Is Passion Overrated?

How many times have you heard someone our age (under 37) say, “My job is fine, I make good money and I like the people, but it’s not something I’m passionate about.”  And how many times to do you hear someone over 40 say it? Like almost never right?  They are on to something here.  The jadded ones might call it complacency, but actually I think it’s realistic expectations.  Something our generation (those born in 1981 or later – we don’t have a accurate name being sandwiched between Millenials and Gen Y) has yet to make peace with.

I have said this Passionless statement at least 100x so surprisingly, when I heard it from a friend a few weeks ago, it struck me differently.  Maybe hearing it from another friend, another time made me really think – “why are we so concerned with passion?”

How much passion is someone promised in one lifetime?  You want a passionate relationship with your spouse, you want passion in your work AND you want passion in your recreational activities (otherwise, why bother?).  To quote SATC, “you want passions on top of passions?”  For the longest time, my answer to that question was “Yes! I want to wake up each day just tickled pink to do my work, enthusiastic as hell to be with my children and tingling at the sight of my husband.”  And guess what? Day to day life doesn’t offer Passions on top of Passions, most of it is routine and small actions that hopefully eventually lead to something bigger (see: The Compound Effect).  And this left me feeling so hopeless and depressed.  I was expecting triple passions EVERY DAMN DAY and I wasn’t getting it, so therefore, I was a failure at life, love, and motherhood.  No wonder I was depressed.

The truth is, depression is something I have had to deal with a few times in my life, and I have always come out of it after a year or so.  Sometimes with the help of therapy, sometimes anti-depressants and sometimes it just goes away on it’s own. (Where’s the “confused” emoji with the hands up the air as if it say, “I don’t fucking know”?)

Unfortunately, lately there have been a string of high-profile suicides that make me stop and think for a moment.  These people in many cases are rich, famous, beautiful – why are they killing themselves? I always thought that if I was rich, famous and thin (I’m not even concerned with the beauty part) that I’d never be depressed again.  But of course, we can see it doesn’t work that way because too often there are beautiful famous people killing themselves with drugs, alcohol or sadly resorting to suicide.

I’m in no position to be the authority on this.  I can only speak from my own experience kike when I’ve felt, that maybe if I were dead the pain were stop.  Just a casual thought that rolls through on a incredibly low day.  Then I think, well that won’t work and I go for the cookies or something else to numb the pain.  I can only wonder how much pain must be present when that thought rolls through and you think, “yeah that’s the answer”.

My pain for now has stopped increasing though the past year hasn’t been easy.  I have been battling the depression just about a year now and I’m starting to wonder when it’s going to take a holiday.  I’m working on it in all the conventional ways and also dealing with some other underlying health issues, but I feel confident that I’m making progress.

So that’s why when this passion statement hit my in the face again, I decided to sit with it for a while.  I’ve been marinating on it.  And ultimately, this is where I landed, “How important is passion to my happiness?”

How important is passion in my job related to my satisfaction with the job?

How important is passion in my marriage related to my overall happiness in my choice?

How important is passion in my recreational life (not work, not family) related to my excitement for it?

I have a life coaching client right now and she told me that sometimes she’s bored at her job even though it’s something she loves and is successful at.  And I told her that job’s are repetitive, that’s basically the definition of a job.  Learn one thing and do it well, over and over and over again.  When I worked in cosmetics at Lord and Taylor do you know how many make overs I did?  A LOT.  Do you know how many times I gave the same training presentation when I worked in education for skincare brand? A LOT. Do you know how many times I have helped someone get started with their 30 Cleansing program and said the same script? A LOT.  This is what a job is, it’s repetition. And after a while, it can get boring.  It’s part of it.

So then we look to other areas of life to find that excitement.  Relationships, kids, friends, activities.  That can work.  Also making a lot of money at your job helps I think!

But it’s gonna happen so why are we so down about that? Why are we still looking for passion?!? Society tells us to.  Give up your boring job and chase your dreams kind of stuff.  Which, btw, I am not AGAINST.  What I’m against is putting all your passion eggs in one basket, regardless of which basket it is.

I think part of the reason I went into a depression last year is because I had happiness expectations that were taken from fantasy rather than from my own life.  For many years I’d had zero life outside work and family and that was really starting to stifle me (and make me lose passion for everything).  I had expectations on myself that were just not realistic.  I beat myself up over every little thing, all the time.  It was exhausting and it made me never appreciate when there was success or happiness, because I always felt like there was one more thing I could have done or done better.  It takes a lot of work to stop that cycle to, I’m constantly acknowledging myself for the little things to create a new, healthier, self-talk.

