Exciting Things to Come

First a few pictures from my trip to Montreal!

Such an amazing concert! They will make the top of my favourite concerts (including Chili Peppers, Incubus, Coldplay and No Doubt)

So amazing!!!

Anyway... I'm really excited for the next couple of months!!

♥ My birthday next Thursday!! ♥

♥ Going out with friends on Saturday! ♥

♥ Momma and my Aunt come to Ottawa the next weekend ♥

♥ One of my cousins might visit the next ♥

♥ Home the weekend after that ♥

♥ Banff on a work retreat ♥

♥ More business trips ♥

♥ FLORIDA for Christmas ♥

♥ Another week back home♥

Exciting things to come!!! I love having things to look forward to! 

What's coming up for you?

Also - please answer the poll on the side there (jump out of Google reader!) about the types of posts you'd like to see more of!

Thankful Thursday's v.2

<center><a href="http://www.lifesjourneywithasmile.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Life's Journey with a Smile" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6117/6255412106_a6c7a55d09_m.jpg"/></a></center>

It's another week, and time for Thankful Thursday's!

This post is scheduled because I'm currently in Montreal!!

So today I'm thankful for...

Mumford and Sons!!!!

and my cousin and her boyfriend for getting the tickets to their concert tonight for me as an early birthday present :)



What are you thankful for today?
Linky up! :)

Season Change

I always get pretty bummed out when the season changes... then suddenly there is a shift and I embrace it. This tends to only happen with Fall and Winter (I don't really get upset about it getting warmer outside). 

After Summer ended I went into a bit of depression/denial that Winter was coming. Then the beautiful Fall colours came out and I started to love wooly socks, warm sweaters, fuzzy blankets and boots again. Don't forget soup and tea! 

I know I shared this already but it's so enchantingly beautiful!

So anywho, what's not to love about Fall... including my birfffday in 9 days! 

Tomorrow I'm headed off to Montreal for a concert on Thursday and Fall shopping!

So excited! 

What's on your Fall shopping list this year?
Here are some of mine!

fall by missammmy featuring a crochet slouchy beanie

What Does Your Body Have to Say?

So awhile back I promised to tell you about a life changing experience I had, and well that kind of fell off my map of things to talk about then it'd been so long it just didn't really make sense to talk about it any more...that is until today when I had my second session.

My last business trip with work they had brought a bunch of people to the community that do something called Body Talk. It kind of falls into the wellness branch of holistic types of therapy (think: reiki, shiatsu, meditation, etc.). When I got to the community last time I had no idea who was coming, what it was for or anything. I very quickly switched gears to extreme excitement when I heard what these people did.

To quote their site... Body Talk "is a holistic approach to healing, based on proven principles of energy medicine." 

The BodyTalk System works by first identifying the weakened energy circuits within the body. The practitioner relies on the body’s inherent knowledge of itself to locate the energy circuits that need repair by using a form of biofeedback, which is a subtle muscle-testing technique. 

For every malfunctioning energy circuit found, the practitioner or client contacts the corresponding “points” with his or her hands. The practitioner then lightly taps the client on the top of the head, which stimulates the brain center and causes the brain to re-evaluate the state of the body’s health. The result is that the general energy balance of the body is greatly improved.

So basically, the therapist will listen to what your body is telling it, communicate with you what is going on (so you can explain more or just realize) and then realign the things that are out of whack. This can be from anything to knee problems, headaches, to deep-routed emotional issues.


When I was in Alberta I first had a session with this guy doing shiatsu. He picked up on a lot of anxiety stuff and grief (go figure). Later in the trip three of the girls did a session on me at once. To simply put it... life changingly amazing. The stuff they picked up on was so eye opening it was almost freaky.


You know how they say we only use a certain percentage of our brain in our conscious mind? Well... that couldn't be more true. 


Do you ever wonder why you are the way you are?


Why you can't let go of some things?


Why you act the way you act?


Sometimes we consciously want to do something so bad but we just can't and we don't know why.

