My top ten Quotes- Something a little different

To go with my last post of my years reflection I have found that I have been collecting quotes or sayings something that has caught my eye something that I have read and went hmmm I like what that is saying, it didn’t have to have a meaning to me at the time but I have found that over the past year or so that I have had the chance to look at those and noticed that at some point in time that they did make sense they did help me, or motivated me when I needed that extra push, and I was thinking that here I am ready to make yet another change in my life and I was looking at these quotes and though what the hell I should share these with other people, if they have had the chance to help me through my journey maybe they will help some one else with theirs. So all though this has nothing to  do with me and my piss poor stress eating habits which, don’t worry I will talk about that I’m sure with in the next week or so, it does how ever have to do with my all around journey. Now I’m sure some of them I have said before and others maybe not so much but either way I find them to be crazy and helpful when I least expect it. So here it is I though I would give you my top 10 something different, and change if you will form the normal, so here we go:

10. “A genuine change must first come from within the individual, only then can he or she attempt to make a significant contribution to humanity.” Dalai Lama

9. “Compassion and peace of mind bring a sense of confidence that reduce stress and anxiety.” Dalai Lama

8. “You will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things you did. Explore. Dream. Discover."- Jared Leto

7. “Once you have a genuine sense of concern for others, there’s no room for cheating, bullying or exploitation.”- Dalai Lama

6. “Fight for what you believe in. No. Matter. What.”- Jared Leto

5. “Improvement requires continuous effort” -  Dalai Lama

4. “We need to understand how destructive emotions affect us and constructive emotions can help us, so that we can maintain our peace of mind”- Dalai Lama

3. “The meaning of life is to apply meaning to your life”- Robert Greenwood

2. “Sometimes you just show up. A bit of failure can be the best gift in the world”- Jared Leto

1. “If you're going through hell, keep going”. - Winston Churchill

So there you go there are my top ten quotes that I keep with me and can look back at when ever I need that little push to keep going, because I don’t care who you are any time you are changing anything there will always be obstacles that will need to be over come, walls to climb over hurdles to jump over and paths to chose from. Some times all it takes is a couple words to give you the inner strength you need. So with that I will leave you with two of my own sayings that I look at every day.

“It is better to have tired and failed then to have failed because you never tried” N. McKnight

“A humble beginning makes exceptional endings” N. McKnight

Mcknight out. 

A years reflection

November 1^st 2011 I walked into work at 7:30 and by 10:00a.m. I was walking out the door last paycheck in hand with the words “you are no longer Dish material” ringing in my ears. Doing all I could do to walk to my car with my head held high only to fall apart the moment I got in and closed the door. I don’t really remember the drive home that day as everything was such a blear and felt so unreal. I remember getting home and just sitting on my bed and sobbing because I didn’t know what to do, I had gotten fired from my job and I had bills to pay, the feeling that I had failed sitting on my shoulders, and dealing with the fact that I had to tell my family that I had gotten fired that I had failed. To be honest that was the one word that stuck with me more then anything I HAD FAILED!!!!. There was no other way to look at it that day. If there was anything that sucked more then being fired that day I think it was having to go and tell my family that I had been fired I was very afraid of what they would say what they would think I was so afraid that by this happening I would be letting down so many people. I didn’t have the best mindset back then, I was so unhappy with who I was, who I was becoming my life the way I looked everything. I was so depressed that all I wanted to do was sleep my life away, I wasn’t able to find the joy in coaching anymore, people really didn’t want to be around me and looking back I can’t blame them I was losing who I was, or better yet I had lost who I was. I really wasn’t anyone I was a body a zombie with out the whole eating brains and all of that. My life was dark and I knew that but I didn’t know how to change that, how to make it better so instead of trying to make it better I let myself go because it was easier to just sit back and do nothing then to fight for what I wanted.

So here I am a year later feeling amazing with who I am, I have lost weight, I know what its like to be happy again, to laugh and I mean really laugh and find the “joy’s of life” if you will. I have really been able to spend the last year just really looking at who I am, who I had become and who I want to be. I have done more self reflecting in this past year then I have ever done in my whole life and the crazy thing about it is I have put the majority of this experience down in writing and have put it up on the web for the world to see. Yet I think there are something that I have not touched on and if I have I’m going to repeat it, because I feel that its important some times you need to look back and reflect to remind your self where your though process came from and where you want it to go, I feel that is the only way to grow.

So here are some of the highlights I have found out about myself in the past year.

1.      I have spent so many years trying to “Keep up with the Jones’s” so to speak, and by this I mean that I have spent so much of my time warring about what my friends are going to think about me if I do this or do that. What are they going to think if I can’t buy this or buy that. I was trying to just keep up because it was always easier to like what they liked and do what they wanted to do then it was to let my voice be heard. I was that friend who didn’t say no even if I didn’t want to do it, I would still go out and do it just to keep up, and when you spend so many years doing that, you lose who you are, you lose your back bone and you can’t stand up for yourself any more. So what has changed, I can say NO now, if I don’t want to do something it has become a lot easier for me to say you know that’s not my thing. I do what I want to do, and I know now that I don’t have to keep up with anyone but myself, and my true friends will be there for me no matter what. I have a back bone again and with that back bone comes confidence and that is truly an amazing feeling.

