Category: Balance

What’s On Your Mind?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

“We’re not here, for that long, anyway. But to spend almost half our time lost in thought, and for the most part unhappy at that–well that’s pretty tragic, isn’t it?”

— Andy Puddicombe

How does your mind work? What brought you here? What patterns occupy your thoughts and recur, repeatedly?

Andy Puddicombe talks about the power of meditation and how beneficial it is for each of us to stop for ten minutes each day  and simply to look at how our mind is working. (The link takes you to a 9-minute TED talk).

When you stop and look at your thoughts, he asks, do you notice–

  • That you’re dwelling and ruminating on one particular, circling, repeating thought?
  • That you’re reinforcing certain story lines and patterns of mind?
  • That your mind is restless and agitated?
  • That your mind is dull, boring, or mechanical?
  • That you have a nagging thought that comes around and around?

How does your mind work, anyways?

The point of mindfulness isn’t judgment or instantaneous change, but rather, an awareness of what is actually happening in your mind, without judgment. It’s familiarity with the present moment, and an awareness of how, in fact, your mind is working.

Sometimes in order to know what’s on your mind, you have to slow down and take a look at that very mind. What’s in it?

Enjoy,

sarah signature

2013: Lessons to Take With Me

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

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Part two of my annual round-up. For part one, check out my annual review for 2012. 

The last year, or two, weren’t easy–and full of lots of mistakes–but incredible and far better than the first half of my twenties. I’ve mused lately, in my 29th year, what this decade will add up to. What have I done? What does my daily life look like? How have I changed? Have I made a mark on the world? 

By and large, the latter half of the decade was far more psychologically and personally satisfying–coming into stride with many of my quirks and idiosyncracies, delighting in saying no in order to stay at home and work on a project purely because my soul wanted to, and deciding to skip, sing, hold hands and lie on the floor when I felt like it–all of this slowly built a foundation of happiness and glee I wasn’t accustomed to after coming off of years of teenage (and early twenty-something) angst. It’s worth saying, however, that much of the groundwork for many of my leaps and bounds between age 25-29 came through several years of dedicated, isolated, and non-public personal and professional efforts in my younger years.

In short: it gets better. For those who work hard, and who are exploring and taking chances, it adds up. Keep going. Learning compounds, (the right) friendships deepen, people stop caring if you have acne or armpit sweat or if you spit a little when you talk (or they tell you, directly and kindly) and generally they care more that you’re passionately geeky about something, that you take your energy and focus it on making things happen, that you’re crafting both an identity and a legacy in the world, albeit through trial and error. If you’re in a slough–and I’ve had years of undulations, so I understand the melancholy that can come from not understanding just-quite-what-to-do-next–stick it out another season, and keep experimenting.

In the meantime, here’s what I’ve gleaned along the way, particularly lessons that have solidified over the last year. In looking back through the essays on this site and musing over what I’d like to take with me, here’s what I’d like to carry with me for this next spin around the sun.

Almost everything is far easier said than done.

It can take a year or a decade to learn a lesson and build a practice or a habit I joke that it takes me a year to learn a habit because I’ve got twelve months to try 30 days over again, and by the 8th or 9th time, I’m almost there. Yoga took me four years to get into. Running took me three years. Blogging, two years (or ten, depending on how you count and whether copious emails and live journal count as blogging). Every lesson I’ve learned I had to learn personally. reading other’s wisdom didn’t cement the idea into my soul, my being.

So for everything below, I’ll write the lessons–but in all probability, you’ll also have to learn them yourself. Continue reading “2013: Lessons to Take With Me”

Building Something Bigger (And a Peek Behind The Curtain): My Monthly Review

Posted on by Sarah K Peck


It’s the end of the month (Happy Halloween!) and I’m sitting down to do my monthly review–which happens as close to the 30th as I can get each month, give or take a couple of days depending on my schedule and deadlines. I find that I like to check-in on the 30th to see how things are going, because a monthly check-in is a good rhythm to gauge whether or not I’m making significant progress on my larger goals, what I moved forward on, and whether or not I’m happy with the balance in my health, lifestyle, ambitions, physicality and writing dreams.

I’m sharing a peek-behind-the-scenes into my monthly review because I think you’ll like it–I love learning how people operate and how often they check in with themselves, what (or whether or not) they set goals for themselves, and how they go about reaching them. I like getting things done and making things happen, and this is a system that works for me. I’ve shared it with a handful of people over the past couple of days and so I’m documenting both what I do–and some of the questions they have–as a peek behind the curtains. Continue reading “Building Something Bigger (And a Peek Behind The Curtain): My Monthly Review”

How To Make a Difference

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

No one cares about your ideas. They care about what you do with those ideas.

Figure out how things work. Figure out why things are the way they are. Learn like crazy, and never stop.

