I've just been chatting with a dear friend or as I like to refer to her #spawnofsatan and I have challenged her to write a list of 100 things that are great about her life and about her. 

So I figured I needed to do it too.

It's very easy to focus on all those things that you dislike about where you are right now, but to change your life you need to know what you want to take with you not the things you want to leave behind.

It's like giving someone directions but instead of telling them where to go, you tell them where they shouldn't go.


1. I have a gorgeous son
2. Tom Yum Soup
3. My dimples
4. Laughter
5. My deck
6. My coffee maker
7. My Orient walls
8. My white adidas shoes
9. I love my gym!
10. Having long hot showers after Archie has gone to bed
11. Eating popcorn!
12. Chilli! In everything! I even work it into my breakfast!
13. My Intelligence 
14. Great friends
15. That I can laugh at myself!
16. Dancing in the kitchen by myself
17. The support from my family
18. Jumping on the trampoline with Archie
19.Running like a kid with arms and legs going all over the place
20.waking up and listening to 'Pure Imagination' and then 'Beautiful Day'
21. My eyes
22. Hot soup on rainy days
23. Arm Sweat
24. Bush Wees
25. swimming
26. Blowing raspberry's on Archie's belly
27. Theatre
28. Seeing Theatre
29. Creating Theatre
30. Reading about Theatre
31. My tiara
32. The kookaburra's that visit my house
33. Arguing about Theatre
34. My Blue velvety shoes
35. My very first Lorna Jane shirt
36. Penang Chicken Curry
37. My Pride wall
38. Singing very loudly in the car
39. Boxing
40. My new boxing gloves'
41. Pho... omg PHO!
42. Running through bush tracks
43. climbing Mount Coolum
44. Old Friends who are like family
45. New Friends who are like family too
46. My mirror with the gold frame
47. running on the beach in bare feet
48. 506 - my number from the Twilight run
49. The ring I had made from a pebble Archie gave me
50. Water
51. The possibilities of my life
52. Being a little bit Quirky
53. My focus
54. Playfulness
55. Imagination
56. Books!
57. I am open
58. I think outside the square
59. I am present
60. My vocabulary
61. That I am getting stronger and stronger
62. I am getting faster and faster
63. Getting a 5c piece to sit in my dimple
64. Putting on my earphones and dancing around the house
65. Leaping in the middle of a run
66. my empathy
67.I have sensational and crazy talented friends
68. I have made friends with my past
69. Watching breakfast at Tiffany's
70. The way my thumbs bend
71. The look I get when I am moving beyond the hurt
72. Spanx
73. Watching Secretary
74. Playing dress ups
75. Being under water
76. Solving impossible problems
77. Veridian Green
78. My Ukulele
79. Being able to JUMP!
80. I am adventurous
81. I have taste - I don't often us it, but I have it
82. Dorothy Parker
83. 12WBT
84. That I am learning to be open
85. I make excellent Pizza
86. I have found Calm
87. failure excites me
88. Poetry
89. Training as part of a team
90. The 30+ crew!
91. Hunger for Knowledge
92. Thinking outside the box
93. My body
94. Finger painting
95.Walking in the rain
96. Shrinkers 
97. Building rivers in the sand
98. having a bike licence
99. Blueberry stained fingers
100. The smell of vanilla in my lounge room

So this week I turned 39. I had a totally ordinary day - and it was sublime! This year my birthday wasn't some landmark event - I wasn't thinking "From now on things will be different" and I wasn't looking back at my life with sadness. I am happy. 

I am very close to being 60kgs lighter than when I signed on to the 12WBT. But you know what - the weight thing is great, but it's the head stuff, that's been the most amazing part of my journey. It's part of the reason why I don't look back at where I was with regret; because I don't know if I would have ever had this mental strength if I hadn't had to fight for my life. 
And the start of this was a fight, it was hard and I wanted to give up so very many times. But the start is always hard and this time I actually pushed my way through it. No more starting over for me!

Now I don't have to fight any more, I just lean into it :)

I have learnt some amazing lessons along the way. 

I have learnt to make friends with failure -  I thought that I had failed in the past, but I have realised that I had only ever given up. Now I aim for failure, I make big goals and if I don't make it, that's okay because I am moving one step closer.

I have learnt that weight loss is not a good enough goal and that my goals need to be huge and amazing and inspiring. My goal is to be extraordinary. 

I have learnt that weight is just a reaction to your life and if you live a passionate, full, honest life then the weight will just fall off.

I have learnt to celebrate me and take joy in who I am.

I have learnt that the little voice in my head (no, not the one that says "go to the clock tower") the one that tells me "no, you can't do that" isn't the enemy. It's the voice that used to say "RUN! It's a sabre tooth tiger!", the only problem is that we have been telling it for so long that the good things are really the bad things that it's confused. I have learnt to tell my voice that it's okay and that it can keep looking for sabre tooth tigers. 

I have learnt that it's okay to let people in. I had treated my emotions as some dirty little habit. I had covered them in dough and swallowed them. I thought that people would be burdened by my feelings, but the truth is when you share who you are with someone they take it as a gift not a burden. 

I have learnt to stop trying to heal my past and instead create my future. The past is done, it doesn't exist, but so often we drag it around into our tomorrows. 

I have learnt that happiness is a series of choices. I have a list on my wall - I'll post it at the bottom of the page - It's a list of what happy people do. I use it for my emotional weigh in.

