miracle. And life.

But ahhhhh, as the weather starts to warm and I’m over the initial hump of some recent revelations into who I am, I’m settling in to the idea of spring and the hope that it always brings.  The days get longer and with it comes more opportunity for me to see sunlight with my vampirish schedule. Pretty soon the smell of orange blossoms will waft through my nose and my amygdala will perk up with fond memories of laying out by a pool or going for runs or rides with friends on trails covered in green sprinkled with purple, pink and yellow flower specks. Yes, even the desert awakens with color in the Spring. 

I rode Arya this week. And though I tweaked my groin, my heart was fueled from the sunshine and her quirky camaraderie. They say you and your animal tend to take on each others’ personalities. I wonder who was quirky first - her or me? (Okay, ya don’t remind me. I know she’s only 7 years old…) Our chicks are growing and will be ready to lay eggs soon. And I’m gearing up to entering a season of growing. 

This blog started as a place to track my bodybuilding journey. My macros. My photos. My physical body measurements. And though I never wanted to acknowledge or admit this before, my friends, I’m here to say it now if you haven’t already figured it out. I’m a starter. I am one who starts things. I love Spring! I love newness! I love novelty. I get bored easily. 

Even from this blog, you can see that. I had a post in 2015. I was all set to blog about endurance riding. That was my first of a number of rides. And that was my only post for 3 years…whomp whomp. 

Then I had one in 2018. It was going to be the first of many blog posts once Tim, our exchange student arrived, and then nothing. Zip. Ziltch. Nada. We did share on social media and I made him a photo book of his year with us. But no more blog posts. What you can’t see here is another blog I started when my kids were younger. I had a handful of posts there. It was titled “A Day I’m the Life of the Roush Family”. Roush being my previous married name…

So when I started this blog….I wondered how long it would keep it up. Would I share it weekly as intended? Would it be just my stats? Y’all know I have too much to say for it to just be that. But I feared it wouldn’t stick.

And I started to drift away from it already a couple of weeks ago. But dang it, I preach that habits and behavior change are about progress not perfection. And frequency of behavior. So here we go. I’m going to practice what I preach for once and keep trying at this blog thing. 

The topics may end up being about anything and everything. But I’m going to practice some sticktoitiveness. I don’t know who made up that “word” but I like it. I still don’t know where this bodybuilding/life journey is going to take me. Your guess is as good as mine. But hey, at least I know there will be adventures along the way!

As the song by Tom Cochrane goes, “Life is a highway. I wanna ride it all night long.” My sis reminded me of that song a few weeks ago and it just makes me smile. Thanks Ruth! Here’s to sticking to it! Now bring on spring and color and warmer days and sunshine and tan lines and smiles!!

Caterpillar to Butterfly

A few weeks ago, a friend and I had the same thought at the same time that I’m like a caterpillar in the process of becoming a butterfly and working her way out of a cocoon. How freaking awesome given that my words of the year ended up being “light” and “fly”? 

But before I go on, let me backtrack to 1.5 months ago…

How is it that someone like me…someone who is in a happy marriage, has two beautiful children, a supportive family, a successful career, and plenty of time for hobbies…how is it that I can find myself curled up in a bed feeling like so forlorn? I knew the feeling would pass. But it just feels so damn desolate and lonely when I am in it.

I don’t always share when I am in this space of sadness. Or I will use vague terminology like “things are hard” or “I’m really struggling” and then stick to myself. My bubbly disposition disappears. I disappear. I don’t want pity from my friends or family. I don’t want to bother them or make them worry even though I desperately want support.

So how is it that I have not yet figured out in my 48 years of life how it even happens that I get to this place where I’ve lost my mental fortitude? My essence? My mojo? My everything is figureoutable attitude?

I don’t yet know the answer. But, damn, after these past few weeks, I sure am a bit closer to figuring it out! And I’m so freaking stoked. One book, one Instagram account, a second book, and many many many conversations later with a couple of family members and several friends who have ADHD and I finally feel like I have some answers. 

I have spent my whole life trying to understand behavior and behavior change. I majored in psychology. Studied drugs…and how they related to the brain and behavior. Even took a class called Drugs, Brain, Behavior. It was my enthusiasm around this class that got my sister interested in becoming a pharmacist. Then I became a pharmacist to learn more. Though this came later. After job, marriage numero uno , and two kids. Read tons of books on and listened to innumerable podcasts on behavior and habit change and neuroscience. 