Learn how and where you can make changes. If the structure isn’t working, ask yourself why: Is it the people? The assumptions? The processes? The philosophies? What can be changed? (Everything can be changed).

Look at all the things that you can change, and pick the one with the most impact. Where will your energy be most useful? Focus on repeatable, incremental change.

Do it. Do it consistently. Don’t give up when you hit roadblocks. Persevere.

Keep going.

Repeat.

You Gotta Slow Down to Speed Up

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

But with all this speed, we start wobbling. Making mistakes. Not seeing where we’re actually going.

And too often, I see entrepreneurs and business owners prioritize speed over depth. Is it better to go fast, or to go far?

Speed and consistency are two separate things, and one more often than not is indicative of success. To be successful, you have show up.

The irony of going far is that it’s not done by going fast, not necessarily.

Sometimes you have to slow down in order to truly speed up.

And sometimes, you need to rest.

Sometimes you gotta slow down to speed up.

It’s not about going fast.

Think about in sports, or running training. Your actual time spent running isn’t the bulk of your training. Equally important is your recovery time, how you fuel yourself, stretching, preparing, mental work, etc.

You don’t prepare for a marathon by running non-stop for two weeks and then racing.

Preparation takes time, consistency, and adequate and ample rest. Without rest, recovery, and repair, we drive our muscles into damage and injury.

Take that analogy to your project, your brain, your work. Do you get enough rest?

We need rest to go fast.
We need time off between our work sessions.
We need to recover.

Because to go fast or far, you also need to know how to control the speed.

A Little Bit Is A Lot.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Feels like I just touched down in San Francisco and turned around and took off again! After getting back in town after last week’s working vacation, I’m off again to Dallas and then Austin, Texas for work, conferences and a weekend in Austin. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of new and familiar faces in the crowds. 

If you missed it, yesterday there was a great post on Chris Guillebeau’s blog following up on the one page career cheat-sheet from last month, where Chris asked me a few questions about what it means to be happy at your job, and what tools you can use to change your situation if you’re stuck somewhere and you’re not sure what to do.

In thinking about change, however, it’s also good to remember that it can be slow at first, and sometimes not much seems like it’s happening. I get it. It can be frustrating. I’ve been there over and over again, and often I want to bang my head against the wall and ask, “why is nothing happening!??” Sometimes I get so frustrated or scared, I give up. But it’s really important to keep going. Here’s one essay I was drafting last week in my notebooks on this very subject. 

A little is a lot.

I procrastinate–sometimes, a lot, I’m afraid to admit–and the bigger a goal or dream of mine is, the worse this habit is. I’ll even throw in some productive things to do in lieu of tackling the big, scary goal or project. When I set my sights too far away from my current state, I can render myself helpless, weak, scared, or terrifically frightened.

It ends up feeling something like this:

 

In terms of growth, we often have unreasonable expectations for ourselves to scale huge walls in quantum leaps without respect for the time and energy it takes to really do what we want to do.

And when I stagnate–when I procrastinate, delay, or avoid doing something because the something I’ve chosen is just too big–then I end up doing nothing.

Isn’t that worse?

As a constant reminder, I find that there’s a general rule of thumb I keep in my pocket for whenever I feel so scared that I want to procrastinate:

A little bit is a lot.

And along those lines:

If it’s too big to do, make what you’re trying to do today smaller.

Case in point: I was working on the designs for a 200-page document. Each time I thought about working on it, I didn’t have the time, energy, or brain space to consider editing the entire document. So I procrastinated–a lot more than I’d like to admit. I tried to break it down into chunks–Sarah, do 50 pages at a time. Unfortunately, the chunks were still too big. I was too tired at the days’ end to do several more hours of work, so I ended up putting it off some more.

I reminded myself: what’s the smallest step, the littlest bit that I can do to make a dent in the pile? 10 pages? 5 pages? even just 1 page? And so I started, telling myself that a few pages was okay. It was enough to get me to start the project again.

And then I sat and did 30 pages. And the next day, another 20 pages. Slowly, steadily, I did make progress on it–by not making myself overwhelmed by trying to tackle too much.

If there’s something you’re afraid of, or you’re putting of, and you’re still not working on it–maybe make your expectations for today even smaller.

Growth is about incremental change.

Something like this is more appropriate:

Breathe.

Yes, a little step is really a lot.

Just take a little step, every day.

