Weekly Wings Challenge 4 - You're on a Mission! and Meme

I originally told Mary that I would have to get back to her later on her My Best Possible Selves Meme, but this Wings Challenge I'm currently working on is similar in that I need to decide on some goals for my future. This has been difficult for me since my husbands death, because the way I had my life planned completely changed. I've been unsure about what I want, ever since. So, even though Mary's meme said to spend about 10 to 20 minutes on this, I've probably spent about the last 7 years trying to figure this out.

My first goal, and probably most important, involves how I see myself now and how I want to see myself in the future. I'm just beginning to understand that I have to be who I am, not who I think I should be, but I have to try to change who I am by seeing myself as who I want to be. It's easy to get the two confused. I want to be happy and healthy. Who doesn't, and why did it take me years to figure this out? Well, it's because I have been told by doctors that I won't ever really be either. All my life they've told me that I have a chemical imbalance due to genetics, that causes depression, and would have to be on medication for the rest of my life. They would say, " there is no cure for your depression." In addition, they also say there is no cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis [RA], a disease that began affecting me about 3 years ago. Over the years I've been diagnosed with a list of other ailments including, but not limited to, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Leaky Gut Syndrome, Raynaud's Disease, Attention Deficit Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Hypoglycemia, etc. Currently, I'm not taking any pharmaceutical medications. I've been able to get rid of most of these ailments with alternative treatments. However, I'm still taking alternative medications for depression and RA, so I have a tendency to see myself as depressed and sickly, and to ignore the pain in an attempt to pretend that I'm not. I'm realizing now, though, that my illness is not who I am.

Who am I? I am a personal trainer who specializes in working with people who have special needs, like diabetes, high blood pressure, auto-immune disorders, cancer, arthritis and joint injuries, osteoporosis, and neurological disorders like stroke and head injuries. I've over come a drug addiction, as well as addictions to caffeine, nicotine, and refined sugars. I've changed my life style and eating habits to become healthier, and lose 70 pounds. I was told by a neurologist that I would need surgery on my neck, because of a bone spur, that physical therapy wouldn't help, and yet with a chiropractor and starting a regular exercise routine, I have all the feeling back in my right hand without the surgery. Hence, the reason why I became a personal trainer. I am a survivor, who can adapt my life to accommodate whatever is needed to reach my goals.

Through my work, I've had the opportunity to do a lot of research into auto-immune disorders. I was able to interview a couple of women who have cured themselves of Lupus, and Multiple Sclerosis [MS]. They were both selling products they believe cured them, but when I pried deeper into their personal lives, they both admitted that they had to completely change their lives, their way of thinking, and attitudes, as well as turning to their faith for help. My research is also teaching me that these diseases, including RA, characteristically have emotionally traumatic experiences in the past that make every day stresses the proverbial straw that triggers the disease. I believe that an emotional release of these experiences along with changing deeply ingrained thought patterns and habits will help me reach my goal of being healthy, and I am learning that my chemical imbalance is due to these same experiences, not genetics, so I believe this process will also help me reach my goal of being happy.

Because I've been able to work closely with clients who have Fibromyalgia, Lupus, MS, Chronic Fatigue, and RA, I've noticed that focusing on goals is difficult for them. This is motivating me to make my next goal of Life Coaching. I want to learn skills that will help me focus better, and then teach them to others. When I learned how diet and exercise could help, I decided to teach others, but diet and exercise only got me so far. Likewise, I can only do so much as a personal trainer. Life Coach seems like a natural progression for me.

Some other goals that are important to me involve my art. Over the years, I've seem to have gotten away from my art, and this blog has been helping me get back into it. I want to eventually turn some of my digital collages, that I've posted here, into paintings. It's been a while since I've done any painting. I also want to write a book about my life. I've started it, but I think it will take a while to finish. My Best Possible Selves Meme said to write about what we want our lives to be like in the next 5 to 10 years. I'm hoping to be able to accomplish these things in the next 5 years, since I've already started on some of them. Maybe in the next 10 years, I could be living someplace tropical, where I will be working on my underwater photography. These are my goals, why it's taken me seven years to figure them out, and why I can now see myself accomplishing them.

The last step of the 4th Wings Challenge is to write a Mission Statement using our goals, values, purpose, and manifestations. Here is my Mission Statement:

My mission is to awaken the courage, insight, and creative
abilities that have always been in me, and use them to
communicate to others the things I've been learning on
this journey.

The picture above is the logo that is goes along with my Mission Statement, which is also part of the exercise. I've been a trainer for 6 years now, and still don't have a logo for my business. You'd think that as an artist, that would be one of the first things I'd do, but I've had no desire or motivation to design one. I've decided that I'm going to use this one for my business. I may use it for my Life Coaching business, too, when I start one.