I know now that all my fascination with behavior change was a coping mechanism to figure out how to get myself to do the things that needed to be done in life. Basic self care. An education. A second education. Climbing out of massive debt. Caring for my health. So many years went by where my hypothyroidism was not controlled or I didn’t even take any medication at all - like years people - and when I was pregnant and a new mom. Talk about exhausting!!!

Now a whole new world has opened up for me where I can understand why some things are just harder for me instead of beating myself up for them. Oh my goodness! I CAN DO hard things. I like a challenge when it’s one that I have some confidence in my ability to be able to meet. I just needed to know WHY these things are hard and have access to tools to help.

And now I do, my friends!!! Now I fucking do. :)

Knowledge is power. And I finally feel like I have some.

Just Keep Swimming

“It’s there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And I look at you, and I’m home.” Dory - Finding Nemo

TLDR: I have an appointment in March to discuss getting neuropsychiatric testing done. My bodybuilding progress is staying consistent and I’m getting a booty! I had a lot of fun these past couple of weeks since my last post and I’m in a good headspace.

There is a reason that one of my favorite phrases is “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming swimming swimming.” There is a reason my kids have called me Dory a time or two. I relate to Dory on such a deep level.

I listened to an audiobook recently called Your Brain’s Not Broken. It’s a non-fiction book about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and was recommended to me by a close family member who suffers from this disorder. This person thought that maybe I was suffering from it too. My intent was to listen to it so that I could understand more about my family members who have ADHD (and to add a book to my 2023 completed books goal). However, I surprisingly found myself resonating with a large number of the characteristics described. Being a pharmacist in a pediatric ED, I’m very familiar with the treatment of ADHD. I see it all the time…mostly in young boys. But what about adult females? How did I not already know about how ADHD presents itself in adult females? So I started researching…

In 2016, I found out that Fragile X runs in my family. This X linked genetic condition causes mild to severe intellectual disability. Though it can affect both males and females, male offspring are particularly at risk of being born with and severely impacted by fragile X syndrome (FXS). Some common symptoms include developmental delays, anxiety, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder and more. Shortly after learning about Fragile X, I was tested and learned that I am a carrier of this chromosomal permutation. And as such, I worry for the future offspring of my children and their children.

Carriers can also be impacted in several ways. I learned a few years ago that my hypothyroidism (diagnosed at age 7) was likely a result of being a fragile X carrier. Thyroid hormone is the hormone responsible for regulating your body’s metabolism. Without frequent evaluation (blood draws) and adjustments to my thyroid hormone replacement medication, my metabolism would go down and I could suffer from symptoms of fatigue, cold sensitivity, weight gain, depression, muscle aches and weakness, slow movements and thoughts, constipation, dry skin, brittle hair, loss of libido, pain, and numbness and tingling in hands and fingers. You can imagine the impact of this condition on my athletic and professional goals, especially given the fact that until the past year and a half, I’ve never been really consistent with taking my medication. I would miss days. Then double up or triple up doses to try to play catch up. Crazy, right? Why wouldn’t I take it as directed? I’m a pharmacist for Pete’s sake. And I often tell people I’m a “do as i say, not as a do pharmacist”. One thing that bodybuilding has done for me is to force me to see the direct and immediate positive impact of being consistent and regimented with my medication. Talk about a huge non-scale win!

What I didn’t know though until last week was that Fragile X carriers can also suffer from neuropsychiatric conditions referred to as Fragile X-associated neuropsychiatric disorder (FXAND). Some of these conditions include depression, anxiety, ADHD, substance-abuse, chronic pain, and chronic fatigue. I wonder now with this new information, if there is a genetic component to explain why I am the way I am? And if some of the neurodivergence in our family can be explained by this genetic trait?

I have often thought about having neuropsychiatric testing done but more to identify my potential issues around mild episodic/situational depression. I have neglected to do this, however, because having a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Doctorate degree in Pharmacology certainly qualifies me to diagnose myself, wouldn’t you say?? (Ya, uh, that’s a no.) Jokes aside, I know that mild depression is something that comes and goes for me. I know that exercise, particularly aerobic exercise, can be quite effective in treating mild depression. And I am confident in my ability to actively participate in identifying tactics I can use to climb out of the darkness of those times and to “just keep swimming swimming swimming”. Besides, with all the damn hot flashes I have had lately, I seriously think much of my recent struggles could also be hormonal. (This is where we say, “Yay! Maybe some of this is temporary!”)