What would it be like to find happiness in the repetition of life? What would it be like to stop looking for passion in everything we do? What if we didn’t have to constantly try to “Have it All”?  What is life was all about ease?  Hmm, that sounds really good to me.  I’m going for that this summer, EASE.

 

 

 

Is that all there is?

It’s such a cliché, the mid-life crisis.  Even now they have something called the “quarter life crisis” that supposedly Millenials deal with around age 25.  I struggle with my own identity being born in 1981 as I’m on the cusp of being a millenial or being Generation X.

Those of us born the year Reagan was shot, can’t even commit to a generation, let alone a mortgage/career/marriage.  (Though, I have all 3).  So I’m reluctant to call what I’m going through a “mid-life crisis” because, hell, I’m only 36.  This can’t be mid-life, can it? But seeing as I’ve been married almost 10 years, been a home owner half that time and already have 2 kids, maybe I’ve achieved all the benchmarks for a mid-life crisis just a little on the early side.  Damn me and my over-achieving.

So, I’m peeling back the layers of my alleged “mid-life crisis” and I see a theme, mostly each statement starts with “I’m not happy”.  I’m not happy with how my life has turned out so far.  OUCH.

Okay, so I have to take responsibility for that right? I mean, I can’t blame it all on my upbringing/spouse/economic climate, can I? It would be so much easier to blame it on all that shit, but like, that’s not gonna make it any better right? Dammit, this is MY responsibility.  I’m the one who chose the mortgage/career and marriage that I’m in.  No one held a gun to my head, and yet, these choices don’t always feel super fulfilling.  Maybe more like the default decision. Is that all there is?

But, I love my home and I love my husband, so that’s 2 outta 3 that I maybe mostly got right?  That leaves career.  This is the stinkiest layer of the onion. My head is spinning with….

How important is career to my happiness? What in a career defines success for me?  What am I good at? What do I enjoy? What should I do with the REST OF MY LIFE???

So, naturally, I asked about it on Facebook.  Most of the responses were from men talking about sports cars and dating younger women.  The women were mostly commenting on male mid-life crisis not on their own.  Do men get the jump start on mid-life crises because they have the luxury of the time to think about it? Women are so busy running the household and raising the kids, maybe they aren’t noticing being in the midst of a mid-life crisis until they can’t get out of bed some mornings (me)? I’ve known for a while that something wasn’t totally in alignment with work, but I didn’t really have time to think about it as I chugged through my day working, taking kids to after school activities and trying to get dinner on the table.  I love what Brené Brown says about pain,

“Pain is unrelenting. It will get our attention. Despite our attempts to drown it in addiction, to physically beat it out of one another, to suffocate it with success and material trappings, or to strangle it with our hate, pain will find a way to make itself known.” 
― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

Ultimately, the pain of being out of alignment has finally gotten my attention.  Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis, maybe it’s a quest for true belonging, or maybe I’m just bored.

There’s nothing I love more in life than a PLAN.  Follow this plan and you’ll get into college, get the lead in the play, get to buy a home, get a promotion, etc. etc.

Now is the murky part where I have to sit still and listen, do some reading, ask questions of others and myself, and just marinate in it, until the plan reveals itself.  Most of all, I’m going to focus on doing the things that “feel good” and avoid as many Kinks as possible.  Tap starts to flow again and then, flip the script to “How does it get better than this?” For right now, I don’t know. And admitting that is a triumph in and of itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of Touch

New Book by Peta Kelly

Do you ever feel just so outside your own mind and body that you literally don’t know what you like or don’t like?

That’s me, right now.  Like “what the eff am I doing with my life?” mixed with “how did I get here?” And I’ve been at this intersection for about a year.  To borrow an expression from the youngin’s, FML.

And that sucky feeling got so into my bones that last night I sat in bed making a list of “kinks” and “things that feel good”.  That’s when I realized, “man, I’ve gotten so far out of alignment, I don’t know who I am.”

Do I like tuna fish for lunch? Or would I rather drink a protein shake? Do I like to cook, or do I dread it? Do I like drinking espresso daily, or is it a crutch? This is the shit going through my head while I made that list last night. I came up with a long list of stuff that feels good (espresso was on it) and a shorter list of “Kinks” in my hose.  (See Peta Kelly’s new book Earth is Hiring for the “Kink” theory).

