L7/Day 65-67: Contributing Joy

So, I will forewarn you that I'm scatterbrained. I have gotten back into my toning, but no cardio for a little over two weeks now. Of the two, I would rather be feeling like I can check off the MS levels off my calendar rather than cardio. Plus I feel like cardio endurance will come back more quickly than if I lost all the work I put into my accessory muslces. Anyway, I mentioned a few weeks back how a few family members found my workouts in the living room to be a disturbance to them (noise of trampoline for example). So, I figured out that I have enough room in my bedroom to do my MS using the computer (can't do cardio in my room which is why I've had difficulty getting back into that). Well, in using the computer I discovered I could bookmark the workout wherever I wanted, so I bookmarked it at the legs sections. Which means, with the press of a button I can easily do my right legs, then click on the same bookmark again to do my left leg because that way I will hear her cueing both times. Woo, hoo!

Also, I made a slight change to the order of my workout. Because bookmarking is so easy on my computer, I actually do the legs portions first (the hardest, least enjoyable portion for me) then I do arms then finish with abs. Love it! In Tracy's bootcamp, she actually does the leg portion first so I figure what I'm doing is Tracy approved in one capacity or another.

Tomorrow is December 1st, and if I stay on schedule doing my workouts 7 days a week (including extra cardio workouts to make up for the ones I've missed), my full 90-day program of Metamorphosis will officially be completed December 31, which means come January 1st, 2012 I will officially begin Continuity!! Ahhh, it's exciting for me because I love beginning things on Mondays or Sundays (both have a decisive, beginning of the week feel) I love starting things on the first of the month, and of course we all love starting our goal's with the new year. I am such a lucky duck, that January 1st starts on a Sunday, so it is like the perfect storm (new week, new month, new year, new program all falling on the same day.) The most exciting thing perhaps is that my New Years resolution will not be to find an exercise routine/regime that works. My New Year's resolution will also not be to do Metamorphosis. My resolution will be to begin Continuity, and what that means for me more than anything is that I AM MOVING FORWARD. For the first time in my life, I am moving forward when it comes to getting in shape. Hallelujah!

I also wanted to briefly touch on an epiphany I had today. I was feeling depressed about life in general and I just kind of thought this is how I will always be. I will always fight depression and never be a truly happy person because life on this planet is just too crazy to ever be happy. I was feeling badly because I was going to visit my bf on his lunch break and I didn't want the 30 minutes that I'd get to see him today to be about me feeling depressed. As I was driving I thought to myself, if this life is so depressing why do I want to live? (don't worry, I wasn't suicidal, it was really just a question to contemplate, to create a conversation within myself). I thought to myself...well there are many lovely things in life to live for, amazing things like love, humanity, experiencing the senses, goodness, kindness. But, it's hard to be happy when this world feels like it's gone mad (war, greed, etc). I thought to myself, I don't want to be part of crazy-ness and the misery in this world. But then I realized that by allowing myself to be miserable rather than joyful, I MYSELF WAS CONTRIBUTING to the miserable parts of this world rather than doing anything to help it.

I don't believe misery will ever end misery. In otherwords, me being unhappy doesn't do anything to help anybody else be less unhappy...quite the contrary. Seeking out joy on the other hand, at least has the potential to help shift misery into something better. Unhappiness will not negate unhappiness, it will only double the sorrow. If I want to help the world, but I'm miserable I will be depleted of energy, cynical....if I have joy, and hope, then maybe I can do something to help others. Also, if there is truth to the law of attraction, then my having joy will help me seek out joyful things, and bring more joy into my life and those around me. I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to fix war and greed and suffering. But I can tell you that if I can help it, I don't want to add one more drop of misery to the world. I want to help tip things in the other I want to combat misery by contributing my joy, by making joy that much stronger a presence in the world.

L7/Day 61-64: Failure is an Illusion

So....it has been a little while since I posted a blog, and that's because it had been a little while since I worked out. Basically, I had more changes to my basic daily routine that threw me off of the comfortable groove I'd settled into. And yet, here I am still continuing on with level 7. My perfectionist mind did not get the better of me. Somewhere in my head a voice said, "you've lost too much muscle, I guess you should start over at level 1" in other words, "jump off the wall as fast as you can, and start allover climbing up from the very bottom; don't build on all the work you've already done"...hmmm....maybe if I had missed a month then yes Tracy recommends starting over at level 1, but that wasn't the case with me. Instead, another voice in my head said yet again..."just do your personal best, and keep moving forward." Oh? When did it become that easy to get back on track?