But even after reading a journal article published in 2018 on this subject of FXAND and learning more about ADHD, I realize that it doesn’t particularly matter WHY we are the way we are. What matters is that we find a way to come to understand WHO we are; to remain open to learning tools and techniques to help us manage our lives; and to identify what makes us tick, what motivates us, what fuels us, what heals us, what nourishes us, and what helps us when feel as though we are drowning.

I’m so grateful to my mom for helping me with this last week. I had called her and shared that instead of getting things crossed off my never ending to do list and finding a way to become a neat and organized person, I had gotten sidetracked videoing playful adventures with my chickens and horses and posting them on social media instead. She warmly told me that maybe some of what I consider to be wasted time and character defects may actually be assets to my personality instead. I’m a person who shares her journey and has fun and makes others smile and laugh with her along the way. My emotionality makes me want to cry just thinking how sweet this was of her to say. Thanks mom if you are reading this.

 The book I read, was very helpful with this as well. From a practical standpoint, the author shared a tool called the solve-it grid which contains a set of four quadrants. Each quadrant is color coded and identifies tasks based on whether they are stimulating or not stimulating on the y axis and fun or not fun on the x axis. This tool can be used as a way to prioritize tasks in ways other than just a linear giant laundry list of “to dos”. It can also help to identify if too much time is being spent putting out fires (the stimulating but not fun quadrant) or in passive fun activities (not stimulating but fun quadrant). Much of my time is spent in these two quadrants and I’d like to learn how to spend time in the other two more often.

We aren’t even through January yet. But having started on goalsetting so early, I’ve already entered that space of potential overwhelm. (Y’all have seen my crazy list of goals right? Refer to my GOALS POST if not.) Fortunately, I’ve already identified a few techniques to help me move to the other side of that emotional overwhelm space. I have set so many goals for myself and things I want to do that it’s hard to stay on top of it all.

There are 24 hours in the day and we need to prioritize how we want to spend our time. I absolutely love the solve-it grid because it has opened my eyes to the amount of time I spend in the red “fires” quadrant and in the blue “passive fun” quadrant. That knowledge gave me the feedback I needed to create change. And you best believe I started implementing change immediately. How freaking exciting is this?! (That’s also why I’m delayed with this blog post. I’ve actually spent some time having fun!)

And finally, now for an update on my bodybuilding. I’m so stoked you guys! I’m actually getting a booty! Like, I know where my butt is now. It’s actually a wee bit in the way when I pull up my pants. This is getting so fun! I hope it stays this way. And, well, if it doesn’t, I’m sure I’ll find something else to hyper-focus on. Haha. Get it? See what I did there? An ADHD joke at my expense…

“Love who you are what you are and what you do. Laugh at yourself and at life and nothing can touch you.” - Louise Hay

Anyways, here’s my stats…

Current Plan Details

Average actual macros last 2 weeks:

Week ending 1/21/23:

P = 152 gms (goal = 135) - HELL YEAH!

F = 52 gms (goal = 30-35) - way off

C = 228 gms (goal = 175-185) - way off

Week ending 1/14/23:

P = 125 gms (goal = 135) - meh

F = 47 gms (goal = 30-35) - whomp whomp

C = 200 gms (goal = 175-185) - whomp whomp

Workouts completed: (Jan 15-21)

Legs x 2

Push x 1

Pull x 1

Abs x 3

Sprints x 2

Jump Rope x 1

Rock Climbing x 2

End of Week 5: (Jan 15-21)

115.5 lbs = Average weight this week

26.75 = Waist

34.75 = Hips

39.5 in = Shoulders

InBody Stats: (Jan 21)

117.1 lbs = Weight at gym 

113.7% = Body fat %

101 lbs = Lean body mass

55.8 lbs = Skeletal muscle mass

16.1 lbs = Fat mass

Left: September 2021
Right: January 2023

Enjoying my gains!

Back pose

Front pose

Side pose

No pic captured but 2 friends came over for girls’ night & 1 of them helped me work on my runway walk in heels. 

