Well... my life changed today...

I quit my job. Packed up my desk, signed some papers, handed over my responsibilities, and walked out the door. In truth, I signed the papers on Tuesday, but everything else happened today. In all the chaos of the handing over, the teaching of processes, the boozy lunch with my boss's boss, and the hastily thrown together card and voucher from my apparent 'team', I didn't really have time to process that it was my last day.

I still don't feel like I've left.

I feel really weird.

Now, I have no job. I have no plan.

My job was toxic to me, not the job exactly, more the team dynamic. Every day there saw me more and more frustrated, anxious, and disappointed that this is what my life had come to - stagnant, devoid of meaning. People there don't behave the way I believe to be appropriate in a workplace. The people who are meant to keep that behaviour in check participate in the behaviour, instead of acting upon it. I spent a lot of time trying to make them change before I realised that I'm the one that needs to change.

I needed to get out, find something new and fresh and exciting. Be positive when I wake up in the morning instead of groaning and not wanting to get out of bed. Take pride in myself and my work.

Now I just need to find that place.

I cannot believe it's been 10 days!

10 days since I last wrote, and everything, yet nothing, has changed. I'm still off the rails, I'm an emotional wreck at work. I'm a completely different person there - on the verge of tears, always ready to jump out of my seat at the slightest noise. I'm withdrawn and quiet. I overreact to every situation and am paranoid that everyone is plotting against me, even though my rational mind knows that they couldn't give two hoots about me.

I had an emotional meeting with my manager where I brought up these feelings and related them to incidents that have happened over the past two weeks. He certainly understands where I'm coming from but there isn't much he can do about it, seeing as it's mostly personal bad blood between myself and that other team member. It's becoming more clear to me that she won't be leaving any time soon, so I have set myself a deadline.

September 1st is the day I'll resign, regardless of whether I have a new job or not. September 1st is the first day of Spring, and traditionally a day of new beginnings. It'll be my new beginning.

Until my new beginning, I can't just hang around waiting for the rest of my life to change. I need to get ready for the new start, get myself organised. I need to get my head sorted with food and exercise, so that I'm at the ready for whatever life throws at me after that date. I'll be analysing my habits with both food and exercise - using the tools I have at my disposal to work out where I go wrong and what I can do to change my mindset around my habits. I'll use those tools to build healthier habits, choose more wisely, and finally change for the better.

I want to write more often, but I will probably do that privately - I'm not sure yet. I can feel things shifting, I just need to embrace it.

The power of gratitude.

This post was going to be about my struggles this week, but I'm not letting that sh*t rule my life. Instead, I'm putting aside the negative and embracing the positive, acknowledging the hurt, and moving towards the healing.

I bought myself a gratitude journal for the New Year. I figured I was starting my new, married life, and I was starting fresh. This journal is one of the ONLY habits I've kept well for the entire first 4 months of the year. I've written in it diligently every night before bed. Maybe not every night, but I've definitely caught up on the days that I missed and am completely up to date with thanking whoever it may be for the good things in life.

My journal requires me to find 3 things every day, and some days, it's difficult. Many a day I've written only about the weather, or food, or just the fact that I woke up and made it through the day. Other days I want to write more, I find 10 things to be grateful for. I have an amazing day, I see amazing things, I catch up with amazing people, I eat amazing food.

Looking back, it's the difficult days that I appreciate the most. Sitting in bed, at the end of a day where everything seemed to go everyone else's way, where I felt sh*tty, where things didn't happen the way I wanted them to, I HAVE to find something good about the day. There's no excuses, I have to write something down. I look back through my day with different eyes, try to find the glimmer of sunshine, the compliment paid, the warm fuzzy feeling.

It's always there.

Powerful.

It truly IS May Madness!

I'm not going to say too much about this, but I am truly off the rails.

Sh*t has gone down at work, I am dreading going in tomorrow, and to be honest the only reason I'm going is that I hope to hear about a second interview for the job I've gone for. I'm not looking forward to being there at all, given that I sat there nearly in tears for the entire day on Friday and feel that it will only be the same or worse until I leave.

Needless to say, I'm a hot mess!

I'm trying to keep up my step count, and be mindful of my eating.... but it's really not going well.

I can't wait until this is over, so that I can get back to my SMASHlife.

It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it!