In my experience I've managed to pick up a lot of unhelpful information from society, parents, media, etc that says you have to be perfect, and maybe even more specifically failure is not an option. Yes, in life and death scenarios or situations that threaten your survival then yes failure is not an option. In my personal circumstances and specifically applied to the situation of me getting in shape, there really is no such thing as failure in my humble opinion. Failure isn't real in this case. It's something I made up in my head that said you can't lose weight because all you've ever known is being over weight. You can't stick with something, because you've never been able to do stick with anything consistently before. If you do try something and run into new challenges then you have failed, and if you've failed x-number of times then you're hopeless, you'll always be a failure. You are incapable because you've never proven yourself to be capable before. You have to be critical of yourself before other people can tear you down with their criticisms (beat them to the punch). Wow, sounds very vicious when it's all written together like that and yet these are the things I've told myself time and time agian. They were things my brain tricked me into believing were true, and as I had no other evidence to prove otherwise I believed them.

I can only share what I have learned from my personal experience, but what I want to share with myself for future reference and with anyone else who can relate to starting stopping and starting all the way over again in cycles that never end...failure isn't real. Give yourself credit for trying first of all! We are not in a competition with anyone else. We are not even in a competition with ourselves. So that means that any effort however small it may seem will amount to something if we allow ourselves to be proud of ourselves for what we have done. It is very easy to criticize ourselves for not doing as good as we think we should be. I think some people are motivated by that, it creates drive in them. But I am not that type of person. I am coming to learn that my motivation comes from being proud of myself for every small thing I do that is good. If I do toning without cardio, I am proud of myself. If I try to hold my body up in a plank move that is so hard I can hardly do any reps I am proud of myself. And today when I exercised for 3 days in a row again after taking a small hiatus I was utterly proud of myself!

We can be motivated by being proud of ourselves rather than critical. I find it frees up energy for me, and it free me up mentally to keep moving in a forward direction. When we criticize the past we keep ourselves stuck in the past. Ask youself, is that what you want? If not, then have enough compassion for yourself to move forward. The one important thing for you to know is that it will not be an overnight process. It does take time to begin to unlearn habits that don't serve us and replace them with ones that do. But suddenly you wake up one day and find how many days you've crossed off your Meta calendar, and maybe it's because you decided to be kind to yourself instead of critical.

Btw, level 7 is awesome. I certainly did have a drop in strength the first 3 days of this level since I had taken a break. But after just 3 days, I feel strong again. If you've never been fit before like me, you will come to discover that when you do have muscles, it actually feels really good to use them. Whereas moving my body used to feel utterly exhausting, it now kinda feels like I'm training to be in Cirque du Soleil with the grace and agility of a dancer/acrobat. It feels good.

As Dory from Finding Nemo said, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming"...

L6/Day 60: Level 7 Here I Come

Done with level 6 baby!! Wooooo! Not only that, I am done with disc 2 of Meta. I previewed level 7 and I'm excited to see yet again how much variety this level will bring. The legs in particular look awesome. Rather than being on all fours most of the time, you are balancing as a partial plank move or even doing a couple moves on your back! It looks fantastic, like a true omni workout using all of your body for each move to bring everything together.

As I was doing my first leg moves for level 6 today, I was feeling nostalgic in that this was the last time I'd be doing level 6. But by the second leg I was very happy to be done. Time marches on my friends. In fact, tomorrow is my birthday!! I will be celebrating by going to Disneyland and enjoying a complimentary birthday meal at one of my fav restaurants The Veggie Grill.

I will also be celebrating by doing my workout! It will also be the first birthday of my teen/adult years where my goal for the upcoming year of my life is not to start exercising regularly, but to actually keep exercising. It's also the first time in my life I'm not continuosly overeating and binging my way through life. I'm starting to find a balance with food. My relationship with food is changing into not feeling guilty about any food, and not using food to utterly numb and sedate myself. An additional book I've started reading is called Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch. For me it builds upon earlier works I've read by Geneen Roth (Women, Food, and God).

I feel like this path we're on is so amazing because it just kind of unfolds...Don't misunderstand, it's not like you just sit there and enjoy the ride free of charge. But as you go along you really can't see the road ahead. You don't know what it's going to reveal. But yet, if you do your part it really does feel like something helps you along and you discover things about yourself. All I can say is, you don't have to be able to imagine it to get there. I've reached level 7 and I still haven't wrapped it....I still don't believe it. But if you take the steps, if you can just have enough courage and persistence to do the steps along the way, well...it feels like something lovely was waiting for you to arrive this whole time.