 ###


The “Working Vacation” or How I Briefly Escape From Insanity

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I’m on a slow retreat, one in which I escape–although not completely–from the working world. I’m taking a long weekend in Catalina, off the coast of southern California, to spend time with my family, catch up on writing, and slow down on the work-crazy that sometimes takes hold. (Okay, fine, it takes hold all the time.) I’m grateful, excited, and so joyful to be pausing for a minute to let my writing, reading, and exercise dreams expand to fill the day in its entirety. I am thankful that I can do this… in fact: I really could get used to this… 

What is a working vacation? Sounds miserable, you might think. I’ll try to explain…

A working vacation

This morning, I got a note from a colleague, for whom I’m working on a presentation outline. I sent her a brief note that I’d be delayed in my presentation outline, asking if she would mind if I got it to her next week–and I confided that I was taking a working retreat to vacation and regroup, and to spend some time writing and observing. I worried for a bit that she would be upset by my lack of work ethic, by my missing the deadline–all worries I made up in my mind, naturally. Yet instead, she wrote back:

“Enjoy the space between work and leisure–it is a great place to work on big ideas. I’m looking forward to seeing yours.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s not about not working, per se, but taking myself out of context of everyday work, back and forth, to explore, dream, reflect, and think big. It’s when I play big, a phrase that Tara Mohr talks about, which I LOVE. It’s when I have the AH-HA! moments on the top of the mountain, when I shake off the insecurities and the banalities, when the frivolities of life ungrip themselves from my psyche, when I find that I’m no longer scurrying around in a HUGE FAT HURRY, cracked out on adrenaline and worried about getting everything done. In it, I realize that, YES, YES, I want to be working on these things, YES, what I’m doing is fun, and wow–my job is cool. More than that: what I dream of, create in my own space–these are projects worth pursuing.

Taking time off is so important as part of my process that I’m certain I wouldn’t be capable of the work that I do without regular, intermittent breaks. I’ve written about how the strict 9-5 doesn’t make sense to me, and I still agree: you need to work in the way conducive to greatness, not in a way prescribed by archaic remnants of past industrial societies.

I confess, too, that I sometimes hate posting the routine pictures on social networks of the “vacation,” where I look like I’m doing nothing all day, because it doesn’t capture, for me, what a working vacation really is. I’m as guilty as the rest of us (Oh, how I love photographs and pinning things on pinterest!) But I digress. I vacation. I retreat. 

It’s about big ideas. It’s about balancing movement and reflection with learning, consumption, and creation. And here on the island, scribbling in my notebooks, I wrote this in a long-form message to one of my friends: “I like to ‘fill up’ from inputs  such as reading, people, learning, studying, and then LOVE taking time to process, reflect, and percolate… mostly outside, in this crazy-beautiful world we get to live in.”

Because it is crazy-beautiful. We shouldn’t miss it with our heads down, cramming behind desks, adrenaline surging from the latest reprimand or arbitrary deadline.

No. It’s not about this.

It’s about taking time to live the balance that I crave, and really put into practice, now, the ability to be flexible, to work from anywhere, to change it up, to produce, create, and enjoy. To create moments of wonder and awe, and balance and love. To live.

How to take a working vacation

A working vacation, my definition: Taking a leave of absence from your current life and packing only the components that you want to bring, in order to be productive, inspired, relaxed, and restored.

Here are some rough notes about a working vacation–what I do, and why it works for me.

Leave your current context. Find somewhere new to go and set up shop. Go somewhere new. Some weekends in San Francisco, I’ll take a “writing vacation” and unplug from the internet, hole up in a favorite coffeeshop with my laptop, and work three back-to-back four-hour stints and just read, write, and write. The last time I did this, I wrote more than 15,000 words in a weekend. Exhausting? Yes. Exhiliarating? Completely.

Spend more than half the day away from the screen. For the better part of ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY, computers and sitting have not been a part of it. The greatest thing about vacation is that the computer seems less important, less toxic and controlling. Somehow, in the sounds of the rolling ocean and the vistas on the mountains behind me, the computer seems somewhat small and unimportant. I can’t help but get up and move around throughout the day. In an office, my patterns and habits become ingrained, and I forget that 10+ hours a day at a desk is not healthy or sane.

Find things to say No to. I’m on vacation from my full-time job–yes, vacation hours were used–and I told my colleagues I’d be in email contact for a few hours a day, but put up a vacation responder to remind folks that I’d be mostly out of touch. My personal rule? No more than 2 hours of work-related tasks per day. When you’re in the middle of coordinating big projects and deadlines, and pushing ideas forward, it can be hard to leave and carve out time for other projects. Sometimes it seems impossible. For me, the most important thing is leaving my desk behind and being clear on communication with my team that I’ll start back up again when I return next week.

Okay, so you should also plan a little in advance. It’s helpful for me to plan in advance (cue: when responding to people and coordinating life and projects, include a line that says, “I’ll be out of touch until Monday, but I can get back to you next week”). When saying No to things, I cue people in to when I’ll be available so I don’t leave projects or teams hanging.