Slowly conquering my fear of heights

So much fun with my nephew!

Happy 40th Birthday to my husband

Hubs went riding with me!!!

Riding off into the sunset together…

I’ve been a bit odd my whole life 😅🥹.

Relaxing Into Instability

“You don’t find your ground by looking for stability. You find your ground by relaxing into instability.” - Cory Muscara

I started this blog as a way to track my journey into bodybuilding. What I didn’t realize is that documenting my journey would turn into so much more than just tracking my progress and stats. Something happens when you make a conscious decision to be more mindful and attentive to your life and your goals. Something happens when you actively work towards moving away from dissociative and numbing behaviors and CHOOSE to be present in the here and now.

At some point during my previous marriage when it started falling apart and after many exposures to the harsh realities of my job, I began actively numbing my pain. There are several ways that I did this. Some of them involved destructive behaviors like drinking and eating way too much pasta after work while others of them were more subtle. I learned how to live my life in silos and how to compartmentalize the different parts of my being. I learned how to be one person in one situation and a totally different person in another. I slowly fractured myself into tiny pieces. I was literally living on autopilot. I knew that it was happening. But it was as though I was an outside observer watching a different person live my life. My spirit often dissociated from my body and even from my mind. It’s hard to conceptualize this but that’s the best way I can describe it. I didn’t know how to reconcile all the parts of me into one and still be able to handle everything that was happening within my space. And the impact went well beyond just me. My children didn’t understand it, but they definitely felt it.

Fast forward to today. I have new goals. Hard goals. They go beyond just the physical stuff like lifting heavy shit and eating on a specified plan. My goals incorporate different things that will hopefully teach me to be me and only me and the same transparent genuine version of myself all the time. I have listed many of my goals in my previous blog entry for you all to see. And I have additional ones that are more around relationships and mindset that also are in alignment with my words for 2023 - Light and Fly.

Part of my fears around going down this path is that bodybuilding is an extremely regimented sport. It requires an intense amount of dedication to both exercise and nutrition. I was concerned if I had a ton of rigidity around food and exercise that it would slowly turn into another form of numbing or compulsive behavior leading me to fracture again just as I’ve been rebuilding my new life with adult children out of the home, a new husband (since 2020), and a new home (since Summer 2021). And that is the last thing I want to happen.

It isn’t the rigidity alone that’s the problem. It’s the possibility of losing oneself in the process and negatively impact those around us. Building new habits - whether they be good ones or bad enough - essentially creates a new identity. As I mentioned last week, the brain is indeed neuroplastic and has the ability to rewire. Therefore, we need to be mindful of what habits we choose to engage in. Because the more we engage in them, the more our brain is rewired to fall into these new habit patterns.

This new place of open, honest, and unabashed transparency is scary. And I’m not talking about my transparency with all of you. I’ve pretty much been an open book my whole life. Rather, I’m talking about transparency and honesty with myself. It’s easy to look outward and blame others when things aren’t going well. It sometimes feels impossible to look inside ourselves and see a gap. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I’m married to someone who is willing to be a mirror for me. I love him for being my mirror despite the fact that in the moments when he is reflecting, I will be anything but loving.

This past week has shown me that if I’m to be truly free, I need to learn how to feel everything without attempting to numb it up, dissociate, or hide away. And holy hell did I ever cry this week! I beat myself up so much just for being me. For feeling incredibly intense emotions both positive and negative. For thinking so deeply. For wondering if I can or even want to do this. Or if I would rather just have a couple of drinks, a burger and some chocolate when life got hard and just be done with it. Throw in the towel. Give up. Then I beat myself up for beating myself up. I cried hard. I cried often. I cried ugly.

And…then I reflected. I didn’t cry and want to give up because I was scared of the hard work involved with this bodybuilding goal. Rather, it was because by working towards this and my other goals in a mindful manner, I’m literally forced to feel. I’m forced to be present. Present with my emotions and with how my body physically feels as it does hard stuff. I have to face the turmoil and demons that exist inside of me. I have to work to communicate effectively and to be present in my relationships. It would be so much easier to be like Anakin Skywalker and push away pain and replace it with avoidance and anger. Anger is a much easier emotion to tolerate. It’s powerful. It’s dominating. It fuels action. But we all know how that one turned out...