Day 59: I'm Still Climbing the Wall

Almost to level 7 people, which is the very last disc of Meta! Gosh, who knew this was actually possible not just for all those people you see in the before and afters, not just for all those people who can set a goal and seemingly achieve it so easily...who knew change was possible for me? I always hoped it would be, but when you've tried and not risen to the challenge of accomplishing your goal time and time again over the course of over 15+ years, how can you really believe that you are capable? How can you learn to trust yourself, learn to break through previous barriers when you never have before? Well, I made a whole list of things a while back entitled, "What has made this time different" and you can read about it on the right side of this blog (I still read it from time to time to remind me of those important tools I've learned along the way). But more than anything, it's about accomplishing one small step at a time, one leg lift, one workout...they stack up on top of each other until enough time passes that they add up to something big. It's the whole climbing the wall metaphor that I frequently spoke of when I first began my journey.

This week was a little discombobulating. I got another cold, my work hours increased and shifted from evening to morning shifts, I got my monthly...the point is not that I'm trying to bargain with my excuse monkey (wink wink Michelle) but that new situations arose this week which threw off my groove of working out in the morning, going to work in the evening, etc. I also had 2 family members that I live with tell me that my workouts created discomfort for them in some way, noise of the trampoline as an example. It's just not easy! Life is ever-changing and once you conquer one challenge, you have to deal with something else it seems. The trick I think is to believe in yourself enough to know that whatever comes up, you are capable enough to figure out how to handle it. But, in spite of all these minor obstacles, Tracy and I are still on good terms. I'm still "failing forward" into better things.

Day 57 & 58: Normal is Not Being Perfect

So this week my personal best, balanced efforts will amount to 5 days a week of exercise vs the 6 I've done the past couple weeks. I say this because I want to put it out there that not being perfect is normal. I am proud of 5 days a week. 5-6 days a week is a good range to stick to. I often remind myself that 4 months ago and for the rest of my life before that, I never exercised consistently. So how can I be so hard on myselfs for missing one workout? Truly the real danger comes from getting caught up mentally, and blowing things out of proportion. Fixating is the real issues. Allowing myself to be imperfect and accepting my abilities in a range allows me to stay sane! It allows me to not make such a big deal out of things (which my bf will attest that making a bigger deal out of things is my default). You know what, it's just not a big deal to miss one workout! It just isn't.

These last couple days I counted the reps on my left leg instead of rewinding to the right leg again so that I can hear Tracy's cueing for my left leg. Michelle from the TAM community suggested this, and you know what...that lady knows what she's talking about! It made the workout go by faster, and it gave me something to focus on (counting) besides the pain. It also helped me to feel like I wasn't doing endless legs lifts because I could count down getting closer and closer to the end.

Let's all be easier on ourselves, kinder to ourselves. Prouder for what we HAVE accomplished, giving credit where credit is do. Continued success to you all!

Day 56: Now...Do it all on the Left Side

"Now do it all on the left side"...those can be somewhat dreaded words, eh? For some reason, it is mentally harder to think of doing all the same moves on the left side than doing the left side but with different moves, you know? It can take so much mental energy to push through that first side, and now you want me to repeat it...so often I think to myself, "I just can't do it again, there's not enough left in me"...And yet somehow, somehow I have done it, 56 times.

I do wish that Tracy would cue us on the left side when we are to change moves (as half the time we're not looking at the screen), but my strategy is just to rewind to the beginning of the right side and do that again on the left so I can hear the cues. Tracy is truly a genius in what she has created, so how did she overlook something so seemingly apparent?

But I will say, I would rather take her lack of chit chat over a trainer who is constantly yelling at me as a source of motivation to push myself. That style just doesn't motivate me personally. In fact, I remember than when I first started Meta but wasn't able to get through level 1 (on earlier attempts at the program), I remember imagining trainer Jillian Michaels yelling at me that I'm not pushing hard enough. I would imagine Tracy too, but she wouldn't be yelling. She was just disappointed in me that I wasn't giving it my all, and was slacking off (because I couldn't do forty reps from the get-go). What is that?!? Well, I imagine it was my own inner critic disguised as these trainers.

So how did I turn it around? I've mentioned it before but it bears repeating. I started telling myself that my personal best was good enough, and that I would grow from wherever I was starting. That is the TRUTH after all. I had deceived myself into believing that if I couldn't do all the reps, I wouldn't progress. I had to do it perfectly or it wasn't going to work. Well, for the first time in my life it is working and it's not because I'm being perfect. Quite the opposite. It's because I'm allowing myself and accepting myself as imperfect, as normal. I came to learn that trying to be perfect (doing it like Tracy) exhausted me, while doing my personal best (being myself if you will) empowered me.