The truly unfortunate part is that the Kinks for me right now, or where I’ve been spending a lot of my time over the last few years, and it’s why I have no love flowing through my tap. One of the major Kinks right now is being on Facebook.  I scroll through mindlessly so many times a day I can’t count.  I don’t like what I’m seeing or even what I’m sharing sometimes.  I am totally STUCK when it comes to Facebook right now and that’s a problem for me because, well, I do a lot of business on Facebook.  A friend/mentor of mine just took a 30 day Facebook hiatus and I thought to myself, “Oh I wish I could do that” because I didn’t think I was allowed to since I have so much business on Facebook. There isn’t anyone telling me I can’t quit FB for a month, just me and the faceless people I think are watching/judging me.

Another Kink was my diet.  I’d been following the same diet for years and it didn’t feel like it was working for me anymore.  I didn’t have any excitement around it and every time I thought about it the faceless masses in my head told me, “Marie, you don’t have a choice, this is what you must do.” KINK KINK KINK.  But the truth is, my body has changed, I’m getting older wiser, I just got diagnosed with a thyroid condition and my goals are different.  In a place of alignment, I’d be willing to play around with my diet and experiment, but being in a KINKY stuck place, again, I didn’t think I had a choice.

That’s where the major Kink comes into focus.  Having a choice for me is so important to my flow and my alignment that when I don’t have a choice it really jams my radar for life.  I like living in NYC because if I don’t want to be somewhere I can jump in a cab/subway/bus and get outta there easily, it’s my choice.  I’m not stranded somewhere without a car.  I like working for myself because I have a choice as to what to focus on and where to put my energy to make money.  I’m married to a man who really supports me and let’s me navigate our lives for the most part, because I like to have a choice.  Listen, I’ve worked jobs and always been a valued employee because I am also a rule follower and a producer, so I can do that and I have for years, but it’s not necessarily what floats my boat.  I’m also really good at being a team player (I should add that to my feel good list) so working in groups is great for me too.  I can adapt and be flexible (like most kids of divorce) but it’s not water flowing, tap is on, loving life kinda mojo for me.  It’s duty and obligation and it takes away my choice.  KINK.

So here I am, writing this blog, which makes me feel good so that I can UNKink some of these Kinks.  I changed my diet almost 3 months ago and gave up red meat and poultry.  I’m a pescatarian now!  I also started using the Weight Watchers app to count points/calories.  That’s another UNKink I’m working on.  I’m getting back to reading for the first 10 minutes after I wake up everyday because it UNKinks me.  So far these tweaks are helping to get my juices flowing again which is why I have the presence of mind to even write this blog.

But Facebook, seductive, life-shaming and affirming at the same time, Facebook.  What to do with you?  I’m open to ideas, people! For now, I’m going to post 2x a day and look at it morning and night and that’s it!  I’m gonna give this a try for a week and see if it helps UNKink me.  That’s my choice!  Choosing UNkinks me too.  Even if it’s just choosing where to get my espresso in the morning.  Aaaaahhhhhhh. 🙂

 

 

 

#IamHumanAF 2017

Hi! I’m Marie Ingrisano Isner and I am HumanAF.  I originally wrote a post a year ago about being #HumanAF and it felt like a great time to update it.

The original post was inspired by “Just like you, my super weakness is my super power… I’m human. Human AF.” –Peta Kelly

I hold (and have held) a lot of titles in my life: student, rebel, director, employee, wife, mother, entrepreneur, president, customer, fattest girl in the room, fittest girl in the room – but they are all under the umbrella of HUMAN.

Filming the “Anthem Project” on my stoop.  Still haven’t watched the video because I am afraid I sound/look bad.

I’m not out to be the next Peta Kelly, or Oprah, or Massive Social Media Influencer, I’m just a mom on a mission to inspire people to their greatness.

I preach practicing self-care and being kind to yourself, but some days I get dressed and then secretly ask my husband if I “look fat”. Human.
I get up in front of groups of people and share my story very candidly, but the noise in my own head sometimes keeps me from celebrating the small victories, like not eating an entire box of cookies. Human.

I’m that annoying patron who returns a latte if it’s not almond/soy milk, but I’ll eat a sleeve of Ritz crackers laying in bed watching reruns on Netflix if I’ve had a rough day. Human.

One of those “stay in bed and avoid the world” moments

I left a corporate job and started my own business from scratch 4 years ago and built it into a full time income, but I’ve been fired from (and thrown out of) a few embarrassing places like an eye glass store, a movie theatre, and a commercial building in NY. Human.

I work on my personal development every day and remind myself over and over not everything “is about me”, but if someone I care about disappoints me by not showing up when they said they would I am devastated. Human.

I get annoyed when people don’t move fast enough at a green light because they are busy texting, but some days I’ll piss away an hour looking at nonsense on IMDB about 90s sitcoms just because. Human.