Instead I want to embrace the concept of quiet determination. To be reflective and mindful and to consider all parts of my life and not just one slice of it.

So I meditated and decided that I want to meditate more. And not as yet another item on my never ending to do list but rather as a way to stop and take pause FROM my never ending to do list. I don’t plan on tracking my meditation. Not right now anyway. I don’t want this to be something I judge myself on or even monitor. I just simply want to add it in slowly and steadily to move more towards my value words of the year - light and fly. 

I already have so many things that I track and monitor. My food. My water. My weight and body stats. My weightlifting. My cardio. My horseback riding. My habit for the month. My expenditures. My debt. My savings. And…finally…my reading. If you look at that all in one paragraph as it is, it looks exhausting quite frankly. 

Just know that ALL of this tracking and targeting these goals have been progressing over a long long period of time and some of them are even just ingrained habits now. Yay! If you have goals like this for the year and you have any steps backwards, know that this is NORMAL! And the way that you move closer to your goals isn’t always a linear progression. It’s one step forward and two steps back. I did not start here. I started with one and then added on bit by bit by bit. It’s about crying or screaming when life or relationships or goals are hard. And then wiping the tears and beginning again. It’s about learning how to build resilience. And this was a resilience building week for me.

I eased up on some of my goal directed behaviors to make room for other behaviors that needed to be the priority. If we go back to my last blog and see that all roads lead to Rome, each of my goal behaviors play a role in helping me to achieve my goal values. They each are important and they all are important. I hope to share more on this soon in the context of energy expenditure - both mental and physical.

Despite it being an emotionally challenging week for me, my body fat stayed the same and my lean muscle mass went up slightly. This was after 3 days of not going to the gym to care for some much needed time and attention to things at home and not being perfect on my macros. Not too shabby.

You will see below that I’m not perfect. I didn’t follow my plan exactly. I didn’t get in all of my sprints. I didn’t get weekly photos but I’m still making progress. Because I’m still doing work every day. The work outlined below. Inner work. Regular work. Reading work. (Yo! I finished one book already! Thank you to my son for giving me a short book to start my year off!) The work of my goal of organizing all my belongings. And the work of rest and just being. Ya dude. That last shit is the real work right there…

Have a great week my friends!

Current Plan Details:
Average actual macros last week:

P = 126 gms - (goal = 135)

F = 43 gms - (goal = 30-35)

C = 197 gms - (goal = 175-185)

Workouts completed this week: (Jan 1-7)

Legs x 2

Push x 1

Pull x 1

Abs x 3

Sprints x 1

End of Week 3:

115.3 lbs = Average weight this week

27.125 in = Waist

34.5 in = Hips

40 in = Shoulders

InBody Stats: (Done on Jan 9)

116.3 lbs = Weight at gym with clothes after coffee and small meal

13.6% = Body fat %

100.5 lbs = Lean body mass

56 lbs = Skeletal muscle mass

15.8 lbs = Fat mass

A little poem I wrote

Hubby knows how to make me smile

The peaceful power of a tidy space

Spent some time rejuvenating with friends

InBody stats on 1/9/23

Grateful I was working when my friend’s daughter came in

Don’t Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good

PROLOGUE
Before we get started, I would like to say that if you have not yet set up your goals for the new year, it is not too late! I enjoy the fresh start aspect of having everything ready to go by New Year’s Day, but you 100% can start at any time. And having a plan that says “In January, I will work on what I want my year and my future self to look like” is perfectly acceptable. We each have our own lives. We each are allowed to make up our own rules on how to live it. (As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone…yada yada.)

Also, I have some references at the bottom that might be of interest. Part of why I’m taking the time to write this is so that I myself will have this to look back on any time I want to set new goals or in future years. If you have other references or book recommendations that you think I might enjoy, I’d love to see them in the comments or just message me.

I’ll be back to my usual “bodybuilding - how my week went” posts next week.

LET’S BEGIN!
A behavior change coach I follow said that New Year’s is her Super Bowl. I feel the same way! I get so excited at the idea of having a fresh start to improving my life and view of the world around me.

