MADness strikes…. seeking cover girl status

Part of me thinks I must be mad. I spent many years being busy, busy, active, active. I drove myself and my body….and you know what? After poo-pooing it for so long, and for noting that so much of it was initiated out of, sometimes, a not so healthy place… I am turning full circle. I am entering the Oxygen Ultimate 90 day Challenge. Not only that, I am competing to get on their cover.

I have learned rest, and the value of just BEing. I spent a year working on being easy on myself on my body. And I realized I LOVE being active and healthy. Do I need to watch it and not push too hard? YES.

Recently, I started coffee again..bulletproof coffee to be exact. I quickly gained 4 pounds and was going out dancing a lot. And then, I realized I was worn out. Adrenal fatigue had come to visit me again. I noticed I had a harder time waking up in the morning, and my brain was foggy. The day after I quit coffee, I got up before my alarm. By day 6, I was mentally alert and my energy was more stable. Go figure!

Back to the Challenge.

When I was 27, I worked out 2-3 hours a day, ate 1200 calories, tanned a lot, and looked pretty amazing. I was strong and agile. BUT, it was all based out of my eating disorder. I thought that if I had the perfect ass, my husband would stop seeing other women. I read Oxygen magazine religiously and pictured myself on the cover. A male competitor saw me in the gym one day and said I could be ready for a competition in 6 weeks. I didn’t realize then what a compliment that was!!

After that, I started marathons and triathlons, and got super strong and fit, while eating!

Fast forward a few years… broken pelvis, and resultant adrenal fatigue (with hypothyroidism), plus daily alcohol consumption. Not pretty. I wasn’t heavy, but I wasn’t the tight, strong fit girl I was used to. I was horribly depressed too.

Fast forward a few more years to age 40 (and fabulous).…recovered pelvis with some minor lingering issues, adrenal fatigue if I abuse myself, many months of completed intense therapy resolving my eating disorder issues (at least it feels that way), and a better knowledge of both how to be healthy in mind and body, and the desire to do it right.

WHAM! In comes an invitation to the Oxygen Ultimate Challenge.

July 15- Oct 12 I will be working my butt off eating clean and smart, getting active, disciplined, and healthy. To prove it, I will be posting at least before and after photos. Likely, to stay honest, I will post weekly shots.

OMG! My butt in a bikini for everyone to see….I truly have lost my mind.

I want this. I have so many other things I am focusing on for myself, and this is what I am using to kickstart my discipline and my vitality. I want to be healthy in a way that is sustainable, that I can honestly tell people I feel the best I have in my life by treating my body well.

Follow me on IG @amyrxbaker

The winner of the cover contest will be chosen BY THE PUBLIC  from 20 finalists. I would be ecstatic to even make the finals, but I will shoot for the gusto!

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I am not what I was

I love how clarity just happens, often when we aren’t seeking it. I was sitting on the couch the other day, pondering the concept of being triggered. It has become more and more evident how our triggers can either block us from living life or lead us to greater clarity and self-compassion.

And it dawned on me. I am not a wounded person. I am whole.

Suddenly, I had flashbacks to so many times I reacted based on a story in my mind, how as proud of being independent and positive I was, I still put myself in the victim role with stories of being wounded. Those stories suddenly didn’t matter. They were just….stories. At that moment, I didn’t identify with them. What happened next was a big, full, ecstatic and life-affirming inhale as my chest softened and let life in.

Does not being wounded mean we don’t get triggered? Hell no! What it means, for me, is that I have another chance to undo a negative pattern and redirect it through truth seeking and self love. I can get triggered, but not identify myself with the stories that caused the patterns.

I am not what I was.

I am.

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Feathers bleeding rainbows

I’m tired of thinking.

“Why?”

“Is that true?”

Questioning my thoughts, constantly. Questioning myself, constantly.

Do I really want to do that? Or am I motivated by ….God forbid…Weakness?

I hear myself talk to people and feel I am dominating the conversation. Something in me believes that I am selfish, self-centered. I guess I am afraid of being perceived as so,…to be honest. My parents used to tell me I was selfish. They told a boyfriend of mine I was selfish. Stories.

It all happened then, so why should it matter?

Exactly.

Round and round the chicken coop we go. Feathers flying, words bouncing around and hitting the heart, emotions everywhere. Feathers bleeding rainbow…

I cry easily. I am emotional. I am rational. I think a LOT. I want connection with others….bad. I find myself wishing someone would reach out to me. I have reached out to so many, but things don’t come to fruition often. And when I really think about it, am I seeking connection with others or to disconnect from myself? From the mental chatter, the disorienting constant shift in thoughts? The internal drive to do, and the struggle with not wanting to do anything….

My, how shifty is the feeling of “rightness”, the feeling of wholeness and content. My, how the mind likes to drive me. It takes so much time, it seems, to be quiet with these thoughts, to let them play out until I reach the truth. Perhaps meditation is good for that… a focused exercise in being quiet and still. YET, for me, so much clarity has come from letting my mind chatter and watching it, following it’s thought patterns.

Feathers bleeding rainbows…I like how that sounds.

Turning it around

In a half hour, a complete stranger helped me to understand a power struggle between my daughter Keely and myself that has caused us much strife over the past year. I left this call with a “stranger” able to breathe freely in a way I haven’t felt in months.

This person somehow, in a twist of celestial fate, showed up in my Facebook feed yesterday offering free 30-minute calls to people. She goes by April Dawn*, which I find even more interesting, as my daughter goes by Keely Dawn.

She reminded me indirectly of the mirror our lives are to our internal state. I expressed concern over my daughter’s ability to make things happen in her life for herself, and how I hate being in the position of having to decide whether to step up for her again or to let her feel the consequences of her lack of action. April said she sensed a lack of trust in my relationship with my daughter, and asked me to turn around my lack of trust in my daughter’s ability to make things happen. She asked if in some way I might be acting from the fear that I am not able to make those things happen in my life, and it hit me like a brick.