Pack only what you really want to bring. This is critical. Leave the crap behind. Go on a vacation from obligation. Leave your unfound worries at home. Shirk some of your responsibilities, if you can. I said “No” to several projects and put them on hiatus to make space for other projects to have the full attention of my day. Often, I get so buried in the menial tasks related to organizing things and people, that I forget to carve out time for idea generation and creation. I set up an auto-repsonder on my main email accounts related to work and duties, and said no to bringing obsessive email with me. Instead, I packed 7 books I want to enjoy reading by the oceanside, a notebook with outlines for book ideas I have, a list of essays I’m working on, and two binders with my current projects that I want to catch up on.

Set goals. I love small time frames with clear goals. Even some weekends “Have no goals, except enjoy yourself!” This weekend, there are three big projects that I’m working on that I need to make space for, and have been impossible to finish in the wee hours of the night when I get home from my full-time job. Design projects; writing ideals; unfinished essays. When I started this long weekend, I set a project goal for each day, outlining the three major milestones I want to accomplish while here. Will I go on long bike rides? Absolutely. Jump in the ocean? (Um, have you met me?) Will I spend an hour in the jacuzzi bouncing ideas around late at night with my family? Of course. This is all part of it. And for several hours in the mornings and again post-dinner, I’ll be tackling these big projects because I want to. And I can.

Move. I have a personal head-over-heels relationship with fitness, movement, dancing, prancing, swimming, running, and all things movement. I think our bodies are marvelous, wonderful things, and the greatest sin of our lives is to waste them away by sitting behind screens. Vacations should be rejuvenating to the mind, soul, and BODY. Get out for a slow hike, a walk, a stretch, a paddle, a jog. My dad calls his running “happy trotting,” — this is your happy pace. Your place where it’s comfortable and fun, and where you walk when you want to walk and stop when you want to stop. But by all means, move.

But don’t take my word for it–Richard Branson says the most important thing he’s done for all of his productivity and success is to work out every day. Countless articles on fitness and health say that moving, walking, standing, stretching and meditation are world-changing for your productivity, success, and long-term health. One of my favorite outdoor fitness programs in San Francisco talks about why movement is important for life: “When people start to move around with others every day, they start to get a sense of what they’re capable of and what they’re built for.” Yes.

Make a dedication. On this island, the sun rises in the east over the Pacific, a luxury not experienced on the mainland of the States. When I wake up in the morning, I walk outside and greet the sun and the day, sleepy-eyed, in my pajamas, and I make a dedication to myself, to this process, to the projects, and remember how grateful I am to be doing all that I am doing. It involves a big stretch, some toe-touches, and a happy smile, among other things. This weekend, I’m dedicating to observing, watching, and rejuvenating my creative spirit by balancing playfulness with ample time for creation.

On a personal note, my goal is to write at least 1000 words every day in March, mostly short stories and explorations. I’ve been remiss in writing lately and it affects everything else I do. Or, as this excellent NPR article covered earlier this week–what you’re holding in your unconscious brain is actually killing you. Let it out. Take this as a cue that writing soothes and restores your soul and keeps you healthy. It’s not a hobby. It’s a necessity.

Hopefully these notes help you. Sometimes a weekend away, a day off, is really what your soul needs. Listen.

End note: Don’t miss out, or When I give in, I lose. 

I’ll close with a short story that crossed my mind while climbing up a hill earlier today on a big bike–a two hour hill that challenged my leg strength quite a bit. It was 3 PM in the afternoon, and I was a bit weary of reading and writing, and the lazy slump of post-afternoon stress started to inhabit my mind. I hadn’t worked out that well in a few days and my cells were starting to feel sluggish, lazy, full and fat with unused glucose molecules. I looked at the couch. I could just sit here for a while… I thought to myself. I had told Carol that I’d go on a big bike ride with her in the afternoon. My mind said, you know, you could just do it tomorrow.

But I knew, somehow, that I had wanted to do the ride, and that I would still like to do it. But getting over the sluggish me is not easy.

I should go, I thought reluctantly. Carol quipped: Stop thinking! Let’s just go! So I put on my helmet and we started up the hill. Yes, it was hard. And then, within thirty minutes, we pulled around the corner of the first hill and I saw this:

I grinned. I realized that I had, once again, almost canceled on a beautiful ride because I was afraid of a little hard work. We continued up the hill. How could I have missed this? Skipping out on a little hard work–a tough hour on the bike, pedalling, something which we are all capable of, and missing out on the views, fresh air, sunshine, and satisfaction? My brain is crazy! She is crazy, I tell you! And I realized:

In general, if I talk myself out of doing something, I like myself a little bit less.

Every time I concede to the monkey brain, I lose.
My brain is wired to keep me safe, to protect me from danger, to want to fit in with the crowd. It wants me to keep me from hard things. I have to fight this.
Because doing things, exploring, creating–this is life’s meaning.
Living with others, loving, having meaningful relationships. This is it.