I work so hard to “meet people where they are” and not enforce my standards on everyone I meet, but I have no tolerance for people who are checked out and asking questions that have already been answered. Human.

I wrote a cookbook and self-published it for fun, because I love home cooked meals, but some days I roll up salami and cheese for dinner for me and my kids. Human.

I’m so excited to realize my vision and launch all the new projects I’m working on and I never forget how grateful I am to have these opportunities, but some days I look at my bank account balance and I start planning how I can go back to doing make-overs at Lord and Taylor for my job. Human.

Reminding myself that I’m human, when magazines and movie stars all look air-brushed, perfect and without any stretchmarks makes me feel better, because I am HUMAN and not a 2 dimensional perfect image (and neither are they, btw).

If I hide the part of my life that’s difficult and challenging, I’m pretending to be something I’m not, which is, Human.  It’s something I always have to remind myself NOT to do.  To be authentic everyday is a practice developed over time, and everyday is different.

So to remind yourself, in the words of Liz Gilbert, “embrace the glorious mess that you are.” Embrace it, love it, and bless it. It’s you, and you’re HUMAN AF.

So, hi everyone! I am Marie and I am totally and completely Human AF.

Thanks to Peta Kelly for inspiring this post!

#IamHumanAF

Happy List of Accomplishments

The Picture I’m Most Proud of From 2016

It’s January 1st and it’s natural to set some new goals today.  I have set goals at the beginning of the year for as long as I can remember although I can’t say that I’ve met all of them.  That’s why this year I did something different.

I took my husband out for a date and we talked over lunch about all the things we were proud of accomplishing in 2016.  We didn’t talk at all about 2017 goals and what we failed at in 2016, just pure pride in what we did accomplish.  It felt good! And as we talked more and more about it, I thought of more things to be proud of!

The truth is, this year I’ve been interviewing people in my life about how I occur to them as part of my latest project and one of the common themes coming through is that people think I am too hard on myself.  When my coach and friend said this to me when I was telling her how stuck I felt, I finally saw how much being hard on myself was costing me.

Ultimately, it costs me the pride and happiness that I deserve in my life, because every time I do something good I either dismiss it with “Oh yeah it was no big deal” or I follow it up with, “But I could have done it better.”  A lot of my clients tell me they do this too.

For 2017, this is the ONE THING that I will focus and work on.  I’m not gonna make a huge list of “resolutions”, I’m just gonna focus on this “Being kinder to myself and celebrating my accomplishments”.  Sounds simple right? Then why is it so hard for most of us to acknowledge where we have made progress or where we have made an impact? Because our brains are wired to look for what’s wrong, not what’s right.  It takes time and energy to rewire your brain to focus on the good.  Honestly I can’t think of a better time in the history of my life to start mastering this skill.  I want to show my kids how to love themselves and enjoy all the happiness that they deserve in life.

Marie’s 2016 (and first ever!) Happy List of Accomplishments (in no particular order)

• Completing the Light Yourself on Fire challenge
• Moving up a rank in my business
• Increasing my income
• Completing 1 seminar at Landmark, assisting at 1 seminar and taking on the final leg of my Landmark Curriculum
• Pushing myself at the gym and going consistently all year
• Starting to sing again in a local chorus
• Supporting my husband to start training in Jiu Jitsu and Kickboxing
• Supporting my son to start training in karate and reaching orange belt
• Giving up dairy for 7 months to work on my overall health
• My term as BNI president
• Raising $1400 for my friend to move into his new home, and assisting him to find a new home
• The Concourse House diaper drive, and my networking group’s taking it on to make it a huge success
• Telling my story on an international call
• Travelling to Texas, Illinois, Arizona and Nevada for business trips

 

 

The journey towards black belt

Posted by Ran Isner 

Last night I graduated to a white-blue belt in my Kickboxing practice. As part of the graduation process I was required to write an essay and do one hour of community service.
In the essay I was asked to write about what I have gained since beginning my practice and if I have noticed a change in myself. What came out were honest words of gratitude and acceptance. 

I am grateful because this practice has allowed me to join a community that embraces everyone with no judgement, a community that supports one another and not expects something in return and a community that reminds you that it’s not about the result, but about the process. 

The professor said something that even though I’ve heard it before, it resonated with me in that moment. He said that the week after earning the belt is very important. It is important because that is when people take their foot of the gas and decide that it’s time for a break and that’s why one should push even more. 

The work doesn’t stop just because you went up a belt (insert whatever accomplishment that suits your situation) if anything it becomes more intense and every level becomes more meaningful because it means that you are taking one step closer to where you want to be. Even after you are a black belt, the work always continues because we never stop learning.