Yes, as always, it was my issue all along.

I let myself down when I was 18 when I quit San Francisco Ballet School. I have lived with that regret ever since. I have found ways back to dance here and there. I blamed circumstance. I pointed the finger at my folks for not financially supporting me when I needed it. But in the end, it was my responsibility to ask for help, and to find a way to make it happen, to believe in myself enough and to love myself enough to make my dream my life.

And I didn’t do that for myself.

And I project that regret onto my daughter, fearing she will do the same thing. And it’s not right, nor is it helpful.

The call happened twenty minutes ago, and already some of the details are fading, but the lesson isn’t. I have put so much energy into trying to “help” my daughter succeed at what I think are the most basic things, and all I really need to do is make things happen for myself. Live by example.

My fear of not being able to make my own dreams come true, has led me to put pressure on my daughter to make hers happen. Near the end of the call, April asked how I felt about making things happen for myself, and I remembered that in the past year, I have actually made some huge strides for myself in that direction. Lately, I have been feeling very stuck and impotent in that area, but reminding myself of the steps I have taken suddenly reaffirmed my trust in myself, and hence, my trust that my daughter will be o.k. She is on her own path, and she will find her own way. I sighed out tension I have been holding for months.

When I take away my fear of letting myself down and learn to trust myself, I suddenly trust that my daughter can do what’s right for herself. And when I am in that place of trust, I can guide vs push her. I can be there for her, but let herself do what she needs to do. I can allow her to find her own way, and remain available for her, but not intercept.

I can trust her because I can trust myself, and that’s a HUGE relief for both of us!

*April Dawn has a Relationship promotion going which I am happy to spread the word about. If she can help me reach clarity in a half hour on something I have missed for months, I can only imagine how she can help guide people in 4 months!

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Dancing again

It’s been years, and I had forgotten that all pervasive internal movement, the constant inner dialogue of dance.

Driving away, I find myself going through each movement, breaking it down into all its parts. I had forgotten how dance connects me to myself, how it reminds me of the interconnectedness of every little part of me, and how every little part of me connects to all that is around me.

Yes, how the smallest intentional movement can translate through your body and out into something big and beautiful, or something so small and profound. The dance inside mirrored out there, out in the world.

The unfurling of the soul.dancer swirl

I had forgotten how movement out there brings me closer to the movement in here, in my heart, in my very own body that remembers so much. The fascination of movement, and of slowing everything down to its infinitesimal purity, only to speed it back up again. And the test is to remain so in tune with the transitions that time stays slow, so that you can move like lightning.

That’s when life makes sense, when nothing else exists but the movement within and without, when my inner merges with the outer, I am space, I am flow, I am alive.

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Days of Clarity

I am sitting here doing The Work, listening to videos, trying to go through thoughts and understand them. I have had some days of great happiness and clarity lately, in the midst of personal chaos. They are interspersed with crazy thoughts, sad thoughts, etc, but they are there.

I told my friend today it’s like there is this new trickle of goodness coming in, this golden stream coming in to my being. Like a new path of water, it is starting small, but as it wears away at the coarse soil in my mind and soul, it will grow, and eventually it will flow through my heart and straight out.

When I see the pond now, I love it. I don’t get on myself for not having it perfect. It is perfect right now, and I see how it is thriving.
I notice the landscape more, and when I water my plants, I don’t have the thoughts that I should have done a better job. I just am amazed at all of the bees on the basil, bees-and-basil-2and how the flowers are blooming, and how cool it is that the bunnies like those few plants so much, that they ate them down to the nubs.

The other night during the full moon, I sat out on the patio listening to my daughter sing and play the keyboard, very late at night. Not long ago, I would have thought she should be getting sleep. Instead, I sat and reveled in the beauty of my one and only daughter, singing so sweetly below. How beautiful to hear her soul pour out her windows!

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12.21.12: The Day the World Ended….As We Knew It

12.21.12 was truly the day my world ended as I knew it.

I started a whole new book in my life. I am filled with so much love and appreciation, hope and light. The shift to all that I dreamed occurred. That internal shift is being reflected back at me at every turn, in every moment of my days.
So thankful to those who have helped bring me to this point, to those who explored the depths of pain and suffering with me, and to those who continued to see my light when I couldn’t, to those who patiently stood by, held space for me, supported my effort to transform my existence into something more TRUE to my essence.
I realized True Love in a man so full of life and love, a man that reflects back all of my inner beauty, and I his. I raised to a new vibration, and he saw me. It was finally time for us to come together, even though we had been circling each other for over a year.

We are writing a new book together, and it’s going to be amazingly beautiful. It already is!

Thank you, Universe, for providing me all of the lessons, however harsh, of the past few years that prepared me for a love so deep and true.

I bow fully in gratitude to the beauty of the universe we create every moment of our existence. May every human being feel great love within and see it reflected from without.

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Co(s)mical life

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I got busy with the Hurricane Sandy deployment and couldn’t keep up with the posts, but I will go back and post the pics, because it was an awesome experience. TONIGHT,… tonight…. I have felt so many waves of emotion. … Continue reading

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Hurricane Sandy Deployment – Day 6

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Today, I could feel the tension starting to build. We are at about the halfway point, the impending holiday is ahead of us, and people are tired and cold. Even the patients seemed more on edge today. We had a … Continue reading

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Hurricane Sandy Deployment- Day 4

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I am actually now on Day 7 or 8, I think, so trying to remember back, and it’s all a big blur. If I didn’t date my photos, I think all the events would run together. Eternal Groundhog Day… Ah! … Continue reading

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