So fuck the monkey brain. Do it anyways. It doesn’t know what it’s talking about all the time.
There’s a lot waiting for you if you’ll let go of the nerves, reluctance and fear.
And if you skip out on an opportunity, you lose.  

If I listened to it unwaveringly, I would miss out on so many opportunities for wonder, growth, and exploration.

To live is to work, and to love.

Paraphrasing the distinguished quantum physicist, Freeman Dyson, in an article from the Economist:

“To be healthy means to love and to work. Both activities are good for the soul, and one of them also helps to pay for the groceries.”

Yes.

I is for Integrity.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I was asked to write about Integrity as part of Molly Mahar’s “Blog Crawl” on self-love this February. Today’s post is part of Stratejoy’s The ABC’s of Self Love Blog Crawl + Treasure Hunt. Molly’s series is part of her bigger program called The Fierce Love Course. I had a chance to meet with Molly in San Diego last fall and see her amazing work first-hand, and I was delighted to be picked to post as part of this series.

I is for Integrity.

“Integrity is not achieved, attained, or accomplished. Integrity, like character, is built through quiet persistence, a structural consistency in all that you say, do, and believe.” 

“To have integrity is to believe fully in your soul, and your being. It is to act in accordance with yourself, and accept nothing less.”

Continual Motion.

I’m sweating. Breathing hard. I’ve got my leg over my shoulder, and my knee is creaking. My hand is slipping, slowly, against the rubbery mat surface and I can hear seventeen other students also breathing hard. I’m trying to get into a new space, move towards a new pose in my yoga class, and I can’t figure out if I’m going to be able to get there today. Leftover alcohol and chlorine equally permeate my sweat, and I curse having spent a week and a half doing nothing – why didn’t I say in shape? – I mutter. I forget it, letting the thought slide out of my brain easily. I’m here now. This is good. This feels good. But bad. Good lord, does this feel bad. Awful in a stretching, pulling kind of way. Unglamorous.

I drop my head, lifting my left hand quickly off the mat to wipe sweat from my face. Drops fall from my face to the mat, making it more slippery, less sticky. Damn.

And my leg slides, centimeters, stretching again, and all of a sudden I can point my toes. I feel it, a balanced, taught centeredness, muscles working together. My hands are aligned below me, my chest is centered squarely above me, my bones stacking neatly, my legs pointing towards opposite walls.

It’s graceful, but exertion doesn’t stop. Sweat keeps dripping. I’m still moving. I’m either working towards the pose or relaxing, dropping from it.

Movement, the teacher intones. It’s all about movement. You’re constantly moving, constantly shifting, always realigning and re-centering.

Yes.

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”

Commitment.

We made a commitment at the beginning of class, a small devotion to ourselves and our practice, and we chose a phrase or a word to stick to for the night. A set of words to recall when our brains freeze in mindless chatter, when our thoughts dart outside of the room and into the future or past, worrying needlessly about all things could-have and should-have and might-have and would-have. The words bring our loose cannons back to alignment, briefly, like five-year-olds in a small class, restlessly bopping about while waiting for lunchtime.

My commitment, my word, my phrase – how do I pick a word? I mused over independence, over writing, over being, over gratitude. My frazzled brain did it again, tumbling through a thousand thoughts, looking for a life-line and a mantra to relax into. Words float in: blessings, health, kindness, of being kind and grateful for everything, of releasing the relentless pressure I build up in myself to achieve and to do and to be. And then I my mind, like my body, stumbles onto a phrase that settles nicely in my mind, a gentle kindness that pulls towards a longer form of being, an integrity. “Move towards,” the voice told me: “Move towards your goals. Move towards integrity.”

Movement, this idea, resonates: there’s no need for a valiant, chest-puffing stake in the ground, a moment in time that says, I WILL DO THIS! As though now that I have shouted it, it is and it will be! (Insert multiple exclamation points). It is quieter, more peaceful, more consistent. It’s a set of actions, a layered being, a nuanced commitment to yourself over time.

Moving towards integrity.

“Character is not what you say, it is not what you boast. It is what you do when no one is watching.”

What is integrity? 

Integrity is knowing what you stand for. It is showing consistency in your actions and having a soundness of moral character. Integrity is doing what you say you’re going to do, even when no one is watching.

Integrity is being accountable to yourself.

In buildings, structural integrity means that the building will stand up – that the components, the joints, the system at play is sound and built well; that it won’t deteriorate or break down over time. It is a consistency and standard of excellence in engineering.

Some definitions include “the state of being unimpaired; soundness,” or another: “the quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.”

 “ You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do” – Henry Ford

For me, integrity is living up to my expectations of myself. It’s upholding both my thoughts and actions; it’s  behaving my best, even during the worst situations. It’s going to the gym, even if I don’t want to, because I made a commitment to myself. It’s planning ahead, giving someone grace when it’s due, it’s standing up for myself, it’s for chasing after your dreams even if no one else knows what you are up to. It’s believing in yourself and your dreams, and holding yourself accountable for acting in accordance with the best that you can be.