Well, for me this obviously all lies in my weight.

After my first session with the three girls, they left me alone on the table to just relax and be with myself and then I met them in another room. All three of them were kind of saddened by the deep-routed issues I had with self-love. They all picked up on it. Since this post is already getting really long, I will skip the part where we talked through it and jump to the end epiphany...

I hold onto my weight for protection. Armour if you will...

source

To protect me from superficialness. From more hurt. From more abandonment. 

So this is obviously something I talked about earlier this week, but today I just had another session of Body Talk with a local practitioner here in Ottawa and she hacked into it so much more and  I honestly feel the wheels turning and a shift happening.

She picked up on my ability to love in all ways. Self-love, love for others, love in general.

source

She tapped into a lot of my pain, grief and feelings around my break-up and around my brother.

She said I held a lot of this in my lungs. The shortness of breath you often feel when the emotional shit is just too much to handle.

Breathing symbolizes letting the new in and letting go with breathing out. I breathe shallowly to protect myself.

Beyond this short-term pain that is still there (she was picking up on the conversation le ex and I had the other day), there is abandonment issues too.

The guys in my life have left me to put it bluntly. First Kyle (my brother), then the break-up.

Kyle was a huge supporter in my life. Your sibling is your other half for the first part of your life, especially when there is only two of you. A pillar if you will, and when he died my ex took that place. I always had fear that he wasn't forever. I lost my forever and was desperately searching for someone to take that place. He held me up when I was taken right down to my nothingness. Losing a sibling is incredibly lonely (something she also picked up on).

My body gains weight for protection and armour, and coupled with my insecurities over my body and him narrowing in on them there is a lot going on there.

These men that protected me are now gone and my body is trying to find ways to protect myself from harm.

This internal protection is based in our core, both our lower back and core in general. So today my practitioner worked on realigning this to build my strength within so I can let go of what my body is holding onto (the weight). And, funny enough my core and lower back are the weakest points in my body when it comes to exercise. Go figure.

She said I'll start to notice a lot of strength in my core as my body takes back it's ability to protect itself within. I don't need anyone to hold me up. I am strong enough to do it on my own. And not to mention my brother is still there (and always will be) watching my back.

my brother tattoo

Anyway, there was some other stuff that came up including my ability to hold water and hydrate myself correctly (I often just pee out the water I drink), so hopefully that will begin to fix itself too.

I'm going back in a couple weeks, and I'm incredibly excited to see where Body Talk is going to take me.

I strongly  recommend googling Body Talk practitioners in your area and getting a session done, you won't regret it! The two sessions I've had done have been far more eye opening than any therapy session ever has. Find out what you're body is talking about!

If you have any questions about this, send me an email, comment (with your email if you're a pesky no-reply blogger), etc. I'm really excited about this and would love to talk more about it if you're interested!!

*I was not asked to talk about Body Talk, this was my own personal experience that I'm just happy to rave about*

Do Over

I know I know. Doing a do over is often a lame move.

HOWEVER.

When it comes to my Day Zero list (101 in 1001) I've decided it's time to start over for several reasons.

a) My life is completely different than when I first started it.
b) There were some goals that were just getting too ridiculous to keep track of (i.e., movies I've watched)
c) I feel like I'm a different person with different goals.

So...

DO OVER.

Today is the first day of my new 101 in 1001 list. I hope to be better this time around of keeping track of my goals and accomplishments.

So before I go and erase my old goal list let's review some noteworthy goals I've completed!

3. Dye my hair blonde I love being a blonde and am so happy I did this! I plan to stay blonde for awhile! I think it just suits me!

12.   Go for a 1km run without having to take a break I think this is amazing to me. For me to have this type of goal shows how little I believed I could be a runner. While I've slacked a bit over the last few months, I actually ran 14.5 minutes straight for the first time the other day {a new record}. My new list will reflect where I think my running can take me. 


31.   Celebrate my 23^rd birthday the way my brother would have wanted I think this one should be noted since it was a very significant birthday for me. 


