I started another 6 week Whole Life Challenge on September 29th. This is my third Whole Life Challlenge. My birthday was October 1, 2018. I like to think about birthdays as a time for reflection – a time to reboot the body, mind, and spirit. As an effort toward wellness and mindfulness and chart progress along 7 positive habits (like drinking water, stretching, exercise, and nutrition) the Whole Life Challenge helps me bring everything together. Writing about the Challenge is a way to openly reflect, increase accountability, and deepen my learning.

Here are five things I learned this week on the Whole Life Challenge.

“What’s different this time?”

I have done three Whole Life Challenges. Each time I establish a few good habits. I have maintained a few of those habits during off-Challenge times, but the majority of habits are quickly forgotten. I have been making many of these commitments over and over and over again over the last few years and nothing has stuck. I have told myself and told myself and told myself this time I will fully commit and that this time will be different. Well. If I believe in the power of birthdays to ignite a soul fire. If lessons are learned each time I start over and start over and start over again. If I am gentle with myself and others as I accept the Challenge, Then, this Challenge will create habits that will slowly make the changes I desire.

I want to eat less when I drink water.

I have always heard drinking a lot of water is really important to good health.  Part of the Whole Life Challenge is drinking water. I am supposed to drink 50 ounces a day. I am finding the more water I drink the less I crave cheese and carbs – two of my favorite things on earth.

Being physically on my game has never been more important.

The last two years have been devastating to my psyche. I don’t think I am alone. Power and cruelty and evil have shaken the foundation of the earth on which we walk. I have wanted to crawl into a ball and cry and cry and cry. I have wanted to tune out to stave the flow of pain. I have reluctantly and half heartedly thought about self care. The Challenge has been little more than an afterthought. Day-after-day heart break is relentless, chaotic, and overwhelming. In this landscape, I am supposed to care enough to get to the gym in the morning? Against this current, I am supposed to give up cheese and carbs? I am supposed to drink water while Rome burns? In this environment I am supposed to get/keep my self together? Simply put. Yes. Precisely because of this landscape I must be on my game. Against this current I must swim with a strength I have never known. I believe we were born to live at this time. I believe we are here to do what we can to make sure we give our children and their children a better world than we received. I must be on my game.

15 weeks to my next half marathon.

My eyes are fixed on my next half marathon in Miami in January. I met with a trainer at my gym this week to do a baseline assessment – as part of the Whole Life Challenge. I have a lot of work to do. A lot of work. The good news is 15 weeks is a long time. The other good news is that my biggest race, the Kentucky Derby miniMarathon does not happen until late April is an even longer time to prepare to meet my goals (and succeed in several 6 week Challenges).

This time of year is profoundly hopeful, when I let it be.

I have always felt hopeful this time of year – Fall, the Festival of Ganesha (though I am not Hindu), the Harvest Moon, my birthday, Rosh Hashanah (though I am not Jewish) . . . All these reasons for hope. All these reasons to be grateful. All these reasons to breathe and keep going.