2.      I didn’t fail at anything last year, its more like that job ran its cores. I learned a lot and meet some great people some of which I still hang out with, but it’s the way I look at things now. A year ago to me everything was measured in failure and success, but life can’t be measured by that. I look at life now as lessoned learn and goals accomplished. My though process has changed life is not negative unless you make it negative, a positive attitude can make a world of difference.

3.      It’s ok to cry and let people in and asks for help. Ok the asking for help is still a little hard for me, but I do ask for help when I know that I needed it, but yes it is ok to cry and to let people into my life. I have been so afraid to get hurt again, and so afraid that if people saw me crying that they would think I’m weak. Yet in truth its total the opposite, I cry I tend to cry a lot its total better to let those emotions out then to keep them in, and I know I’m not weak by any means I am a very strong person who can ask for help when I need it. As for letting people in getting hurt sucks, but I know that you have to let people in take a chance, yes I might get hurt again, but that’s ok it’s a chance I’m willing to take. You can’t get any where if your not will to take a chance and get back up after you fall.

4.      I have also found out that I’m a little artistic and funny …or at least that is what people have told me…but I laugh at myself a lot so I guess that would  mean I’m funny. I love taking pictures, the world looks amazing through a camera lens it’s the one place where you can capture a moment and a feeling with a click of a button. It also lets me see the world in a different light and I love it. Then to take those pictures and edit them come up with creative ways to put these photos together edit the way they look. Make a movie out of them and then to have people watch them and see their emotion while they are watching and to know that I did that I created that emotion they are feeling by taking pictures, finding the right songs to go with it. Its amazing and its open my eyes to so many things and I want to create so many different things. Yet with out this past year I don’t think that I really would have been able to find that passion.

This past year has been an eye opener and a lot of soul searching has been done as well. That day that I got fired while I was sitting on my bed I had my song turned up full blast, and if you have been fallowing these post I’m sure you can guess that it is a 30 Seconds to Mars song and “Closer To The Edge” is “my song” and no matter what the lyrics that have always stuck with me during that song are “I will never forget, I will never regret, I will live my life.”  I will never forget that feeling I had that day, and who I was back then, and I will never regret what paths lead me to that day and what I have done to lead me to this point, and most of all I will live my life the way I want to live me life and yes I want to live it a little “Closer To The Edge”. I am a shy person, who loves to sing at the top of my lungs good or bad I love to sing. I maybe shy but I want my art to stand out and share this experience with the world through my writing. I’m a little wired and that’s ok, I got fired and its cool, I am total confused when it comes to matters of the heart and yet I’m ok with the fact that I’m almost 30 still single and have no thoughts about having kids. I’m also ok with the fact that my hair is going gray, All of these things a year ago would have bothered me I would have been ashamed by them, and yet now this is who I am, and to think that it took getting fired a year ago and countless nights of crying and self reflection to get to this point. I will always say that it sucks to say that I got fired, but it truly was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I get a chance to change my path and I’m going to do it my way this time. Life is way to short to be some one else.

So this is what I purpose to all my readers for the month of November be who you want to be, find that thing you have always wanted to do and do it, don’t worry about what other people think, all that matters is what you think and how you feel. Some people do no shave November, lets do no shame November don’t be ashamed of who you are don’t hide who you are, because you are amazing no matter what anyone thinks. So get out there stay with in the legal limits and do what you want to do, be who you want to be and lets have a great no shame November, and if your willing to share I would love to see what your doing, and I will start with mine…I’m want to write a movie script for this idea and storyline I have, I have never done this before and it might go very wrong, but you know what I don’t care this is what I want to do, and I love these things and I have no shame in doing what I’m passionate about even if I don’t know what I’m doing.

SO hope to hear back, and have a great November

N. McKnight out.

Halloween....I know its late

Why Helloooooo my friends, how are we all doing? I’m doing very good been keep very busy so really nothing  has changed from the last time that we talked…well I talked and by take I mean wrote and you so very kindly read. Although I have been very busy I did however find time to go and buy some new jeans. Now for me this is never a good thing, I love to shop but I don’t like to go and buy clothes for myself. It has always been a hard thing for me to deal with. I can’t find anything that fits right and all I every see is how “fat” I am its drama and total sucks ass. Yet this time it was different its was great and I will tell you why, well to start with I’m not Fat any more…I still got some curves and I’m cool with that, and that is the big differences from the times before, I didn’t have curves it was more like just a blob like a scary blob, like I could have stared in the movie. Yeah its cool I know its not the nicest things to say about myself…but lets face it, who I was then is not who I am now, and to be honest I don’t ever want to go back to that person, so in other words I feel its ok to refer to myself like that…it’s the old me the effed up in the head me…Ok I’m still a little messed up in the head but not nearly as bad now, we all have a level of crazy its just a matter of what leave you are on…I feel that I have moved down a level now. Anyway this experience of buying some jeans, there is noting better in the world then walking into a store and being able to buy a size smaller in jeans. Its one thing to go and pick the size you “think you are” go into a fitting room and trying to fit in those smaller clothes, now I don’t know if other people go through this when they are in a fitting room but it always seems like a little bit of an ordeal, but I always go through the same steps you think I would have this mastered by now. Let me explain how this goes down for me, and PS I’m sure that its only in my head that this happens, but if anything this is how I feel its happening.