I have Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 stuck in my head - partly because I'm using it for the kids I teach as a part of one of their routines, and partly because MY 9-5 is driving me crazy!

I had my interview, which I think went well, but I won't find out until early next week as they had a few other candidates to interview. I'm hoping I get to the second interview stage - which I think is weird.. having a phone interview, an in-person interview with the person who'll be my boss, and then having ANOTHER interview where I meet the only other person in the team.... don't you think that's weird? Why didn't she just come to the first one?

Everything in my current position is driving me nuts. I can't talk about it again, but it's the same old same old and I think that by deciding to apply for other positions and making that leap to leave... I just want to get out of there now!

Food is still weird. I'm doing better, but not well enough (which is still showing on the scales!) - it's not mindless eating any more, but it's definitely eating more than I should, and the wrong kinds of foods. Sometimes it's the right kind of food at the wrong time - I wait until I'm too hungry and then eat enough for two, way too quickly to recognise those 'full' feelings. I'm quite sure that as I'm becoming more aware of these habits and behaviours, they'll start to change.

Running is going well. After my last post, I ran 20 minutes non-stop... and then today I ran 25 MINUTES NON-STOP. I'm keeping up with intervals (this week is 6x 3:00 jog, 2:00 walk) and feeling surprisingly good about it. Running on the treadmill is easier, but I think that's because I'm watching the TV at the gym and not concentrating on the running bit. Running outside is more difficult in the head, but easier on the body as I'm not bound to the treadmill's speed, but rather just go with it. Runnning outside is boring though - I need to go somewhere that I can people-watch while I run, or find some interesting audio books to listen to... Otherwise I think of all the breathing and striding and talk myself out of it too quickly.

My core strength is also improving. A couple of weeks ago, I injured my shoulder while boxing and it's taken a while for it to heal. I've kept up with the osteo appointments, and diligently done my stretching. I've restricted my intensity at boxing, restricted some movements at cali, and removed the exercises from my circuit training that I've been told I cannot do without re-injuring. It seems to be paying off, as at my last appointment the osteo pretty much gave me the all clear to forge ahead. He did, however, spark something a couple of weeks ago when he mentioned that the residual pain was from poor posture, rather than the injury (I was compensating, and not well!) and that I needed to work on both posture and core strength.

I need to do this sort of stuff with the cali kids anyway, so have worked hard on it for the last few weeks and by the DOMS I'm feeling in my back and abs, I think I'm on the right track. Oh, how I regret not listening to all my coaches over the years who begged me to do all the exercises at home (back then, it was all weird but now I find out it's actually just Pilates) so that my core was not in such a bad way... but alas, I cannot go back in time, I just have to start fresh. Running also seems to activate my core, I guess it's a combo of trying to stay on the treadmill and concentrating on keeping my chest up and breathing well.

You know, I think I might be getting the hang of this exercise business - I'm really enjoying the things I'm doing! Time to work on the food side... Imagining what I could be achieving if my diet was right is getting boring - I just need to change my thinking and be sensible about it.

Tomorrow is the start of May. My birthday month. Starts with an M. M stands for Mindfulness. Mindful May. Making May Mine. Many Milestones May. May Madness!!!!

A little sunshine on the horizon.

I've been having trouble at work. Mostly because I'm done there - I've outgrown my role, I'm bored, and people don't have the same work ethic I do and it pisses me off. I brought these things to the attention of my boss, but had to go as far as emailing my concerns and using words like 'sexual harassment', 'bullying' and 'HR department' before he would take me seriously. Basically, I work in a room full of people who give each other sh*t all day, act inappropriately towards each other, and make every conversation into something sexual, regardless of the context of the conversation, while doing as little work as possible and getting away with it.

So while I participate on occasion, I don't think this behaviour is normal, nor should it be accepted as normal. One day someone is going to push someone else too hard, too far, and it's going to explode out of control. I decided to draw attention to the fact that perhaps things are getting out of hand, and we should all be spoken to regarding what's considered appropriate behaviour in a supposedly professional workplace.

Fast forward to a week later, some things have been said regarding certain people's behaviour (all quite professionally I might add) and this has resulted in everyone asking everyone else until they realised it was me that said something and promptly pretending I don't exist. Which is fine during inane chit-chat but not so fine when I have something to contribute to something relating to work. Like solving a problem or helping someone out. Like what is my ACTUAL job there.