Tracy was right about level six btw. She starts of this level by encouraging us that the best is yet to come. For me this level has brought the most noticeable changes to my body. At this point, I do notice a difference in the way my pants fit around my waist. It is ever so slight, but it's changed for certain. I even weighed myself because I knew I had made progress and I'm officially out of the 160's and down to 159.75 lbs. My thighs have slimness and more firmness, my arms have more definition. I can hold my body up through a whole plank series, and I can do 1 full push-up (haha, it's small but it's progress). And I can do an hour of cardio! Wow. Literally 1 minute of cardio on day #1 was scary. How the heck can I do an hour now? That's pretty insane! Keep it coming Tracy, and may I be blessed enough to meet you one day so I can give you a hug and thank you for changing my life :)

Learning the Goodness of Slowing Down

I wanted to binge today. It's really not easy to distinguish hungry from full, but I can tell when I want to binge. It feels like I want food NOW, and I want a big bowl of it and then I'm thinking of what I'm gonna eat right after that. And when I want to slow down and take a few deep breaths and ask myself, "am I hungry, anxious, sleepy, thirsty?", my binge-craving mind wants to ignore those questions, tell them "go away, I'm busy with more important things like feeling at one with this food."

I did try to slow down though. I tried to breathe, I tried to chew more slowly, I tried to figure out what I was really feeling. Then thankfully as I went to get a second bowl of food, and came to sit back down on the couch, as I was sitting my fork accidentally fell out of my hand....I seized that opportunity as a sign that my sub-conscious or someone looking out for me in the universe was trying to help me out. It was enough to wake me up and out of my typical binge/overeating pattern for me to realize with a sigh, I am not hungry.

I'm not entirely sure what triggered me to want to overeat today. I think it's just the general feeling of all the things I'd like to get done but at the same time I'm avoiding (things as simple as doing the dishes. I can tell you that more than anything, my mind feels like it's running a hundred miles an hour, so fast that I can't even comprehend what it's trying to tell me. I feel like time is flying by, the day turns so quickly to night and back to day again. (I have no idea how it's already time for the holidays) I want to keep accomplishing more goals, but I feel like I just can't calm down and slow down mentally. I'm not a terribly busy person, and yet for some reason I feel like I don't have enough time to myself to stop and breath and think and focus so that I can start to work on my life list.

Sometimes, if I do slow down enough, I feel guilty for being "unproductive". Like this one time I was doing a jigsaw puzzle by myself...a good relaxing activity that I was really enjoying...but I felt guilty that there are people suffering around the world at this very moment and here I am selfishly doing this jig-saw puzzle intstead of going out and helping the world. I want to help the world, I very much want to help the world. Even when I was very little, I wished I'd had a magic wand to solve all the world's problems.

At this point in my life, I simply want learn how to take REALLY good care of myself, and in so doing, I'll then be able fill myself up enough to be able help others as well. I just realized now that I feel really guilty when I slow down. If I slow down too much, it feels like too much and I feel guilty. I need to give myself permission to slow down, to not feel guilty for taking time to take care of myself, or having fun just for the sake of having fun. Taking care of myself and having fun are part of a healthy life I think... yes, I'm pretty sure it is part of a balanced healthy life. And if I want to help others to have better life circumstances, I suppose I have to allow myself to be an example of a full and balanced life first, don't I? From this realization I feel peace, and I feel full.

..............................................................................................................................................................

I overate yesterday. I didn't binge but I overate. I felt underlying anxiousness through most of the day. You know when I finally calmed down? Just before bed. I was lying in bed reading a book, and my belly was very full, and I wan under warm blankets and wearing soft fuzzy socks. But more than anything my brain slowed down, my body slowed down. Something I've known about myself for a long time is that at night as I'm winding down in that last half hour of being awake, I'm calmer and my brain is more focussed. But because I'm so sleepy I can't harness that focus and that calm energy for productive things.

The contrast though of the calmness I physically felt in my body and brain, versus the hectic-ness of my brain and body during the day, it really makes me feel like I have some sort of chemical imbalance that makes it so difficult to not feel anxious and like my brain is spinning all day. Although I'm not sure what to do about it in this moment, it helps to be able to take note of these patterns. And it helps to be able to see that anxiousness is not a normal state of being, and that my body is capable of feeling not anxious. Anxiousness is probably the biggest thing in my life that not only causes me to overeat, but to be afraid of living. It inhibits me from taking care of things that I want and need to take care of. I think finding a solution to my anxiousness in gonna be an amazing starting point, and catalyst for so many other areas of my life. Wow, that feels pretty big.