My other goals were little ones (i.e., get new glasses, buy a couch, make a scrapbook, see two movies in one night, etc.) that didn't have much significance carried with them, but I'm ready to get going again and make this one count! 

Start Date: October 21, 2011
End Date: July 18, 2014

About Me

1.   Get my gratitude tattoo

2.    Have a spa day (mani, pedi, facial, massage)

3.    Dye my hair red

4.    Change my hairstyle

5.    Spend an entire day in pajamas

6.    Fill a journal

Health and Fitness

7.    Reach 130 pounds

8.    Run a 10 K

9.    Run a half-marathon

10. Be able to do 60 push-ups

11. Be able to do 150 full sit-ups

12. Do yoga everyday for one week [0/7]

13. Try a new type of exercise

14. Wear size small

15. Fit into my skinny jeans again

16. Wear a bikini confidently again

17. Get acupuncture

18. Visit the eye doctor

19. Improve my posture

20. Get allergy testing

Life Stuff

21. Meet my soul mate

22. Fall in love again

23. Do something spontaneous in the name of love

24. Have a Hollywood Kiss Moment

25. Get engaged

26. Be a bridesmaid

27. Adopt a puppy

New Stuff and Purchases

28. Get the Friends series         

29. Get an acoustic guitar

30. Get an iPad

31. Get two other DSLR lenses [0/2]

32. Get a new snowboard

33. Get a sewing machine

34. Buy a home

Travel and Activities

35. Take a spontaneous day trip

36. Take a family vacation

37. Go on vacation with a friend

38. Go on a romantic getaway

39. Fly first class

40. Go to Quebec City

41. Go to Europe

42. Go on a cruise

43. Go on a backpacking/camping trip

44. Go hiking in the mountains

45. Go snowboarding in Banff

46. Go to NYC

47. Go to Las Vegas

48. Go to a musical

49. Go to the zoo

50. See the pyramids

51. Take a cliché photo in front of the Eiffel Tower

52. Go to Vancouver

53. Watch the sunrise on the beach

54. Attend five concerts [0/5]

55. Go to La Ronde

56. Go on a trip with flight paid by Airmiles

57. Go on a picnic

58. Sing karaoke

Money Matters

59. Spend $500 at a mall guilt-free

60. Make more than $60,000 yearly on my own

61. Pay off my VISA

62. Pay off OSAP

63. Put $7,000 in emergency savings (TFSA)

64. Open an RRSP Savings Account

65. Contribute monthly to an RRSP

Food

66. No French fries for one month [0/30]

67. Plant an herb garden

68. Plant a vegetable garden

69. Learn how to make Babcia’s perogies

70. Bake a cake from scratch

71. Take my parents out for dinner

72. Cook dinner for my parents

73. Take a friend/family member out for dinner

74. Go vegan for a week [0/7]

Good Deeds

75. Donate blood

76. Participate in five charity races [0/5]

77. Donate $50 to a charity on two occasions [0/2]

Do

78. Read 50 books [0/50] 

79. Read and complete the Harry Potter series and watch the movies in succession  [3/7] [0/7]

80. Create a dream board

81. Get my car detailed

82. Write myself a letter to open in 10 years

83. Plant a tree

84. Complete 3 DIY Projects [0/3]

85. Make a custom recipe book

86. See the Northern Lights…in the North

87. Completely deep-clean my home on six occasions [0/6]

88. Make a wish at 11:11 on November 11, 2011

89. Take photos for someone

Learn

90. Knit a scarf

91. Make  an outfit

92. Learn how to shoot only in manual with my DSLR

93. Learn 5 songs on the guitar [0/5]

94. Try wakeboarding

95. Try waterskiing

96. Learn to drive standard

97. Take a class to learn a new skill

Blog Related

98.Write 1000 posts

99. Reach 500 followers

100. Meet a fellow blogger

The End

101. Make another Day Zero list

Do you have a Day Zero list?

Where do you want to be 1001 days from now?