The opposite is also true.

We’ve all screwed up. Royally, beautifully, messily, fantastically. If we were perfect already, I suppose that would be boring. We mess up. We’re human. The difference is in how you decide to behave. What you choose to do before, during, afterwards. Whether or not you are capable of repairing a situation.

Integrity is not a stake in the ground. It’s not a goal that’s achieved. It’s a consistency of action, over time, that builds in what you say, believe, and do.

You’ve probably encountered situations where someone or something lacked integrity.

Perhaps it was you.

I’ve been there.

Last year, in Paris, traveling with my sister, I found one (of many) weaknesses in my character through exploring new settings, circumstances, and places. In particular, I found I had to question my ability to make decisions and what I thought was true about myself. I got beautifully, horribly conned in Monte Martre, duped into doing something, and I was rattled by the change in my behavior in the given context. More alarming than losing dozens of Euros was the red glaring flag hitting itself loudly against my conscience:

Do I really make good decisions? Am I what I think I am? Or am I actually just all talk? I babbled as such to my sister as we walked up to the top of the Sacre Coure, wondering how I could have wandered down a spiral of decision points that led to very silly—and alarming—behaviors.

Yet all was not lost: dissonance is good. Dissonance reminds us when our behaviors and actions aren’t in line with what we believe to be true about ourselves. Moments of discomfort tell us when we’re not behaving in accordance with who we truly are. The act of testing, of being, of doing–these are the moments that matter.

You’re not perfect. You’ll mess up. I’ve found that time and again, I test my integrity and sometimes fall short. Each time, I have to stop and analyze, wondering: what am I? Is this what I want to be? Do I like this?

Why does it matter?

Does it matter? You can brush it under the rug, sweep it away, think, “Oh Sarah, who cares!” – but it matters. It’s not about what other people think, say or believe about you.

At the end of the day, you’re the one that has to live with you. You’re there when you wake up, when you breathe, when you think, when you act.

I’m the one who has to sleep with myself at night; I’m the one who wakes up when I can’t stand how I’ve behaved; I’m the one who runs away from my emotions at times. It’s all just me.

And at the end of the day, if you don’t stand up for yourself, who will?

If you don’t do what you say you will—not for anyone else, but for yourself—then you lose trust in yourself. If you can’t keep your own word to yourself, and do what it is that you say you’re going to do, then what good is your word?

“Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.” –David Star Jordan

What does integrity look like? What does it feel like?

“I never had a policy. I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.” – Abraham Lincoln 

The things I’m proudest of aren’t the big goals, the declarations, the accomplishments. They are perpetual works of art, things I’m continuing to move towards. A quiet integrity, the knowledge that each action is cumulative, and that with each effort, exertion, breathe and stance, I’m working towards becoming what I say I want to become.

And from yoga, standing next, upright with my leg straight out, foot held in my hand, my upper thigh quivering with tension, my hamstrings stretched to their maximum, my opposite leg shaking silently in exertion. This is the act of standing, of balancing, an act of perpetual motion. Of persistent strain. Of forces, acting in opposition, continual moving back and forth against each other.

Tracy Chapman plays in the background: “… All you have is your soul,” she sings, deep and rich. She’s right. You’re all you’ve got. You know what you are capable of. And you know when you don’t live up to what you could be.

The most beautiful poses in yoga, in life, in being–are actually those of endless motion, of shifting and moving and realigning. Even in the long stretches, the folds and the bends, the fibers in our muscular systems shift and lengthen, releasing millimeters, day by day, until one day we wake up with our face against our knees and wonder,

Well, shit.

How did I get here?  

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This post is part of Molly Mahar of Stratejoy’s “Blog Crawl” for self-love this February. Find out more about The ABC’s of Self Love Blog Crawl + Treasure Hunt here. Check out the previous authors and their thoughts on self-love, here:  

The ABC’s of Self-Love:

A is for Acceptance by Molly Mahar: “Luckily, accepting who I am is more than embracing my (gorgeous, quirky, messy) imperfections. It’s also about celebrating my strengths, admiring my awesome, appreciating my honor.”

B is for Beauty by Rebecca Bass-Ching: “I now revel in the awe-inspiring beauty of courage, generosity, gentleness, kindness, sacrificial love, compassion, vulnerability, motherhood and respect.”

C is for Celebration by Dani: “Stand in front of the mirror and point out all the things you love about yourself. Instant self-love!”

D is for Determination by Ash Ambirge: “Want success? Make more decisions, choose more often, gain more control, and then take responsibility over your success. Period.” 

E is for Enough by Amy Kessel:“The resistance to loving ourselves disappears when we know, really know, that we are enough.”

