Tag Archives: #freshstart

What are you running from?

Courtesy of Calm app










You need to learn how not to run away.


Your words and thoughts create your reality



The biggest self discovery happened this week:






This was the start of my epiphany. 






Back at it! Sweating it out like a champ!
Yummy fuel!

Shifting Perspectives–Change your Mindset

Why does everything always happen to me?









I bet it’s somewhere awesome.



What a year!


What I learned about myself during a global pandemic:

  7. I’m a pet person.
  9. I don’t need a gym to get in shape

Cool and Awesome byproducts of the pandemic for me:

  1. I started this blog!
  2. I got really dialled in with nutrition and exercise
  3. I got out way more in nature
  4. I got really consistent with meditation
  5. I took long breaks from drinking
  6. I started coaching for Beachbody
  7. I discovered Epicure
  8. I got to spend tons of time with Mike
  9. I appreciate my family WAY more
  10. I get to work from home 
  11. I can identify a lot more birds now
  13. I did multiple puzzles
  14. We did a few road trips and had fun exploring
  16. I got a new grandson!






Knowing your worth




So speaking about monetary gains.








Older and Wiser?




I don’t sweat the small stuff


I’m way more calm

I don’t give a shit what other people think of me

Things at this stage of my life just feel better. 

I speak up for myself 

I know myself and trust my judgement







When Quitting is Actually Winning




Listening to your gut instinct, that’s huge. 



That’s a tough question to answer.



  • How is this situation serving me?

You can apply this to any situation really.








What are you putting off quitting?



You can’t fix everything


A couple of weeks ago, I did a Facebook post on my page about a turkey that appeared out of nowhere in my neighbourhood. Turkeys are common in my area, however, this one is out of the ordinary as it’s alone, and has shown up in the city rather than a few kilometres up the road in a farmer’s field with it’s buddies. I figured it had strayed from it’s peeps and that it would move on in a few hours. That night, we went for our evening walk and it was roosting on the power line.

The turkey is still hanging out, now he/she has taken up at the busiest intersection of my neighbourhood and all the locals are up in arms. They have named it (Waldo), they are coming up with things to feed it(not recommended) and even have a plan on how to execute a capture and release into the local woods. 

It got me thinking…why do we think it needs to be saved and why do we feel the need to fix others? Maybe the turkey needs alone time, maybe (I did my own research) there’s too many young males in the flock(?) and it’s waiting til mating season is over. Maybe, he or she doesn’t want to be saved..

How does this apply to our lives? Well, we all have those people in our circles that have things about them that WE feel they need to improve upon. And maybe they know they need to improve these things. 

Perhaps they need to lose weight because we want them to be healthy. So, we inundate them with suggestions, recipes, things that work for us, make them food, nag them to come exercise with us..but once we stop nagging, they stop working at it.

Maybe they drink too much. So again, we nag at them, citing articles and imparting our knowledge upon them about why they should cut back. Again, nothing happens.

Are you familiar with this expression “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink”? It’s an old saying, but very true. You can’t change someone’s habits for them. You can HELP them, by providing assistance WHEN ASKED, but you cannot do it for them. If someone has a shitty attitude, you can’t change it for them. They need to want to change these things themselves in order for it to happen.

What we can do, is lead by example, because you never know who is watching and how it may be motivating them. 

So keep on trucking along peeps, and worry about your own shit, and help when someone asks for it.

I’ll be keeping you up to date on Waldo and all that drama on my Facebook page, also called Wending my Way.




The workout program I have been doing is called 9 Week Control Freak. It’s a great physical workout but it’s also strong in messaging about being in control of the things you can. It got me thinking a lot and I’m glad I am doing it because I think it’s needed by everyone given the state of the world around us.

You can’t control everything, but there are many things you can control that you may not think you can.

Let me break it down.

Eating Healthy to support your amazing body: 

Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge there are people with very real Eating Disorders out there. This section may be a trigger and I want you to know there is help out there. For the rest of you:

YOU and only you are in control of the way you eat. You make a choice when you pick up the fork. You make the decision when you pull into Mcdonald’s. You make the choices at the grocery store. I have heard so many reasons that people are not in control of their eating choices. The biggest one is it’s too hard to make different meals for the hubby, or if you have kids, for them too. The reality is, it’s not that hard. First of all, why would you feed your family food you know is harmful to them? Beyond that, you can adapt any meal and make it better for you. I challenge you to do so. The other one is that people don’t have time to cook. Please. Just stop saying that. You do. Trust me. 