I have learnt to laugh at myself. This journey has been bloody hard and if I didn't laugh at myself sometimes, I'm not sure if I would have made it!

I have learnt soooo many more things, but right now, that'll do :)

My 39th Birthday came and went with little hoopla, it was just another wonderful day.  

Simplicity. Just stopping and enjoying the journey. Breathing. 

I preach this quite often, but lately I had forgotten to do it myself.  I made my son a promise before he was born: to slow to his wonderful pace. I didn't entirely know what that meant, but I read it somewhere and it sounded good and I was in that Earth Mother phase of pregnancy, the one where if someone had lit a fire in my backyard I probably would have danced naked around it while howling at the moon.

The last few days I have reconnected with that promise and found joy in simplicity again.  I have run on the beach, spent hours drawing trains, picked flowers, hid under blankets, played with pipe cleaners, made music with saucepans, pretended I was a puppy, explained how pretty much EVERYTHING works, pretended I was a crane, painted, rolled on the grass, climbed a tree, looked at the stars, danced in the lounge room, made a kite..............
I didn't have any more time than I had a week ago, I haven't neglected anything else - I just stopped being in such a rush! 
This morning I went for a run and I found myself leaping, it was amazing just to feel myself moving and not caring where I got to!  

Oh what a joy it is to slow down!
It's so easy to get overwhelmed with everything you want and forget about what you already have.
The last few days I have looked at my life and who I am and thought  'life is good'.  

There is nothing else I need. 


I am healthy (exciting to be able to say that), I have an amazing son, a beautiful home, I have a loving and supportive family and wonderful friends.  

Simple.

Hi Guys! This is a request to be extraordinary - it's not a big thing, but it is a huge thing!


So... this weekend it's time to do something extraordinary! Pick an amazing place and walk, ride, swim, run, climb your way there and tie a blue ribbon on a rock or a tree or something. Maz, a 12WBT has a friend who's little boy is fighting for his life - this dedication is for Lachlan.

This was Maryan's post - 

Maryan Bourke
My next week's session's will be dedication to a little boy who is the world to his mum and dad after his sister was born sleeping last year. He's 11 week's old and fighting the flight of his life. His mum took him to hospital last night and he's bleeding internally and his liver has shut down. Praying like a mad woman that he pull's through.
So if your driving aaround my neck of the woods and see a woman at the gym or out running bawling like a bitch, you know its me.




Photo's would be fantastic guys!

So between now and Sunday - do something extraordinary!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/372304632824749/ 

http://www.12wbt.com/round-2-2012/forums/general-discussion/topics/blue-ribbon-dedication-something-little-to-mean-so-much?page=1#post_378380-row 

Each week of the 12WBT there are challenges, some are physical, some are about consolidating your knowlege and some are about mindset. This weeks is creating an inspiration board.  I started with pictures of my Archie, some mountains, a cute dress, a great quote, you know, the inspiring stuff - but it didn't feel right. Archie, well he's a part of my journey, he's a part of me as for the rest yeah, it's all stuff I want but it doesn't make me breath that very special way. So.... this is what I ended up with and it excites me and scares the hell out of me! 

It has taken me longer to add a new blog post than it should have  - I was going to give a list of reasons that are all true - house painting, grumpy toddler....

Although true - it wouldn't have been the truth.
So why? 
Because I froze, I looked at the stats page, realised people were actually reading this and I froze. I thought I had to write something interesting and witty and profound, I couldn't do that, so I wrote nothing. 
The same thing occurred after winning an award at the round 1 Finale - I froze, I became withdrawn, I thought I had to be "Inspirational" and I had no idea how to do that. 
I was petrified when I met 12WBTers - because I felt like I was expected to be something that I am not. I thought they would be disappointed. 
After winning the award my main thought was - how do I be this person? what is expected of me? 

Then it dawned on me - Nothing, nothing is expected of me. If you are reading this blog you are reading it for your own reasons, you don't want to know about ME - you want to know about YOU! 
And maybe somewhere in my journey you might just find another little bit of you.

The Inspiration I get from people like Michelle Bridges or John Lennon or Ben-does-life doesn't belong to them - they don't walk around with a big ol' sack of inspiration like Santa Claus - it belongs to me.  I always carry it with me and sometimes I look at someone else's journey and I take that sharp inspirational breath and I let myself have a little piece of it. 

So... I will continue to write and I promise not to try and inspire you. :)

10th of June - 

June 9 - One of the Preseason tasks is about voicing your goals and saying it out loud. 
My first round I didn't do this, I wasn't brave enough to say "This is what I want", because I felt that saying that would be like telling people how unhappy I really was.  
So, I skipped that one. 
When my second round came I shouted - selectively though, to people that I felt would hear it the way I wanted them to. I kept control over who was listening. 
This round - if you haven't heard me then you need to get your hearing checked! 
But it's now less of "this is what I want" it has now turned into "this is who I am". 

It feels strong and grounded to be where I am right now.
I feel like I am in sync with myself - body, mind and soul are all in it together now. There is no more fighting to be done - I'm just gently leaning into it.

I also crow because I have this feeling that there may be someone else who is in exactly the same position that I was in and they are waiting there to hear my story and to know that they can choose life too. 
So I'm shouting as loudly as I can, because I want to make this mean something.

So I did a story in the local paper - even with the inaccuracies (my name, pulmonary embolism not heart attack, 50kg not 30kg etc etc etc) I'm good with this :) 

And more importantly I am wearing my first piece of Lorna Jane clothing EVER!