F is for Freedom by Jenny Blake: “A fallacy of freedom is that we must not allow ourselves to be tied-down, lest we lock the cage on our ability to fly.”

G is for Growth by Justine Musk:  “It’s how you grow through and out of it – the meaning you make of it – that can not only shape yourself and your creative work (and your life) — but inspire others.”

H is for Honoring by Randi Buckley: “The deepest honor in the name of self-love shines light onto the whispers in the heart.”

How to eat better (how I try to stay healthy no matter how busy)

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I got an interesting email from a friend currently going through an arduous graduate program. Almost as an afterthought, he said, I have a question for you: How do you eat? How do you stay healthy, especially when you’re only cooking for just yourself? How do you make time to eat well when you are so busy? It’s a great question, and something I never thought to write about on my blog. It’s a little off topic, but certainly a good question, so I’ll try to answer it.  Planning food – and staying healthy – can be kind of a pain, especially when half the time my mind is telling me I’d rather be doing something else.  I find keeping my energy up is really important, so I need to make sure I have lots of green stuff and protein in my life – but I don’t like thinking about what to eat or when to eat. I also hate spending ridiculous amounts of money to eat well. So here’s what I’ve learned.

How do you eat? Do you eat well? Do you feel good? Half of the battle in exercise and fitness is eating well. It’s also imperative for start-up entrepreneurs, people new to the working world, and anyone trying to do too many things. Eating well helps you work well. The themes that run through this – and a lot of what I do to stay healthy – are as follows:  be efficient, set up systems, pay attention to what works (and repeat accordingly), and spend a little time planning ahead.

Breakfast.

  • I have to eat within 30 minutes of getting up in the morning. Depending on if I work out or not, I need to eat either a small (150-200 calorie) carb breakfast (before swimming), or a larger (500-800 calorie) protein breakfast (after swimming or a normal day).  If I don’t eat in the morning, I’m hosed for the rest of the day.
  • I like to take a pack of eggs and hard boil them (and peel them first!) and keep them around as a source of protein. I also buy in bulk Zone bars and Luna bars and keep a box of each in my car. Usually I’ll eat one on my way to the pool or to the track. If I’m not hungry, I don’t eat before working out, as long as the workout is less than an hour. I also really like Odwalla’s superfood (green juice blend) and the Odwalla protein superfood smoothies. (Although you can make your own with Miracle Greens and Orange Juice as well).
  • Other favorites for breakfast (I eat strangely in this department): Spinach. (Seriously, try it, and let me know how you feel – I feel amazing after eating spinach). Sometimes I stop in the store and grab a bag of spinach and a pepper and apple and eat them for breakfast. I also enjoy almonds, peanut butter, and cheese (not together – separately). Oh, cottage cheese or oatmeal is also good.
  • The goal for me is to eat something that fills me up for a while so I don’t think about eating again so quickly. If I eat plain carbs at 6, I want to eat again at 8, 10, 11, and 12 – and most of my day is spent trying to figure out what to eat next.  If I eat almonds, protein (from cottage cheese or oatmeal or eggs), I can usually last until 11 until I’m hungry again.

Lunch.

I could save more money by being better in this area, but I’ve settled for what works in reality: I rarely pack my lunch. I couldn’t name a day in the past several months that I actually got up early enough and made a sandwich and took it to work. It’s just not on my mind late at night before going to bed, and not something I think about at 5 in the morning when I often wake up.  It’s also not a habit I’m particularly in need of changing – I don’t like doing it. With the exception of a cooking day on the weekend or one weeknight, I don’t cook that much at night and I’m awful at packing lunches. Here’s what I do instead:

  • Buy premade, but healthy. Instead of trying to keep my fridge stocked (it always goes bad because I end up not making my lunch), I go to Trader Joes’ and pick up pre-made salads (delicious!) or pre-made sandwiches – about a week’s worth. The cost per lunch is usually around $3 or $4.  The trade off is this: If I forget to buy lunches in advance, then the only lunch options by my work are in the $10 range and up. If I were to make my lunch, which I don’t, so it’s not really even a comparison, I would hypothetically save a bit more.  However,  the amount that I “would” save making a lunch is disproportionate to the amount that I spend if I forget my lunch on just one day, so the mid-range is actually the most effective long-term option in reality.
  • Buy the goods but don’t make it yet. I also like to buy sandwich components – tomatoes, avocados, turkey meats, cheeses – and keep those in the fridge at my work. (If you don’t have a fridge nearby where you work or eat, buy a small one, or find a cooler – it expands the options of fresh food immensely). I also like buying vegetables and pre-cooked beans and grains as well – steamed lentils, beats, green beans, carrots and hummus, celery sticks, and apples are all yummy. I keep a variety of those in the fridge at all times.

Dinners + Meals.

