...and Practices a Proper Diet.

Here I am, back on my mental requirements. This one was several belts ago, but it keeps coming back to bite me.

In my own defense, I honestly thought I *knew* this.

I struggle with my weight, and have for years. I have also, over the years, learned how to eat a "proper" diet. I've met with dietitians, I've worked with personal trainers, I have a good friend that is a registered dietitian. I know how to eat, or at...

It sounds like a cliche phrase from one of the multiple organizing/decluttering/self help books I have on the bookshelf and to be honest I think maybe it did come from there but its the basic truth for me .... I'm paralyzed by perfection or rather the need to be perfect...

Whether this matches what "the" people that write those books meant I don't know but for me it means that my greatest fear within the four walls of my home is not doing something perfectly, finishing something...

And so, we finally get to it. One of my biggest day to day challenges becomes one of my new mental requirements in Tae Kwon Do: Self Control over Negative Thoughts, Emotions, and Attitudes. Those things we tell ourselves that are unnecessary and cruel. Those things we tell ourselves that are destructive. Those things we tell ourselves that somehow become our truth, even while they mask truth and fly in the face of reality.

We limit ourselves with our minds. Our identity is very much...

I was chatting with one of the black belt instructors after the test on Friday night. I have a brown belt keychain, and have ever since I got my advanced blue belt.

He asked me why I'd gotten the keychain before I earned the belt. "It was for inspiration," I explained. "I didn't..."

"Didn't think you'd make it this far?" he asked, with sort of a half-smile.

"Right." I said. He's one of the instructors that would...

I'm testing this Friday night for my Brown Belt in Tae Kwon Do. I've done the whole gamut of feelings about this during the course of this past week. At the moment, I'm somewhat panicked, and barely able to remember my own name, much less my forms.

I was reading the test list that's posted on the school bulletin board to see who would be at the test with me. Lots of kids I know from my boys' classes, several adults--good--it's always nice to spar someone near your own size.......