Another thing I wrote about in my essay is how much this school is in alignment with who I am and who I am striving to become. I want to surround myself with people who share the same values as I do and are committed to creating a culture of empowerment and positivity. Building people up is so much more fun than tearing them down.

I am grateful every time I get on that mat and am looking forward to the journey ahead.

I’m learning to recieve

Posted by Ran Isner

Why is it so difficult for people to receive? Whether it’s compliment or money or whatever it is. Sometimes just getting a hug seems weird to people. I am one of those people as well, I mean I never refuse a hug because I’m a hugger but I do have trouble receiving.

I think that we underestimate the impact that receiving something has on us as human beings because we are so quick to dismiss the very thing that people want to give us. How many times have you downplayed a compliment by tearing yourself down? How many times have you refused a money offering, big or small saying “it’s not necessary”? 

I am slowly learning that receiving does not make me pompous or greedy, it simply means I bring value. We don’t think of ourselves as valuable enough and often times it holds us back from receiving or being open to new opportunities and end up attracting situations that validate the notion that we have no value.

I have learned to be grateful and graceful when being complimented and I feel the difference in the way it feels in my body. I no longer feel discomfort and this empty feeling of unworthiness, instead I feel pride and and a sense of accomplishment. A person would not offer a compliment if it isn’t genuine, that’s at least how I feel.

Having the ability to receive has brought back people into my life that I haven’t seen in decades. This past weekend I reconnected with someone who I went to elementary school with. We are friends on Facebook and have been talking about getting together for over a year and finally made it happen. He is a filmmaker who didn’t know that I was an actor because I have not allowed myself to receive that title. It doesn’t matter that it’s been years since I set foot on a theater stage, the passion for acting has never gone away and acting is part of my identity. I was finally open to receiving it and theopportunity presented itself. This person has also been following my journey and is completely inspired by it. These are the people I want to attract and now it’s possible because I am open to receive.

Allow yourself to receive, you deserve it.

Me and my elementary school buddy

My mind is saying no, but my body’s saying yes!

Posted by Ran Isner

So, my first blog post after completing the “Light Yourself On Fire” challenge… I must say I was looking forward to writing this because it’s become part of my routine and I like the accountability aspect of it.

In the several days after completing the challenge I have experienced a lot of things. There was the exhilaration of completing it, then there was a little sadness that it ended, after that came the letdown and my mind saying “You deserve a break”(some indulgent eating involved) and then came the awareness to it and finally the acceptance.

I’m are that I’m not the only one that’s experienced these things after a monumental accomplishment and that is awesome because it reminds me I’m human. I realize that it takes me back to the same old programming in my brain and also, Rome wasn’t built in a day. What is important is the awareness I bring to it because when one recognizes it, it is much easier to address it once you embrace it.

Embracing the “bad” is crucial even though it’s not really bad, it’s proof that one is going in the right direction. If we don’t have these moments where we revert to our old patterns it means that we didn’t push forward too begin with. It’s the balance of breakdowns and breakthroughs that makes this journey worth while.

I am beginning to understand just how instrumental this give and take between the two is, as it lends itself to gaining perspective for the past and how one can change their mindset in the present moment and shift one’s consciousness towards the breakthrough they seek to have or receive unexpectedly. That awareness to this has helped shift my mindset to a more positive one that allows for growth instead of regression.

The mind body connection is a fascinating thing because of how prevalent it is in our lives. Our mind commands our body to do certain things because of how it perceives a given situation and it affects our wellbeing on a very basic level. Our bodies do not function the same when we feel stressed and anxious. We feel bogged down, exhausted and overall yucky. Luckily, our minds do not operate independently and we can determine what thoughts we have.

Even though I took my foot of the gas for a couple of days, I was able to redirect my thoughts and my mindset to where I am in action and feeling great about myself . My body is reacting accordingly. You see, the way I see it, our body wants to be the healthiest it can be and our mind has a different idea so it wants to control our body in the way it used to.

There is a new Sheriff in town, and it wants my body to feel amazing!

Week 16: This is not the end, it’s just the beginning!

Posted by Ran Isner

Here we are, the final post of the “Light Yourself On Fire” challenge and the emotions are bittersweet. On the one hand, I am sad that it’s come to an end because I have put so much into it. On the other hand, I am happy because I know that my journey doesn’t end here.

I have been reflecting on this 16 week journey for the past couple of days and I cannot believe how much was accomplished during the time. I have created a healthy routine, I have held myself accountable to you and I have let go of things that have not been serving me and I was not open enough to acknowledge.

