The Experiment Day 100!

(Today I am listening to beautiful classical music as I write. So soothing…)

I absolutely cannot believe that it’s been 100 days since I started this project. My life has turned inside out and upside down through writing daily posts for 100 days, I can’t recommend doing this highly enough — it would be a great project for you to start New Year’s Day even if you’ve never done a blog before, even if you keep it private and share it with no one, do it for yourself. You can easily set up a free blog on blogger.com. It’s simple and they walk you through the process. I have been blogging for twenty years and it has been life-changing for me.

Now, what have I learned?

I have learned that I can do anything I set my mind to. Starting to write the first post of 365 is daunting for sure but you only have to do one post each day, one day at a time. I can do anything one day at a time. I don’t look forward to how many days there are left, I come to the blog each day, just as I am in that day, and sometimes I have a lot to say, and sometimes very little, but on the hardest days when I’m down and think I can’t do it I just say so. I just show up and tell the truth. That’s all you ever have to do.

And I can’t repeat it enough, and it goes for anything that you are doing in life — JUST SHOW UP! You can do that for yourself and you won’t believe how good it feels. Show up. Even when you don’t feel like it, even when you don’t want to, especially then, because I’m telling you, and I can’t state this strongly enough, when you DO show up when you don’t feel like it afterwards you are on a kind of high. You DID it! You can DO it! Even if it’s just a few lines or a few paragraphs. You get stronger every day, you show the world you mean what you say and when you say you’re going to do a thing by God you’re going to do it! And you start, say, with committing to 365 days of blog posts, and you get scared but you keep showing up, and when you look back at a nice chunk of blog posts behind you and see that you DID show up, under all circumstances, you gain SO MUCH CONFIDENCE in yourself that you realize that you can do OTHER things too. I wasn’t on the ketogenic diet when I started but I got the confidence to start, I have stayed with it too, I have not had one bite of any non-keto food since I started in early October, I have lost 25 pounds and counting and even though my weight has stalled the last few weeks I am not concerned because I know this is just part of the process. I am keto for life, I will never go off this “diet” because it isn’t really a diet in the conventional sense, it’s a lifestyle and once you’re on it a week or two you feel so radically different, so much better, you see such a huge difference in your health, there is just no going back. Not for me. No matter how long it takes to lose all the weight I know that even when I am not going down in pounds amazing healing is going on inside my body. I will Keto On! and that is one of the greatest gifts of 2017.

And I have learned to trust myself. Because I know that I can be true to my good intentions and I feel more secure about my gifts and talents and what I have to offer in the world with each blog post that I write. I have both decided to do my mentoring again AND I pulled it when I knew it wasn’t right and I was perfectly confident in both decisions at the time. Learning to trust yourself is so huge once you feel this I swear you can move mountains in your life. I have no idea where this blog experiment is leading me in my life but I KNOW it is leading me somewhere important and amazing. Again, all I have to do is show up each day and share what is in my heart and through doing this I get clearer each day about what my work is to be in the world. It might take the whole 365 days or longer to figure it out but that’s okay. Things happen in the right and perfect time. I trust that too. I once read, “Trust the process, it’s larger than you.” And I do. Onwards and upwards I go!

I have made wonderful friends doing this and I appreciate you all so much. Every single comment that someone leaves is a tremendous gift to me and I always answer back — it may take a day depending on what time I put the post up and what is then happening in my life — but I always answer back, thoughtfully, and with love in my heart, as soon as possible, often the next morning over coffee. I would like to grow a community through this blog and the people who take time to answer here. I see a community in my future and it will grow out of what I am doing here. It’s not time yet, but it’s coming.

And I had a big learning some weeks ago when for the first time in the 10+ years I have been doing this blog an absolutely horrible troll left a comment that was so long, and detailed, and cruel that it shocked the few people close to me I showed it to. I mean it was really specific and the intent was to cut me to ribbons and keep me from keeping on with what I am doing, criticizing everything about me from my weight to my mental health struggles to the work that I do and how I live in the world and on and on and on! It was a doozie. But I tell you, after the initial shock, just minutes later, I burst out laughing. I really did. I mean it was so horrible and so mean and I just sat here wondering WHY anyone would be here reading my blog, first of all, if this is what they thought of me, (It was SO detailed about so many aspects of my personal life I realized that this person had been reading my blog for a LONG time. Would you waste your time reading something for YEARS that you thought so little of? There’s something really wrong with that picture!) and then the time and energy it had to have taken to write it was just truly astounding. And the thing is if you are going to be out here on the internet telling the truth you will mostly meet lovely people but trolls will come, people who simply don’t have a life and enjoy being hurtful. Because I have to approve all new commenters I simply deleted the comment and went on to write this post and had a BALL doing it! And if you have had or are afraid of trolls do read this. I can’t tell you how many people ended up writing me to thank me for this post and said it really helped them and changed their whole attitude about trolls, they don’t fear them anymore AND THEY WON’T STOP ANY OF US FROM DOING THE WORK WE ARE HERE TO DO. Read it here (click the turkey, I mean, he deserved a come back!) —->>>>

To sum up I simply want to say YOU BE YOU, no matter what that looks or sounds or feels like, the world needs YOU and your own unique gifts, and trust me, the more UNIQUE (Read: Odd, out there, outside the box, an outsider, on the outside looking in, weird, etc.) you think you are the MORE we need what you do. So start now, don’t wait until the new year, make a list of every single thing you think about yourself — quirky, artsy, philosophical, etc. — and then make a list of all the things that interest you, that you love, that you’ve always wanted to do but thought that you couldn’t do — and then pair them up AND DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO DO THIS YEAR TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. And I’m telling you starting a 365 day journey on a blog is a perfect way to find the answer to the question, just like that old quote, “I don’t know what I think until I see what I say.” it will take awhile to unravel the mystery of where you should go next in your life but you’ve got to start somewhere, right? Start here, start now, do this thing!

And — and you know what I’m going to say — “If not, why not? If not now, when?”

That’s the perfect place to stop. These are some of the many things I’ve learned in the first 100 days. Now it’s your turn, start here, start now, what are you waiting for?