The Race Card.....Again

I keep finding myself in situations where I feel disrespected.  Taken for granted.  Dictated to.  Talked down to.  The only constant in these situation is that I am black and everyone else is white.  I'd like to think that this is just a coincidence but it happens too often for it to be.

Then I think that maybe it's me.  Maybe I'm on edge; waiting for someone to do or say something.  Maybe I am hypersensitive to it.  Maybe it keeps happening because I'm the problem.

I feel like I am distrusted to handle certain tasks.  Like my opinions aren't valued.  Like I'm talked down to like a child.  But I'm more educated than all of them.  That's the kicker.  They think less of me and treat me like a subordinate because I'm "new".  But I'm not really new.  I have just as much experience (often more) than they do but I'm new to them in this role. 

If I confront them I am always the angry black woman because I can't control my emotions.  But on a daily basis I feel mistreated.  I stew over these incidents obsessively.  I have heart palpitations.  I can't sleep.  When I'm in meetings I try so hard to act like everything is okay that I often stumble over my words and become the bumbling idiot they all seem to think I am.

By the end of the day my jaw hurts from clenching.  I don't even realize I'm doing it until the headache and neck pain sets in.  I have to sleep with a night guard or I have crippling migraines and stabbing pains in my jaw throughout the day. 

If I go somewhere else it won't be different.  At this point I know that.  That this misjudgment and bias will follow me everywhere.  I think that I'll just do a kick ass job and they'll have to notice and change their tune but they never do.  It never happens.  I feel proud of myself and then they kick me down. 

I think back to years ago when I was depressed and spent most of my time in the house alone.  When I wallowed in my solitude and didn't participate in life.  When I took working from to home to extremes and rarely went further than the end of my driveway.  Than I remember how I found myself again.  How I found myself through fitness and volunteering and then moved to positions of authority in both fields and started to feel fulfilled. 

But now I'm back in the same old rut I always find myself in.  I am filled with anxiety.  I am ready to quit everything and just go back to being a hermit.  But I know this isn't the right answer.  I just wish I knew what was. 

10 days left

I can't believe it's been 90 days since this whole "new me manifesto" started.  I can't say that I've changed a lot so I guess this 100 days thing doesn't really work unless you commit yourself to doing something every day for that time period.  

My husband and I are in the process of selling our current house and buying another one.  The level of stress that this brings to my already fragile existence is insane.  It seems to amplify all the issues that I already have and bring up new issues that I didn't even know existed. 

The freedom of my flex time schedule has meant that I'm the one overseeing the contractors and cleaning the house while my husband goes to work every day.  I already tend to go stir crazy when I overuse my work from home privileges but this is worse than normal.  Not only am I sitting in my house all day, I have endless projects that I need to do to get our house ready to put on the market.  I know it will all be worth it in the end but right now it's making me miserable.  

Positive thought for the day: Packing and storing our stuff has helped us get rid of a lot of junk.  It's kind of freeing to get rid of clutter and exciting to think about buying new furniture.  I struggle to throw things out sometimes because I love the idea of re-purposing everything.  I rarely have time to follow through with those projects so I end up with a lot of piles of half finished projects and I stress over not getting those projects done.  As hard as it is to let go of some of these projects, it's a relief too.  

Goals for tomorrow: Carve out some me time before/after the contractors so I don't feel so trapped.  Plan my day over breakfast so I don't get derailed trying to do a million things.  Ask my husband for help/support.  

10 Days of Discovery

My husband and I just returned from a week long vacation in Europe.  I have studied Spanish since I was in elementary school but I am still very self conscious when I try to speak Spanish to other people.  During this vacation I spoke Spanish daily.  I tried to initiate all conversations with native speakers in Spanish.  A lot of people recognized that I was an American before I opened my mouth or a few words into my attempts at communication and started speaking to me in English (which I was grateful for).  But a lot of people didn't.  I was nervous at first but by the end of the week my confidence was up and my Spanish wasn't half bad.  

I would love it if I could speak Spanish on a regular basis.  I don't want to travel abroad frequently (I could really take it or leave it).  There are plenty of Spanish speakers in the US.  I just need to figure out what I can do to interact with other Spanish speakers on a regular basis. 

Before we left for vacation I worked harder than I have in months.  I went into the office and finished tasks that I had let pile up.  I took work home and completed projects that would be due shortly after I returned from vacation.  I took the initiative to organize tasks so that it would be harder for me to fall behind in the future.  I was able to complete all of this in 2-6 hours per work day.  I felt a huge sense of accomplishment and still had plenty of time left over.  I still need to work on how I manage this left over time but it felt great to be productive again without really having to try that hard. 

I have given myself 2 weeks off of teaching fitness.  I found substitute instructors to cover all of my classes so I could take the time to reset my class preparation routine.  When I first started teaching fitness I would work on routines for hours before presenting them to a class.  Even though no routine is ever perfect my preparation made me more relaxed and translated into me being a better teacher.   I want to walk into every class feeling confident that I'm going to be awesome.  I am lucky to have built a strong following among my class participants.  I want to make sure that I am always living up to my own reputation.  

#100 Days of Me

All over social media people have been doing these 100 days of something.  They post a picture (or several) daily and describe how it relates to their goal.  I have seen 100 days of selfies to learn to love yourself, 100 days of running/working out to get into shape, 100 days of healthy eating and, my favorite, 100 days of happy. 

In 100 days of happy, people focus on one thing that they have done that day that has made them happy.  The goal being to focus on something positive even if you've had a really awful day.  At the end of the 100 days you have a better outlook on life and keep looking for those bright moments even after the 100 days.  

I'm not having a bad year but I am in a bit of a rut.  I don't really like my job any more but I don't know if there is a job out there that would make me just as happy and have all the same benefits.  I've heard a lot of entrepreneurs say that if you can't find the job you love you should create it.  That's easy to say when you don't have a mortgage to pay but there is definitely some truth in that. 

I have a flexible schedule.  My bosses keep very loose tabs on all of us.  I could do so much more with my job than I am now without anyone batting an eye.  Maybe 10 hours of my work week are defined outside of meetings.  What I do with those other 30 hours is totally up to me.  What I usually do is half-ass work that isn't a priority and dabble in several hobbies without any major commitment or focus to any one thing.  Being a fitness instructor is what I really spend most of my time on but, to be honest, I half-ass my prep for that sometimes too.  

So in my 100 days of me I'm going to try and find myself.  I'm going to do things that feed my soul and help me to be happy again.  Maybe this journey will show me what my dream job is.  Maybe I'll find enough joy outside of my professional career that it will balance what I don't like about my job.  Maybe I'll realize that the problem isn't the job, it's me.  

The fact that I'm even going on this journey shows how much healthier I am than I was not too long ago.  I am still a work in progress but I have done more this year to improve myself than I have in a long time.  I seem to trend towards the negative in this blog so I'm going to end by patting myself on the back and reveling in my accomplishments:

1. I added strength training to my workout regiment and started paying more attention to what I eat.  I have lost 8 lbs and 12.5 inches since December and my BMI and Body fat percentage are on the decline.  Admittedly I have had some slip ups where 1-3 lbs of this weight back on after traveling but overall I am trending down and I know what to do to keep moving in the right direction. 
2. My husband and I started going to a marriage counselor to learn to communicate with each other better and to deal with issues from our past that affect how we interact with each other and the world. 
3.  I am wearing more fitted clothing to enjoy my body as it is now and stop focusing on all the parts that I don't like.  Am I learning what clothes to wear to accentuate the good (and camouflage the bad) and holding my head a little higher when I walk past a mirror.