The most important one and the one that was affecting me the most was the overwhelming sense of guilt I’ve been living in for over a decade now. I have not allowed myself to be who I really was because I was feeling guilty about leaving my home in Israel and creating a new home here in the US. Guilt has almost broken up my marriage because I  refused to see that my actions were not serving the best interest of my family, meaning my wife and children, even though they are the world to me and I cannot imagine my life without them in it.

Owning up to me guilt has been instrumental in my transformation because it go me to reconnect with ME again and my soul so desperately needed that. It has deepened my connection with my wife because now I can truly express myself without any judgement and guilt. I am able to be present with my children and enjoy the moments we get to spend together. For the longest time I was so unhappy with who I have become and I felt that there was no hope.

Working on myself and understanding the events that have shaped my life have allowed me to be open to experience new things. Peta Kelly’s “The New Way Live” event in May is what inspired the “Light Yourself On Fire” challenge because it spoke about being the first one to do something so you can inspire others to do the same. The theme was about finding your jeaniius, the one thing that you can do so well that it is your moral obligation to share it with the world. I know now that I was put on this earth to change lives, to encourage people to find their own jeaniius and make a difference in this world. I gave myself the permission to operate from the space of love because I know n my bones that it emirates from me so brightly and that people deserve to know that they are loved and that they have permission to love, themselves and others. I call meek The Love Warrior because  love is the one thing worth fighting for.

I express gratitude every day and am thankful that I am where I am and that I am doing what aligns with my soul and that I am practicing to approach every thing I do with love.

I would like to thank you all for being a part of this journey and for holding me accountable to be the most honest, real me that I can be and for being my sounding board for my breakdowns and breakthroughs. This might mark the end of this challenge but it is most certainly not the end of this journey, it is merely the beginning. Life is lived in the present moment so it can never truly be the end.

Results:

Weight: 151.0( -5.5 since last week, -5.6 since start)

Cleanse days: 16 total for the challenge

Workouts: 42 ( 6 short of goal)

Books I have read:

1. Love Louder by Preston Smiles
2. The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield
3. The Big Leap By Gay Hendricks
4. 50 Ways To Yay by Alexi Panos

What I would like to be acknowledged for this challenge:

I would like to be acknowledged for finally loving myself enough so I could find the Ran that has been absent all these years. The Ran that dimmed his light so much that he was depriving the world of his true gift and his true sense of purpose. I would like to be acknowledged for focusing on the process and not the result.

I am a stand for all of you to find or re-discover what it is that ignites your soul and a stand for love and the notion that we all make an impact in other people’s lives. How are you going to light yourself on fire?

15 weeks down…

Posted by Ran Isner

Honestly I can’t belIeve that there’s only one week left to this challenge. I woke up this morning by my partner in crime telling me that she was gonna take kids to Long Island to have breakfast with her mother so I could sleep in and the old Ran would have taken that offer with two hands… but I didn’t. I told Marie that I wanted to go with them because I’d rather spend that time with my family than sleep and I was setting my intention for a day of gratitude.

If there is one thing I have learned from this challenge and I can’t stress it enough is that we must make it a priority to express gratitude for all that we have in our lives and embrace where we are at and who we are being at any given moment.

I know you have heard this from me before but if there is anything I wish for you to take away from all that I have written in the past 15 weeks is that we have so much to be grateful for and that by living life through gratitude we enhance every experience we have.

Since I started practicing gratitude my marriage got stronger, I  connecting on a deeper level with people and my stress level has decreased tremendously. You see, I was focusing on all the negativity in my life and acted as if life was happening to And I was merely a bystander with no power and no choice and that is no way to live life.

Today was about family for me. I started my day by spending time with my mother in-law and sister in-law and ended my day by spending time with my father in-law and step mother in-law. I don’t take these moments for granted as not every person has that so I am fully aware of how immensely fortunate I am.

So so much gratitude and love y’all!

Results:

Weight:156.6( +2.8 since last week, -.1 since start)

Cleanse days:1

Workouts: 3( 2 kickboxing, 1 Jiu Jitsu)

Book I am reading: 50 Ways To Yay by Alexi Panos

What I would like to be acknowledged for this week?

Letting go of stress. It will no longer dominate my being.

Human AF

Posted by Ran Isner

 

The conversation I’ve been having with myself all week is that I kept telling m,myself that I will get organized and I have yet to do one thing about it. On a call with my coach last week I said that once my new planner comes I will sit down and I will organize my shit once and for all.

Guess what? The planner came today and I have done jack! the most disturbing part is that I felt guilty about not doing anything but made excuses as to why I didn’t. I know that I am not alone in this, that is what’s called being human as fuck and being human fucking rocks!

