The current quarantine on this blog has been going on for much longer than a few weeks. When life is crazy chaotic and just challenging it is hard to not only make time for the things you love, but it also makes you question a lot. I’ve been in a personal quarantine for months now still processing and growing into the transitions we chose to make this past summer. It is frustrating, exciting, overwhelming and yet, somehow, a hopeful place to spend some serious time evaluating life. I suspect there may be some others out there just beginning this process due to recent events.

I’d like to say that I was a model citizen for handling my life’s transitions over the past nine months, handling it all with grace and ease. I’d love to say that I ran through the challenges and focused on the positives and what I could control. I could say all of that was true for me. But then I’d be lying.

For a while life was so overwhelming I really wasn’t running very much, I wasn’t making healthy food choices as much and, in many ways, I started to feel like a version of myself I didn’t recognize. Despite knowing what was best for me and what I needed, I somehow kept not choosing what I knew best.  I kind of started to lose myself as a result. I didn’t really like the way I was living day to day life. I’m still working at getting back to some of my healthiest habits.

Despite still being in this transition phase, I believe there is something good to come for all that struggle-even if I’m not entirely sure what that is exactly. When you take risks and venture into the unknown it can be scary to put it all out there.  Getting back on that wagon no matter how long you’ve had healthy habits is hard. Like so freaking hard. As the numbers rolled over to a new year I began again with a renewed commitment to more of the healthy habits that make me feel like myself. I finally began gaining some ground when I intentionally started to pour some focus into myself. Then like most goals we have our setbacks.

And while I won’t get into all the details, here most of us sit in a quarantine. In a setback. 2020 was a year of big racing for me.  I thought I needed a fun year of pushing myself to my limits and exploring.  Likely not anymore.  It would be easy to quit trying to up my mileage back to where it used to be, to let the lift workouts slide, to abandon the weekly yoga practice I’ve been doing since the start of the year and to let those books I planned to read collect more dust.  It would be so easy to get caught up in the fear and the unknown that I forget-I do have a say. 

So I refuse to let this current situation derail me. I am coming back to all the things that I know are good for me. Everywhere you look someone can tell you about the negatives right now, but I’m kind of over spending so much time focusing on that. I’m choosing to focus on what I can control going forward. I’m making a choice to to use this situation for good-for myself and others.  I’ve seen lots of posts on social media that remind us it’s ok to feel fear and unsure and ups and downs and to not be using the quarantine time to start all these projects. I hear what people are feeling and honestly I’ve caught myself there more than a few times in the past weeks, BUT to come out of a time like this and not have grown in some positive way seems like a missed chance.  And honestly, how does being in that fearful, stuck place feel?  I refuse to come out of this situation and feel or do more of the same. Or worse.  I don’t want to look back with regret over this time.

So I’m focusing on the things I have a choice to control Every. Single. Day:

1) How I move my body? (Run, LIIFT, Hike, yoga, walk, etc)

2) What I feed and care for my body with.

3) How I take care of myself beyond exercise and food choices. (self-care routines-face masks and tea drinking type stuff/getting outside/reading/gratitude journal, etc.)

4) How I respond/treat others around me.

5) What I spend time reading/listening to.

I’m back to share more and hopefully encourage a few to make positive changes in their life along with me.  Or mostly positive changes.  Yesterday I might have prepped healthy meals for the upcoming week and then finished a piece of cake before scheduling this post. That might have happened, but without photo evidence I guess we won’t know.  Sharing always holds me accountable.  No photo, no proof.  🙂  We have time on our side despite all the challenges.  

What healthy choices are in your control that you want to focus on right now?

Sarah