Happy Birthday to Me

Birthdays are a good time to reflect on the prior year and make new goals for the next year. Last year, I didn't have a lot of focused goals (ok, I did have a couple that I did not reach), but lots of good things happened :)

Last year on my birthday I had just ended a relationship that was really wrong for me, moved into a new place, and started teaching online in addition to my kinda new wellness coaching job. I had planned a joint birthday party with Tina and Stina, but I didn't go----I "gave up" those friends in the break-up. So my ex-bf went to my party and I didn't. It was pretty funny--and I realized that I was happier not having gone. I spent the time with my mom and Matthew instead, and why wouldn't I want to be with two of my most favorite people on the planet on my birthday?

I've met a lot of people in the last year because of my job: The guys at Con-way Freight (Rochester, Syracuse, and Dansville), my friends at xpedx, Ultrafab, Rotork, and RIT. I like to think I'm pretty good at remembering your names and your stories too (just don't be upset if I see you out of your workspace and it takes me a minute to place you---and pay no attention to my attire if you see me in Wegmans).

I'm really not a very social or outgoing person--so my job doing wellness coaching doesn't make a lot of sense for my personality. I like to be home, love to be by myself, and I am more likely to wait for someone else to show an interest in talking to me rather than me starting a conversation. One of the hardest things for me to do is to feel I might be bothering or inconveniencing someone (another common potential of my job). I've gotten better at not worrying about that so much this year though.

I've done more yoga, eaten more healthy foods, run more, laughed more, and hugged more this year. I did better at living in the moment and also let things go more easily. I met Joey :)

I've been to yoga class this morning, and I'm heading to my mom's after I do some work. I already got new running shoes from Joe and some great pieces of artwork from Matthew in the mail (one of them has a hole cut out of the middle and it says, "This fits my head. It won't fit yours. Love, Matthew").

If your birthday is not close by, you can use mine---take a few minutes to reflect on what you did in the past year. Try to look at what you're proud of and what you enjoyed. Then just think of a few ways you might make yourself even a little happier and healthier in the coming year.