Fresh starts can happen any time there is a change in life. They can occur environmentally such as when you change jobs, move to a new living space or at the beginning or end of a relationship. Or they can be occur temporally such as at the beginning of a new day, week, month, year. There is absolutely no reason one can’t create their own fresh start. There is nothing inherently different about January 1st. But since we assign it as the first day of the year, it takes on a magical quality that wouldn’t otherwise exist. And I LOVE this magical quality!

There has been so much development in the area of neuroscience in the last 20 years and learning from this science and incorporating evidence-based techniques is the best way to create positive change in your life. Gone are the days of the pattern of “I’m going to lose weight this year” followed by dieting through strict restrictive eating, giving up because it’s too hard, and then beating myself up for not being disciplined enough.

OUR BRAINS and NEUROPLASTICITY

We (as in the collective scientific community) now KNOW about synaptic pruning and neuroplasticity. Neurons connect to one another in the brain to communicate information we need to enable us to do things. The more times we do the same thing, the more automatic and stronger the connections become. If we wake up and make ourselves a cup of coffee in the morning first thing many times, this pathway/habit will be more and more solidified.

The way I view this in my mind is the more I drive down a dirt road especially after a rain, the more grooves are created. I likely will drive down the same part of the road (the middle) every time thereby, causing these grooves to become deeper and deeper.

Synaptic pruning is a process our brains uses to strengthen neural networks by getting rid of unused ones. (Alila Medical Media, 2020 and Dixon, 2020). This is a use it or lose it sort of situation. I’ll give an example. I learned how to speak Spanish in high school and college. I rarely speak it as an adult. Therefore, my brain has pruned much of that information out. If we use our coffee example, the more times I choose coffee in the morning over water, the stronger that habit will become.

Neuroplasticity is the ability of our neurons to rewire themselves and create NEW neural pathways. (Alila Medical Media, 2019). It used to be thought that once we reached adulthood, our brains are set as is and cannot change. Research has shown us that this is not the case. We indeed have the ability even in adulthood to change our brain, to learn, and to improve memory. This has tremendous positive implications for recovery from traumatic brain injuries and it also teaches us that we CAN change if we have the right tools.

This knowledge alone puts me into a growth mindset and creates so much excitement around the idea that I have some control over my life, how I choose to view the world, ridding myself of habits I no longer want, and creating habits and a life that fuels me.

So how do we use synaptic pruning and our neural pathways to our advantage? There are lots of methods to do but one way is through habit stacking.

Habit stacking is the process of using a habit we already have (like drinking coffee in the morning) with a habit we want to create (drinking more water). If I remind myself daily to drink a glass of water with my coffee every morning, I will create a new neural pathway that says “I drink a glass of water every morning”. The more I do that, the deeper that new rut will become. I can use tools to help me remember to drink water every morning to help make this process easier such as place an empty glass next to my coffee pot before I go to bed. Or I can write it as an actual “to do” item in my planner, which I look at every morning. 

Understanding how the brain works allows us to work with ourselves to create new neural pathways rather than the method of forgetting our goal and then beating ourselves up about not being disciplined enough or motivated enough or whatever whatever enough. If we make a mistake (like we forgot to put the glass out the night before) and we are reminded of that mistake and do it the next night, we have sent another message to our brains that this new pathway is important and are likely to remember it the next time. Teaching ourselves that we are allowed to make mistakes and to then give it another go builds resilience and confidence along the way in addition to developing the actual new habit.

Going back to our example of the dirt road, when we try to drive either to the left or to the right of the grooves, often times the wheels will hit part of it and the car will deviate back into it. This is normal and just physics really. The same thing will happen to us as we are working towards establishing new patterns. But the more we then move that car back out of those grooves, the more we will create new grooves in the road. The same occurs with our brains.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS AND GOAL SETTING

I absolutely recommend reading the following article from Stronger by Science to get the full details around the science of setting goals. (Trexler 2021) I want to share today the goals I personally chose to set this year. However, there is a lot of meaningful content in this article that will provide the basis for understanding how I set them up. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/goal-setting/

Establish a goal hierarchy

One concept that was discussed was the benefit to establishing a goal hierarchy. In years past, I would set broad goals such as “be healthy”. These types of goals are vague and can mean so many different things. It was hard to know where to start first and I beat myself up for not being able to make progress. Other years, I would set narrow goals such as run 5 times a week every week. While this type of goal moves me more towards action, it is rigid, does not take into account life what I am to do if I can’t meet that goal one week, and I may lose my “why am I doing this” reason along the way. Having a goal hierarchy incorporates both ends of the spectrum - the broad and the narrow and provides a complete package view.