So I've got my head down and my bum up, and am just working away, not speaking to anyone for 8 hours and feeling like an idiot for bringing it up, but not feeling like I've done the wrong thing at the same time, trying to ignore the girl who sits opposite me and is learning to whistle and spends more time telling everyone she how busy she is than working, willing my boss to pull people up on their once again increasingly bad behaviour and seething when he joins in. This is not healthy for me. I'm a ball of anger once home time rolls around, which is nice for the treadmill, the oval, or the bike, but not so nice for my husband who shares the car-ride home with me.

About a week ago, I applied for another position internally, in another department, doing similar stuff, for more pay. Applications closed today, and this afternoon I had a phone interview (which was weird, because the HR chick sits about 50 metres away from me, yet I sat in the hallway on the phone looking over at her desk...) and have a sit-down interview with HR and the Head of the new department on Monday morning. I really hope this comes through, and that my manager releases me early (we have a 4-week notice period, but sometimes they let things slide) so that I can get out of the toxicity that is my daily work life.

I know that a lot of it is just my perception of events, and the negative thoughts that I 'think' others have towards me, but I'm not the kind of person who wakes up and dreads going to work, so I don't much like doing that right now. I don't like how angry I am getting, and I don't like how many negative thoughts are running through my head for 8 hours a day. I've applied for about 30 jobs online, and have had one interview, one email saying 'thanks but no thanks' and NOTHING from the other 28! It's been about 6 years since I applied for a job, and it's gotten so impersonal - basically if you don't hear something within about a day of the applications closing, you write it off as a no. It's really disheartening - how hard is it to send a generic 'thanks but no thanks' email of an afternoon?

So... that's my work life...

Now to my SMASHlife. It's going okay, all things considered. While I don't consider myself an 'emotional eater', my eating patterns are linked to my emotions. I don't eat to suppress feelings, but I do eat when I'm not motivated, when I'm upset or angry, or when I'm bored. When I'm happy and excited about life, my food intake is superb. So needless to say, over the last few weeks, my eating has gotten worse, and that is showing on the scales.

My exercise is improving. I'm committed to my boxing/circuit double session on a Saturday morning, and am averaging 3 gym or oval sessions on weekdays. I'm beginning to feel coordinated when running (well... jogging...) and have resolved to stop trying to breathe with some sort of ratio to stride and just breathing without thinking about it. It seems to be working, funnily enough. I've improved my interval times (up to 8x 2:30 runs with 1:30 walks in between) and have steadily increased my time spent on my 'long run' of the week from 3 minutes to 15 minutes in just 5 weeks. I'm still terrible with prioritising strength training - but I know this has to pick up if I have any hope of losing weight so am doing some bodyweight stuff at home of a night time once or twice a week. Tonight was a core workout and BOY do I need to work on that - probably every night if I want that to improve because my core is terrible!

Cross your fingers, or pray, or jump on one leg (however you send good vibes to people) that this new job works out. I'm using the power of positive thinking to will things to go in my favour.

The monster inside of my head

Am I friends with the monster inside of my head? NO EFFING WAY.

She's an absolute cow. She says all the things people shouldn't say, and she doesn't shut up. She loves chocolate. She loves negativity. She wants me to do the things I shouldn't do. She fights with the other one, the good one, the sane one.

She wants me to eat everything in sight, and I listened to her today. For a little bit (well, for some chocolate and some white choc and raspberry slice), and then I listened to the sane one.

The sane one had a little win today. After the chocolate and the slice, I felt VERY sick. I got home, got changed, and got out. I ran. I ran 1km in 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Then I walked for quite some time (about 4 km).

Then the cow came back and we had fish and chips.

Stupid cow. She'll be gone in 4-6 days, I'll be back taking the happy pills that make the sane one sound more appealing (thank you hormones), and I'll be back on track. Being a girl is HARD.

Sometimes I let the cow win because it's easier. It wasn't meant to be easy though, was it?

Back to SMASHlife tomorrow, although I kind of lived it today:

S- Stick to the plan (mostly done)
M - Mindfulness (I thought long and hard about those extras, so even though it wasn't a healthy decision, it was made with mindfulness)
A - Attitude is everything (it was driven by my uterus... so I definitely had attitude)
S - Sweat (did that, did that well)
H - Honesty around food (well, I told you about it, didn't I?)