1.      Walk into the store and pick out what you want to buy. This sounds super easy but don’t’ be fooled my friends it is not, and this is why. First of all you have to find the one little sliver of a section that a store has dedicated to pulse size girls. Then once you do find this small spot that if you take two steps to the left you are in “petite misses” and two steps to the right and your back into “juniors” I’m not really sure where “Fat girl” pants fit in that area but that’s where its at. Yet once you find this area you are now plagued with deciding if you want to wear no offense to any of the moms out there but I think you will understand when I say “Mom Jeans” or clothes that your great grandma will wear Apparently big girls can’t have anything that looks in style or with in this decade, I have a lot to say about the fashion world and big girls but lets hold off on that one it might take 3 pages just for that.  

2.      Go the dreaded fitting room, which is really where the truth comes out if you can really fit in what you picked out or if you were just dreaming. Now to me fitting rooms are always a bit of an adventure, because you never know what your going to get when you walk into one. For example you will either have one of two fitting room sizes big enough to move around in and be able to check your self out in the mirror, or two you will get stuck in the room that the only way you can move around is by doing the shuffle step in a circle and don’t bend over you don’t know what will pock you in the butt. In any case the small room is by far the worst fitting room that you can get pushed into, its like being told it’s a one size fits most…I happen to be the person out side of “most” category.

3.      Now its that moment of truth time to do they fit or do they not fit that is the questions, weather you have to jump or squat to pull them over you butt, to suck in your gut or to lie on the floor to get them buttoned come hell or high water you will do everything you can to fit in the smaller size of two pairs of jeans you bring in with you.

4.      Once you have gotten into the jeans you do the automatic butt check, turn around an look to see how you butt looks in your pants is the damn my butt looks big moment or damn I have a sexy ass, and for some reason you have to check out both sides look to the left look to the right. Then I do what I like to call the “sit” test, and that is the whole if I sit down in these pants will I be able to breath and do I run the risk of the button popping off and going flying across the room and taking an eye out, because its all fun and games until some one loses an eye. Then once you figure out that is not going to happen you can either walk out of the fitting room total happy with your self because you did fit into the size smaller, or you leave fill a little let down because you are still in fat girl pants, and decide that you are going to go pay for your fat girl pants and then go get a some ice cream to make it all better.

Now that you know my shopping habits let me explain to you that I went into the store and for the first time in god knows how many years walked into the store and bought two pairs of jeans that were a size 18 and to top it of one of them was a pair of skinny jeans yes that’s right I got skinny jeans. It was like a shinning moment for me not going to lie did the happy dance in the dressing room why because I can and no one was going to stop me. It was awesome being able to walk out of that room it was like I was on cloud nine I had hit the jackpot, but this came a great time for me too. I have hit that infamous Plato and running out of steam to keep pushing forward, have been at the same weight for the past several months, just very stagnate and it get frustrating I needed something and what better thing to keep you going forward then having that moment of being able to buy something smaller to know you look good in what you are wearing. Then I think the best booster happened when I went to a Halloween party now I will admit I have worn the same costume for the past several years its easy I have all the pieces that go with it, I like it and I can throw it together and in a matter of 10 min and I’m out the door. The thing that has changed this year…I look HOT!!!! There really is no other way to put it. I mean who knew that I could pull off skinny jeans and high heels and even my normal top that I wear looked damn good, it was the first time on Halloween that I felt amazing in my costume. Then to be able to go the party and to see people’s reaction and hear how good I looked and all of that, its amazing and it helps to find that strength to keep pushing forward.

So with this new found energy to keep pushing forward I have set a new goal for myself and keep in mind holiday season is quickly approaching, but I have set a goal to lose another 20 pounds by the Dec 31^st and end 2012 with a bang. I have eaten my last fast food sandwich on Halloween, it was like my own trick or treat….trick now you see this hamburger now you don’t…where did it go you ask…well that is where the treat comes in…Its in my belly…said in my best “Fat Bastered” voice. So again no fast food…and I really am going to hold myself to this I’m only cheating myself when I don’t fallow through. So goal lose 20 pounds in two months, no fast food for the next two months, self control over the holidays I don’t have to eat all the food in one sitting there will be leftovers for the next day…said no one ever…no but really self control over the holidays. I’m going to do this, it will happen and I will look amazing for New Years Eve!!!!

So tell next time keep pushing forward and keep fighting to accomplish your goals.

Looking Hot in my skinny jeans girl out.