Day 1: Choosing to Love Myself and Own My Life
Day 3…
Like yesterday, things went to hell early on. This time, it was because I jumped on our site and Facebook to tweak my post from last night. (Woke up absolutely having to do this, because it couldn’t wait a couple 
hours.)
But first…. sunrises here can be just as pretty as the sunsets. A great reminder to express gratitude.
One thing I struggle with, living on the west coast (relatively new to me), is the concept that I’m 3 hours behind the east coast – where Joe (biz partner) lives, and many of our colleagues, audience, etc… also reside. This means that if I take a solid 90 minutes on a solid morning routine (what I’ve found to be optimal), it’s generally 11am on the east coast before I check email, respond to anything business-wise, post for upcoming events, webinars, etc… and I feel like I’ve missed out on half the day.
If I do those things right away after waking up, and skip my morning routine (meditation, dog walk, sun, rebounder, qigong, rehab exercises, etc…), the rest of my day becomes a disorganized mess in my head (and in real life).
I still haven’t figured out the solution to this. For right now, I think I’m going to try this: tell Joe and Carl (our web wizard) to text me if anything urgent/time sensitive needs to be done. I’ll see that (without opening email/Facebook), and be able to act on it. If I don’t see an “emergency” text, I will go through my morning routine, no matter what.
Another problem is that it took me almost an hour to write my post yesterday – so I’m going to work on (starting tomorrow), getting these into a formatted structure, which will be more efficient. (Remember? 30% more work in 30% less time)
UPDATE: Took me about an hour to create this one also. New plan for day 4!
That being said – I was determined to not let my day go the way of disorganized/unproductive chaos today, regardless of missing my morning routine. (I slipped some of it in throughout the rest of the day – qigong, rehab exercises, and a little Heartmath)
Opened the door for my morning Sun/walk with Marley, and remember that our local produce CSA (Farm Fresh to You) box had arrived! Organic, local food explosion! (see list)
Note: For anyone also in California, if you’re interested in checking out this great delivery service, click the link above and use referral code ‘MIKE3568‘ – you’ll save 10 bucks on your first order!
I had plans to meet with a fantastic local yoga instructor for lunch, but that wasn’t until 1:30pm. Not being able to take my morning fast that late, I had a little snack of leftover ground beef (seasoned with Primal Palate’s Meat and Potato blend) that we cook just to have around and mix with other food for meals. This time it was some leftover roasted sweet potato (seasoned with Primal Palate’s Pumpkin Pie Spice and some ghost pepper sea salt from Hepp’s Salt Company– sweet and spicy) that I mixed with the ground beef. Not a full meal, just a snack amount.
Before lunch, I had a phone call with Stacey, a CHEK Practitioner/Trainer colleague to discuss the possibility of her creating exercise/training videos for our site, contributing articles, and potentially being available to our audience for online and Skype-based personal training…. and she’s IN!
Have I mentioned I love my job?
Stacey lives in St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands), so not only do we have a bunch of awesome exercise/training related content coming onto the site – we now have a spot for retreats if we decide to put one together! (Anyone want to go to the Caribbean?)
And I walked with Marley about 45 minutes during the conversation, in the Sun! Double win!
[caption id="attachment_4305" align="aligncenter" width="169"]
My walking partner.[/caption]
That went awesome – then a little work on the computer before lunch.
Tierney is an instructor at our favorite yoga studio here in Ocean Beach (there are 4, I believe). Primal90 Members will recognize her from the guided yoga videos in Module 3. We discussed ways to introduce more yoga-related content on our site – and it was a great conversation! Lots of awesome things coming! Videos, articles, and more!
We also talked about skydiving, surfing, New Orleans, life, and how we might be able to help her create an online presence and get the word out about her passion regarding yoga, dance, and everything in between.
We ate at OB Noodle House, a rather famous little spot here – and I had some spring rolls (shrimp) and rare steak Pho (delicious). Not 100% organic and not made in my home… but definitely better than average quality for restaurant food and nothing fried, no gluten, no dairy. It’s delicious!
A little more
work, and a little time spent with Mira before laundry and some chores. I dropped her off to see Lucas (amazing Chinese Medicine practitioner who worked on me yesterday) – did a few more chores, and walked over there to meet her when she was finished.
Lucas shares space with an exquisite, world-class little tea shop, called Mad Monk Tea. They basically hang out and drink (and sell) world-class teas, and educate their patrons in the meantime. I relaxed and had some of the most delicious teas I’ve ever tasted. Mira had an awesome session, and now Taylor and Blair from Mad Monk are going to do an interview with me… think of it as Tea 101. Should be fun!
We strolled through the farmer’s market afterwards (right by the tea/Chinese Medicine), picked up some guavas, Asian pears, Mandarin oranges, some goodies from the old Moroccan couple that sells the best olives ever, and some local, pastured pork sausages from a local company called Meatmen. (They ship dry sausages – SO good.) I like to have the dry sausages around for meals in a pinch. Just slice and eat! No crap ingredients, all local, high-quality, etc…
I love the farmer’s market. Next week (if we go), I’ll remember to take some pictures!
By the time we got home, t’was time for dinner. I fired up some Savory Broiled Sirloi
n that had been marinating all day. (SIMPLE – Recipe HERE) We also re-heated some mashed butternut squash (seasoned with Primal Palate’s Pumpkin Pie Spice) and threw together a mixed greens (w/ dandelion greens) salad with some watermelon radish and crushed walnuts. (Dressing was lemon juice, balsamic vinegar and Kasandrinos Olive Oil – the BEST olive oil)
Now, it’s too late (again) for me to be on the computer. So, I’m going to have to figure out a better system here.
All in all – a quite productive work/networking day, some great tea, a visit to the farmer’s market with Mira (we love walking the markets), stayed on point with food, got a little rehab in (my shoulder is feeling MUCH better after treatment yesterday), and walked at least 90 minutes throughout the day with plenty of Sun.
Still working on timing and structure with all this stuff going on – but I think that may take a little while, and that’s okay!
Self-Care / Movement Today
- Heartmath – 5 minutes
- Journal
- Some rehab exercises (not all)
- At least 90 minutes walking – 45-60 of those in the Sun, including the morning
- Oil pulling
- A couple minutes (not “enough” – but what’s enough?) rebounding
- Patience with myself when things went sideways a little
- Missed one round of supplements (dinner)
- Food was relatively on point – one restaurant meal, but no junk food at all
Michael, I am originally from New Orleans. Wonderful city.
I love it! And Tierney went to Tulane, spent many years there. A truly unique place.