A goal hierarchy includes superordinate goals, intermediate goals and subordinate goals. If we look at my previous example, this would look like: be healthy at the top, be in good athletic shape in the middle, and run 5 times a week at the bottom.

The article has awesome visuals on how to do this using the most common New Year’s resolution of ”be healthy”.

Equifinality and Multifinality

These two concepts are hugely involved in motivational theory and I’ll briefly defined them. (Kruglanski 2015)

Equifinality is the concept that one goal can be served by several means (habits). Think about the phrase “all roads lead to Rome”. Using our goal of be healthy as an example, one intermediate goal might be to “get enough sleep” and a subordinate goal might be “go to bed by 4:30 am” (2nd shift gal over here). The concept of equifinality says that this goal of being healthy can be served by multiple sub goals including getting enough sleep and being in good athletic shape. Sleep is super important for many things such as our mood, our immune system, our energy levels, etc.

If we want to be healthy, it is important to get both sleep AND exercise. If we only focus on the exercise part at the sacrifice of sleep, this doesn’t get us to our overarching goal of being healthy. Conversely, if we always prioritize sleep and skip exercising, we won’t achieve our defined goal of health either. The benefit to establishing our goal hierarchy is to help us see the forest through the trees and to find ways to balance all of our subordinate goals in order to find the best way to reach our superordinate goal.

Multifinality is the concept that one means (habit) can serve several goals. Think about the phrase “kill several birds with one stone”. For me, sleep is also a good example of this. The habit of getting enough sleep enables me to reach my personal goals, which include aspects mental health, physical health and fitness. It puts me in a better mood and decreases emotional lability. It gives me energy to hit it hard at the gym. It creates the mental reserve I need to stick to my food plan. If I can manage the singular habit of getting good sleep, several other goals will be more easily reached.

Utilizing the concepts of both equifinality and multifinality when setting up our goals and being an observant spectator in what goals we set and our behaviors and thoughts around these goals will help us in our path to reaching these goals.

MY GOALS FOR 2023:

Core

At the center of it all are my two words of the year. I learned of the concept of choosing a word of the year from Gretchen Rubin a couple of years ago from her podcast titled The Happier Podcast. The idea is to select a word of the year that carries meaning associated with what you want to focus on for the year or the ideal self you want to be. I grappled with the idea of choosing the word Chisel this year. I like it because there are many projects I want to chisel away at such as going through all of my belongings that had been in storage from my previous homes. We downsized our home significantly in the summer of 2021. Trevor and I have a goal of “everything has a place and everything in it’s place” but that is not a quick process for me. I still have not gone through all of my household and memorabilia belongings. I also have many horse and tack related items that I have accumulated over the years that need to be sorted through. 

Chisel also represents the process of chiseling through a photo album project that I want to do. I have tons of photo albums from when my kids were little back when photos were printed and not digital. I have digitized many of them but they are not organized in any one particular digital space. I also want to make photo albums through a digital photo service like Shutterfly to have a trimmed down and fun tangible place to store my photo memories.

Lastly, chisel seemed to be a good word for my physical goal of competing in a bodybuilding competition. I’m probably a year out from doing so and the process of building a body is one that must be chiseled away at over a very long period of time.

But I ended up steering away from chisel because it seemed too “grind” focused. Much of my last several years have involved a lot of change and a lot of grinding. While my goals themselves are not changing, I’m drawn to the idea of approaching them with light and fun and joy and anticipation and in a way that makes sense to me and I can share with others in order to show my struggles along the way and to also get support. The word chisel just seemed to be too heavy for me. And that’s when it hit me…Light! And the word Fly just seems damn fun. I can fly in my dreams and it is freaking awesome every time! I wrote my following wishes related to these words below.

May I be strong enough that the weights I lift seem light.

May I fly towards behaviors, people and things that fuel me and light my fire.

May I be light in the saddle so that my horses may be strong.

May I see glimmers of light when my mind has wandered into the dark.

May I be light in my heart so that my soul can soar.

May I be lighthearted and warm so that I and my family and friends can consider me a safe person to hold space for them when needed.