It’s awesome when I come to these realizations because it means that at least I am aware of the stuff that’s holding me back and now is the time to break the old habits and patterns and push on through. The first step to reaching that next level is awareness and it’s also very important that we recognize our successes. Success is also about being human because we have all experienced success of some sort at some point in our lives and it deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated.

During the past 15 weeks I have been writing this blog twice a week, started practicing martial arts, said yes to things I would never say yes to before and lived my life with an abundance of gratitude and love. I don’t take these things for granted because those are things that wouldn’t have happened anyway unless I made a choice to pursue them and my life has change exponentially for the better.

There are only a week and a half left for this challenge and whatever I achieve by the end of it is the cherry on top because I created it, all of it! It has allowed me to fall back in love with myself and experience what it was like to be fully self expressed again. I fell in love with the process instead of focusing on the result.

I invite you to examine where you can push yourself to the next level and also to examine your success. Understand that nothing is good or bad, nothing is right or wrong and everything is just what’s so.

My name is Ran Isner and I am HUMAN AS FUCK!

The Advanced Class!

Posted by Ran Isner

Tonight I had a conversation with my teacher at Jiu Jitsu about me moving on to the advanced class. It’s been about two months since I started taking classes and I have been very consistent. The first thing the teacher told me is that The teaching staff is certain I can handle that physically and that I am ready. It felt nice to be acknowledged for my hard work but I also recognized that I wasn’t looking for their approval, which is a change for me.

That also means a larger investment money wise. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was but it’s still an added expense. Between my son, my wife and myself taking various classes, the money adds up. I mean, I could stay right where I am and keep practicing at the basic level or, I can make the investment in myself and go for it. Like almost every human being on this planet, I have a tense relationship with money. I always worry how we are doing with our money and is there anywhere we can cut expenses?

One would consider this a problem and one of my mentors has a saying about problems. “Just outproduce your problems!”.  Simple, right? I used to think it wasn’t that simple and I thought that because of my own shit. You see, in network marketing the way you make money is by making connections with people and providing a solution to their problem and in order to do that one has to:

A. Step out of their comfort zone

B. Stop making it about you!

C. Belief

 

I have an issue with all of those areas.  Stepping out of my comfort zone scares the crap out of me because I have spent years being comfortable with being uncomfortable. News flash! Our comfort zone is anything but comfortable. It’s filled with self doubt, fear and guilt and who the fuck wants that? I have been working on stepping out of that zone and getting comfortable with being confident and successful.

By being afraid of what people would think when I talk to them about what it is I do in network marketing is making it all about me. If I don’t share this amazing gift with people because I am afraid they would think that I am weird and pushy, them I am possibly depriving them of something that they might be craving for and that is selfish.

Now this is the kicker. I believe in the products I have to offer people 100% because i know what they do. My belief in myself? That’s a different story altogether. For the longest time I didn’t think I mattered. I didn’t think that who I am was anything special and that what I said or did had any impact on anybody. The bottom line is that’s a load of bullshit! Every person on this earth matters and the value they have to add to this world is limitless because the universe is limitless.

There is a saying that goes like this ” When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. By being faced with deciding whether or not to move on to the advanced class I finally understand what it means to outproduce my problems. I don’t want to ever have to deprive my family or myself of things that enhance our experience on this earth because of money. I am fortunate enough that I have an amazing tool in network marketing where the sky is the limit financially if I choose for it to be so and if I put in the work required to achieve my goals. It’s time to peel off those layers, roll up my sleeves and get to work.

How appropriate it is that Jiu Jitsu’s advanced class is creating the clearing for me to move up to the advanced class of my own life?

Week 13: Vibin’

Posted by Ran Isner

I am beginning to realize how important is doing stuff you vibe with. I like the idea of vibration and how it affects your spirit. 

Going to Jiu Jitsu is something I definitely vibe with. I told Marie the other day that I like that it’s not  a “Cobra Kai” type environment( where are my Karate Kid peeps?) but that there is a theme for the training week and that there’s this community that supports each and every person in it.

I love being surrounded by individuals that genuinely want me to do well and also hold me accountable. I try as much as possible not to be around negative people because they lower my vibration and let me tell you, it makes a difference.

My brother just signed up to practice Jiu Jitsu at the same Dojo I go to and I am so happy extremely happy for him. He told me the other day that he couldn’t wait to come to class. I can tell it’s Vibin’ with his spirit. I think that people need a little nudge every once in a while to pursue the things they vibe with and I feel that people are very apprehensive about choosing to do things their spirit vibes with because they think somehow it is impractical. Nothing could be more impractical than denying your soul the freedom to search and find what it is it vibes with.

