Hello, my name is Hannah :D
I would like to tell you how my life has changed; I am amazed by change and how much being positive has improved every aspect of my life :)
For many years I was quite unhappy; I would go into periods of deep sorrow and found it hard to see the bright side of life.
That was until I met someone who has changed my life forever.
The change was always within me, I believe, I just needed someone to snap me out of the way I was living my life. I had a fairly bad back injury which began when I was 15. It didn't get correctly diagnosed until I was 22. This meant many years living in a great deal of pain, and coping with the side-effects of painkillers, which, in my opinion, were worse than the pain. Some days it was so bad that I couldn't bend down to put on my socks and shoes, and for someone whose life was all about fitness it was immensely hard for me to cope with feeling like I was 50 years older than I really was.
My life was lived according to my pain. My pain dictated everything I did; it affected my mood and severely affected my relationships.
While my back had been steadily improving over the past 5 months I was still living my life as if I was still injured, avoiding exercise in case it hurt me further, and generally being a bit down in the dumps.
A few months ago I met someone whose blatant optimism was so intense it made me reconsider my life. I was a person who would tell you all the little worries within my life. Until I realised, with a little bit of help, that LIFE IS AWESOME. Everything within our lives is a positive – and if it is hard to see the positive then you need to look deeper. For example - recently, a very close family friend passed on and whilst grieving is a very necessary part of life it is important I have found not to get 'stuck' in the grieving process. After a week or so I decided to look at the death in a different way. Many different cultures see death as not the end of someone’s life, but a new beginning, a new exciting adventure that the person can now go on. I thought about this for a while and thought it was also important to remember the good times we all shared together, thinking back we as families shared some many wonderful times and it was fantastic to remember and smile and even laugh about jokes we had shared.
I started off small, just by answering with ‘great’ every time someone asked me how I was. It sounds simple but it is so easy to revert back to old habits of ‘fine,’ or ‘yeah, ok’ - you know the rest, answers which all contain negative connotations. I thought that if I said great, even if I wasn’t feeling it at the time, then maybe I would start to feel great. I was quite pessimistic about this. But... wouldn’t you know it, after a while I did start to feel great. I started to feel awesome!! And this got me thinking that if by simply saying a word I could feel this good, what other changes could I implement to not only improve my life but the lives of people around me.
I also began working out with a group in New Farm. I was very dubious about working out as I did not believe that I could run and in fact I hadn’t run in about 5 years. I couldn’t do more than 3 push-ups and once I started working out my body was screaming at me that this was wrong!! I could’ve given up. Just thought (as I had before) that it wasn’t worth it and it was too hard. But I had someone coaching me all the way. Telling me that life was awesome and that I could do anything! This week has been a huge week for me, for the first time in a very long time I have run at a good speed constantly for 5 minutes straight. This seems like a small goal but it meant so much to me! I also have worked my way up to 40 push-ups!! And can bridge now for 2 minutes straight. I have completed all my training mornings, gone for extra runs and walks and done exercises at home as well. I’m noticing the changes in my muscles and in my everyday life. Things are easier, lifting boxes at work, vacuuming, and everyday things like walking up the stairs.
Everyone in my group is an inspiration to me – these people are strong (both of body and of mind) they are kind and loving, they are always willing to listen and even cook up a BBQ at 7am!:) They all embody aspects of life that I wish to achieve, whether it be flexibility, a certain fitness goal or the love that they show for life. It’s easy to find someone to be your role-model when you are surrounded by role-models. Another role-model of mine is Tiffiny Hall - she has an amazing body and I am working towards having her kind of body!
I am not an expert on any of this, I just had a need to write this all down – it is amazingly liberating and awesome to see how far I have come as a person. Change is possible. You just have to DO it! Believe in it and it will happen! Each individual has the opportunity to make a difference. As a wise man said – ‘your mind is a powerful thing’, if you set your mind to something you will achieve it.
Love always
x