May I be light in mood so that my husband and I may welcome more fun and less stress into our lives.

May the weight of my worries become lighter so that I may have strength to pursue my goals.

May I embrace the light of the sun when it is out so that I may improve my sleep, which is at the very core of my mind, body, and spirit.

May I fly away from behaviors, people and thing that don’t serve me.

Middle Layer

The second layer of circles represents the different values in my life I’d like to focus on for 2023. They are categorical in nature and probably fall somewhere between superordinate goals and intermediate goals.

Outer Layer

The outer most layer of circles represents my intermediate goals and housed within them are the subordinate goals that represent the corresponding behaviors.

I wanted a comprehensive view of all the things I would like to tackle this year, but I realize that trying to do everything at once is a recipe for falling short in many areas. There is some literature out there to support the notion that once you begin to focus on one behavior, it makes it easier to add others to the mix. So I have outlined 2 behaviors to specifically target each month. This does not mean that they are any more or less important than any of my other behaviors or goals that they target. But I did place some strategy behind which ones I selected when.

For January, I have a goal of drinking a gallon of water a day. If you have been watching my journey, you will know that is massively hard for me. However, it is a core habit that I know impacts some of my other habits. It falls into that multifinality of two birds with one stone in that if I drink more water, I am more satiated and will snack less. If I know I have to drink more it will weirdly get me to the gym and run more because it’s a good habit stacking item and it’s easier for me to drink when I’m exercising.

The second goal I have for January is to focus on organizing my belongings. Trevor will be completing our patio in the coming months and he needs all my stuff out of there or at least organized in order to do so. I also have horseback riding adventures I would like to do this year so I need to go through all of my tack and horse related items.

There is some method to the madness for my other monthly goals for the year as well. Even though I have them all outlined and prettied up, I’m open to the notion that things change and, therefore, might need to be moved around. I’m ok with having an outline for how I THINK things might or should go, but I know that being rigidly attached to this exact picture is not helpful if things need to be adjusted in the future. 

This brings me back my words of the year. I want this process to be light and to feel like like I’m gliding through the air and flying towards my goals. I want it to overall be fun and exciting even though at times I know it will be boring and annoying and hard.

4 MAIN GOALS

Finally I set up 4 overarching goals for the year that overlap with my goals diagram above. One is regarding organizing my space, which I mentioned above. Two is to read 23 books in 2023. I have set reading goals in the past and have really enjoyed them. This is another one of those goals that helps in several areas. I have read books in the past as part of book clubs, which hits my spend time with friends goal within my Memory making value category. Three is to continue practicing all the behaviors I have established in 2022 when my word of the year was consistency and taking the next steps towards competing in a bodybuilding competition. And fourth, but not last is my goal of attacking my fear of heights. This was a last minute add but it hits several areas as well. Rock climbing is fitness and strength related but it also addresses feelings of anxiety and learning how to overcome those. I won’t get into all the physical and mental health aspects of anxiety today, but I really am excited to tackle this one…and terrified…also really terrified. 

If you are still here reading all of this, thank you for being my friend and for being curious about my journey. I love to share all of it and will continue to share as we move through 2023. I’ve listed a few references below as well as images of my 2 goals for each month and my words of the year. 

Let’s get this party started!!!

Book recommendations on habit development

The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

Better Than Before - Gretchen Rubin

Atomic Habits - James Clear

Switch - Dan and Chip Heath

Alila Medial Media. (2019). Neuroplasticity, Animation [Video]. YouTube.

https://youtu.be/dmEOJyWVQj4

Alila Medical Media. (2020). Synaptic Pruning, Animation [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/0S0jKbh6R1I

Dixon. (2020). Synaptic Pruning and Neural Networks. Accessed 1 January 2023. <https://www.themantic-education.com/ibpsych/2019/09/27/synaptic-pruning-and-neural-networks/amp/>

Kruglanski, Arie & Chernikova, Marina & Babush, Maxim & Dugas, Michelle & Schumpe, Birga. (2015). The Architecture of Goal Systems: Multifinality, Equifinality, and Counterfinality in Means-End Relations. 10.1016/bs.adms.2015.04.001.

Trexler (2022). An Evidence Based Approach to Goal Setting and Behavior Change. Accessed 1 January, 2023. < https://www.strongerbyscience.com/goal-setting/>