What I’ve found in the short time I’ve been doing this is that it’s absolutely VITAL for us to do the things we vibe with because it simply enhances the experience of living. The way we are in the world completely shifts and this unfamiliar yet exhilarating feeling sets in.

Love and gratitude have become so much more present in my life and those are two things that have become non negotiable in my life.

I’m Vibin’ and it’s a beautiful thing.

Week 13 results:

Weight: 156.2(+2.2 since last week, -.5 since start).

Cleanse days: 0

Workouts: 4( 1 kickboxing, 2 Jiu Jitsu, 1 personal).

Book I am reading: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.

What I would like to be acknowledged for this week:

Being present and in the moment. Addressing things as they come and not waiting for the last minute.

Down To The Wire

Posted by Ran Isner

It is almost 10:30 at night and I am sitting down to write this blog entry. To be honest with you, if my wife hadn’t said that she still needs to write her blog entry I wouldn’t have remembered to write mine. I have been doing this for 13 weeks now so how could I have almost forgotten to do this today?

For the past two weeks I have been holding myself back, textbook upper limit shit. I am breaking through on so many levels and I still get my shit organized. On top of all of that I am the procrastination king! I completely didn’t do any of my assignments for my nutritional cleansing business team calls because i waited till the last minute and then there was no time left. Now, I’m not going to give you the excuse of “I just didn’t have time” because that is not true! There is always time, it’s a matter of prioritizing. In order for me to move forward I require prioritizing the things that will propel me forward, not the ones that will hold me back. I Still haven’t scheduled my days in a way that I can actually accomplish my goals for the day, the week, the month and the year. Yes! I require to be that specific if I am to go to the next level. Will the world end if I don’t accomplish these things? No it won’t, but I will also stay exactly where I am and that’s unacceptable to me at this stage in my life.

This is the most action I have taken in a ridiculously long time and it feels so good! I am in a space where I can acknowledge that. However, I am also in a place where anything less than that is no longer workable. I know for a fact that I was put on this earth to change people’s lives. I was put here to show them that they could live a life by their own design if they choose to do so. It is through the “Light Yourself On Fire” challenge that I discovered that. Now, I require the skills involved in taking on this kind of leadership and the first step is organization. Leaving things for the last minute is exhausting! The guilt,self deprecation and anxiety involved fucking suck! There is no room for those emotions in my life anymore! I am so done with this!

I am extremely proud of myself for the progress I’ve made and I am also aware of where my opportunities to grow are. We are always growing and evolving and that is a beautiful thing. Life is a beautiful dance, sometimes you lead it and other times it leads you because after all, we are only human, right?

As I am writing these words, I am becoming present to what I am grateful for today. I am grateful for having this forum where I get to share my thoughts and insights. I am grateful for you for taking the time to read it and hopefully resonating with some of it. I am  most grateful for my family as they are my greatest source of inspiration.

No more of this down to the wire shit!

 

 

Week 12: The Final Stretch

Posted by Ran Isner

3 months down, one month to go. The past three months were a bit of a whirlwind, what with introducing all of these new habits, creating a workout routine and posting two blogs a week consistently to reaching my upper limits and letting my mind temporarily derail me from my goals. Overall I am very proud of ow far I’ve come.

I still have a book and a half to read and a bunch of workouts and cleanse to catch up on and now it’s time to hunker down and push through the resistance and upper limits. It’s much more pleasant to think back on how good it felt to accomplish the things I’ve accomplished so far than to focus on the things that I haven’t quite given a 100% on. Although, it is importantly to recognize those and learn from it. Another thing that I have to remind myself is that it’s all good because I am growing from all of it. I am on the court and I’m playing.

I am looking forward to the next 4 weeks and breaking through the barriers that I set up for myself when I thought I wasn’t good enough. How fucking stupid was I! Of course I am good enough! In fact I am pretty awesome if I say so myself and it is so powerful to be able to finally acknowledge myself for that. I am so proud of the progress I made and am so excited to crush it in the next month.

 

Week 12:

Weight: 154.4(-0.8 since last week, -2.3 since start)

Cleanse days: 0

Workouts: 3(2 Jiu Jitsu, 1 personal workout)

Book I am reading: The Big Leap By Gay Hendricks

What I would like to be acknowledged for this week:

I would like to acknowledge myself allowing myself to be in a funk this week and snapping out of it as well. Being in a funk is a way for our souls to tell us that it’s time to rest a little bit and recharge but also to allow us to recognize that it is an upper limit and that means that good things are ahead.