Exercising to support your amazing body:

You are in control of that too. You can find an activity you LOVE that doesn’t feel like exercise. Dance in your undies in the kitchen, get a bike, buy a jump rope and relive your youth. No money? No problem. Walking is free. Running is free. Dancing is free. Doing jumping jacks and running on the spot is free. See a theme here? No time? I call bullshit. How much time are you spending on your phone? Netflix? You. Have. Time. 

How you react to situations outside of your control

You and ONLY you control your brain. What a concept!! YOU can tell your brain what to think. This does take time and practice but it’s something you can accomplish. I cannot recommend meditation enough. It is legit life altering when you embrace it. It has taught me to pause before letting my emotions get the best of me. You can then evaluate how you’re feeling in reaction to a situation and then, choose how to react. This applies to all sorts of things: disagreements with others, someone being less than kind to you, crazy world events, work situations. All of that stuff.

I’m being very blunt today, but with this stuff, sometimes you need to be. I for one, am always a work in progress and I’m proud of that. I have chosen to take a learning approach to my life, rather than the old me that would make a “mistake” and then proceed to berate myself for days. 

I’m going to leave it at this list for now, but I am positive I will think of more later, so watch for a part 2 down the road. 

You got this guys. You are in control of YOU. Nobody else. YOU. You rock, get out and show the world how amazing you are. 




Last week, I talked about this time of year and how it impacts me and my plan to help myself. I’m carrying out the plan and I’m doing ok, but it’s still hard and there are still so many emotions coming up. 

So that got me thinking about how society tends to look at people having strong emotions.

When we are born, we are just present with our emotions. Hiding and burying emotions is learned from society. We are taught from a young age to suck it up. If we are upset, we are told to stop crying or told that there is nothing to be crying for. We are taught (and this isn’t anyone’s fault) that our emotions are something that a) can be controlled and b) are not valid or important. I say it’s nobody’s fault because if our parents did this, they were taught by their parents who were taught by their parents and so on and so on. 

Then, as adults, since we don’t learn how to deal with these emotions appropriately, we turn to really negative ways of trying to make ourselves better. We bury them deep within, often lashing out at those that try to help us. We plod through life unhappy and depressed. We self medicate: with drugs, food, alcohol, shopping. 

All of the above makes us really ill equipped to handle ourselves when something stressful or traumatic hits, like a loss or a global pandemic. We turn to our coping skills regardless of how negative a coping skill it is, because that is what we know. We live in a culture that is talking out both sides of its face:

The side that says it’s ok to not be ok, let’s do dry February

But then the other side, on social media says it’s ok to self medicate with wine, that it’s ok to curl up in a ball and eat your way through things. 

It’s conflicting information and makes us feel like we should continue on the path of self destruction we are on.

I want us all to be ok with not being ok. I want us to deal with our emotions. I am a classic emotion burier. I have gaps in my memory from different periods in my life because it was easier to block shit out than deal with it. I have been there with the self medication. I started drinking too young and looking back, it was a way to deal with not quite fitting in, and just being unhappy in general.

For myself, I made a conscious effort recently to abstain from alcohol for the time being. I feel like there is still stuff I need to deal with mentally with the loss of Kayla and other important family members. I need to deal with my emotions in a healthy way and removing wine from the equation makes it difficult to bury them down like I know I’ve been doing. It’s not been easy -especially during this awful month. In the short term, it’s made me more sad and short tempered than normal but I know I need to do this in order to move forward on my journey to clarity and better mental health. 

I use meditation as a form of therapy to just learn to sit and understand how I’m feeling and why. 

I use physical exercise as a way to channel those emotions into something positive and believe it or not, it also brings them more to the surface. These positive coping mechanisms are helping me figure out my shit.

I am telling you now, that it really is ok to not be ok. I am telling you now that if you’re struggling emotionally, ask someone for help. If you’re struggling with self medication, do whatever you need to do to stop that. 

I have faith in you. I have faith in me. We can move through this and come out better than we started.