I am deeply protective of my ME time, in a way I never knew before. I don’t think it came so much out of a conscious decision to protect my time. Rather, it came out of an intense desire to focus on a personal goal and to pay attention to my physical and emotional needs on a daily basis.

I recently spent about 4 months diving into a fitness challenge/contest, where the grand prize was to be on the cover of Oxygen magazine. While I wasn’t dead set on getting on the cover, I was going to make sure I put in the work to give myself every possibility. The caveat was that I wanted to do it in a healthy way, with balance and attention to my energy levels and daily needs.

I have had adrenal fatigue and am still not over that hurdle. I may never be fully free of adrenal fatigue, and that’s probably a good thing. I have a habit (I won’t say it’s good or bad) of diving in to something I am passionate about and pushing my limits. My body has finally learned to tell me when to slow down. Or, perhaps, I just finally learned to listen.

During the course of restructuring my life to incorporate 5am workouts, mealprep at least twice a week, learning new recipes and new workouts, and then actually putting it all into action, I became a bit of a home body. I knew I had to get up at 4am, so I didn’t go out often. I wanted to eat the right things, so I didn’t go out to eat. I was tired at night from getting up early and working my ass off, so I didn’t go to fun happenings like West Coast Swing, which would have kept me out until 10:30 on a week night. I didn’t plan things on Saturday morning because I wanted to be able to sleep as late as noon or 1 if I needed to. (If you want to see my healthy obsession with the process and the learning, check out my IG page @amyrxbaker)

While some of this may seem extreme, it was so good for me to be able to say yes to what I was doing and no to distraction, to know that I was making the decision to honor the commitment I had made for 3 short months. I needed that.

Yesterday,  I realized that I am feeling lonely, but then I don’t make an effort to go out and be with people.  At first, that felt so contradictory, but I really don’t want to go to the effort of being with people just because I am lonely. I want to reach out to people from a good space, not a space of lack. 

I am getting to know myself.  I am giving myself the space for creativity, allowing the space to try new things, revisit the things I love, allow spontaneity and experimentation.

There is a void in my life after the challenge, and nature abhors a vacuum. As long as I allow the void, the goodness will flow in. I don’t need to fill it myself for the sake of filling it. Let nature and inspiration do that!