Contrary to much of what this post seems to indicate, I do like cooking. I just don’t like doing it every day – in my mind, there’s no need to.  So I like to set aside a few hours to open up cookbooks, try a few recipes, and play music. Sometimes I hop on the phone and call my parents while the food is simmering, or I read a book in the sunshine while something is brewing, baking, or cooking. I love these days. Cooking is much more fun when I get to do it slowly, or do it with friends, and I really enjoy doing it on the weekends (not so much during the week, though). When I do love to cook, here’s what I do: 

  • Cooking days. Sundays, when I’m home, are often cooking days. I’ll cook 4 or 5 different options for meals, each for 2 or 3 people. Nothing too complicated, but I use all the space on the stove and take a few hours to cook. I might make a chicken bake dish, a loaf of bread, a pasta dish, possibly a big heavy pot of soup, and two or three different vegetable ideas (brussel sprouts with bacon or vegetable stir fry being a current favorite). Inevitably I’ll make brownies and cookies, too. This effort of cooking – several main meals – fills up a whole bunch of tupperwares for dinners during the week and lunches that I take to work with me (correction on above, when I cook, I bring a bag full of 5 lunches with me to work on Monday mornings to last the week).
  • Pre-made Food. Okay, Tuesdays and Wednesdays aren’t usually that exciting. I buy pre-made for dinner occasionally. There are a lot of quick meals that are nearly pre-made (frozen pizzas, etc). The two things to watch out for are the Saturated Fat content (read: any dough or breaded anything) and the salt (sodium) content. For example, those Trader Joes’ pizzas are dang good but pack a whopping 900mg of sodium in each of their mini-personal pizzas. This is Not Good For You. My favorite pre-made dinners are frozen burritos, potstickers, sushi, spring rolls, and casear salads.  
  • Potlucks and Friend Dinners. I love potlucks. While I don’t always enjoy cooking for one person, I LOVE cooking for lots of people. So I invite friends over to cook together – or I head over to someone else’s house for a potluck. Potluck dinners don’t need to be complicated – my friends will show up with a bottle of wine and some cheese  – and I’ll throw some marinated chicken and rice on the stove and call it a night.
  • Bonus: Places for Inspiration. Some of my friends’ food blogs are GREAT starts for inspiration. Genevieve writes a blog “Tastes and Tales” and Trucy keeps a log of great food around the city: Forrked.
  • Eating out. This is inevitable. I do it a lot. I set a little system and try not to do it more than twice a week for both health – and money – reasons. Some great tips for eating out: Share. Don’t get appetizers. Watch or hold the chips and bread. Or – enjoy it and eat reasonably the rest of the week. :)

Snacks.

  • Snacks. So Hi, – I eat a lot, by the way – I like to eat a variety of unusual snacks throughout the day. I don’t like having chips or anything bread-based as a snack, because I’ll snack my way through the entire bag in one sitting. I’ve learned this about myself, and so switched the stuff I have available.  If I’m going to be “mindlessly eating” (great book, by the way), I’ll fill my space with things that I can munch on indefinitely. Here are some good ones:
  • Apples. Carrots. Entire bag of spinach. Celery. Bag of dried plums. Bag of almonds, no salt, just plain roasted.  Pistachios (although the salt balance in these can get to be too much – but the shells make it hard for me to eat too many of them).  Mozzarella string cheese. As a treat, peanut butter or chocolate. I also keep a box of dried oatmeal that i can warm up in the microwave at any time – especially on cold days – plain oatmeal is yummy.
  • CSA or farm delivery. A good way to keep on top of your vegetables and fruits is having a scheduled delivery box from a local CSA.  In San Francisco, there are several options.

Last Thoughts.

Who knew I had so much to say about food?

  • Eat Plain. I don’t mind eating simple foods. For lunch sometimes, I’ll eat just one thing. Like a big bowl of unsugared, unadultered oatmeal. I suppose people might find this boring, but I like it.
  • Build Systems (or Habits). The key to most of these things … is that I really like systems, and I like not thinking about things and just doing them, most of the time. My habits – workouts and eating – are already built, so I don’t consciously think about whether or not I should or shouldn’t be doing something. Instead, I open my food cabinet at work and choose between options I’ve already decided in advance.
  • I don’t like being hungry, so I keep food all over the place. In my car, in my exercise bag, in my purse, in my desk drawers. It’s always hidden, and it’s usually “boring” food (I don’t keep candy in there – well – I can’t. If it’s there, I eat it).  Celery and peanut butter, almonds, carrots and hummus, or some dried fruit.
  • Drink Water. Half the time, being hungry is really being thirsty. I’ve been trained to drink 8 or more glasses of water per day.

Thanks for the question!  Hope that helps. Now, off to eat a bunch of almonds and drink some water … Got any tricks, tips or ideas that you want to share? Any ways that I could improve health-wise? I’d love to hear it!