Day 55: Not Wanting to Workout but Doing It Anyway

Today was my 5th day on level 6. I began my workout out first thing in the morning before my brain had a chance to interject. I got through arms and then my brain said I don't want to do this anymore, like at all. I was feeling frustrated because I was remembering a couple occassions where I've worked out in the past for shorter periods of time and had quicker results than I'm getting this time around. When I attempted Tracy's Bootcamp earlier this year, I was able to stick to it for 3 weeks and I physically saw my butt lifted and could feels my abs were stronger. When I practiced her Mat video arms, I noticed an immediate change in my arms in just a week. The difference I suppose was the amount of time dedicated to muscular structure. Mat arms is 20 minute segment for example. I don't want to spend an hour a day on muscular structure...so I suppose it's just a matter of time before all my workouts add up the the tangible results I'm looking for...patience patience patience...plus this is the first time I'm actually sticking to a workout. So what's better? Quick results that are short lived or slower results that last a lifetime? Exactly.

So, when I didn't want to workout, I asked myself why? The response, I don't feel like it. Well, why don't you feel like it? Because, I don't want my job anymore, and I don't have the results I want from my workouts. Is stopping working out going to help you have a different job?...no. Is not working out going to help you get better results?...no. And so, I finished my workout. And while I didn't feel so accomplished today, I was glad it was over (and completed), and today that's good enough for me. Well, I did kick butt in cardio this week :)

Day 54: Starting to Prefer New Eating Habits, Say What?!?

I mentioned how my hour of cardio the other day came as a lovely surprise...well, I was also worried it might have been a fluke. As usual, there was no need to worry! I did another hour of cardio consisting of 20 minutes bootcamp, 20 minutes meta, and rounding it off with 20 minutes on the rebounder! Gooooooo Me! You know they say, "variety is the spice of life"...well that's no joke. If Tracy ever wanted to throw out her "perfection is possible" motto in lieu of something else, "variety..." would be it! I mean, she even changes up her outfits on each new level for goodness sake. I just cannot imagine how anyone could keep up with a program that did not have this much variety with some new challenge to overcome, and something new to look forward to in the near future. It's like that feeling that comes at the beginning of a new exercise program is relived to some small degree every time you start a new level.

Also, my continuity arrived in the mail today! When I got it I thought, wow...this is real, I'm actually doing this. Incidentally I know many people have mentioned how their discs arrived late or were damaged. Thankfully, mine arrived 2 weeks after I placed the order, and in working condition...whew. It was so exciting to get a new cardio. The moves look fun and more dancey. Looking forward to it for sure, but I'm gonna save that puppy for when I officially begin Continuity. Some of the moves I previewed in muscular structure were crazy looking though. In one of the moves you are balancing on your hands, one leg, and your head! I feel like I'll be ready to join Cirque Du Soleil by the time I'm done with Continuity. The great thing was...I had no fear of failure. I was looking forward to trying new things, and getting better at them :)

As for eating, I am noticing that my body doesn't like being stuffed! For breakfast, I had half a sandwich and a cup of soup (just for reference, I would normally have 2 sandwiches and bowl of soup.) These days I usually start with a smaller amount of food, and then try to assess if I'm still hungry afterward and can then prepare more food if necessary. Well, after I ate I thought I might still be hungry (again this is a re-learning process so it really is hard to tell if I'm hungry or not). I got up from the table, got all the ingredients out of the fridge and realized to my surprise, I'm not hungry. I put everything back in the fridge and went to work knowing that when I was hungry again, I would have something tasty to eat.

Later in the day, I went to an all-vegan grocery store for the first time called Viva La Vegan Grocery. It was exciting! I picked up a handful of things that I had never tried before as they weren't in my regular healthfood store. Mostly fun junk food type things. Anyway, I got home and had small portions, but found they weren't filling. So I ate more and more and still didn't really feel full. I kind of came to realize over the course of the night, I didn't necessarily want these things in my fridge. New foods that are considered junk food are fun to try with a couple bites, but in the end I found they were not filling or satisfying in the way an actual meal would be. It was a nice realization that perhaps, and just maybe my desires for junkfood are no longer uncontrollable, ravenous cravings. It felt like that desire for balance that I'd wanted about being able to eat mostly healthfully, but still occassionally enjoy what I call "balance" food (others call "bad" food) for special occassions/social events, that maybe that could actually be a reality some day. The other night for example, my bf's dad offered to make us some delicious burritos for dinner. As I knew I was full, I simply enjoyed a bite of my bf's burrito, and I felt satisfied enough by that. I also smelled it a couple times, but the point is I got the experience out of it that I wanted. I got to taste it and smell it, and that was all I needed.

Don't get me wrong, I by no means have this eating thing figured out. But I'm learning new things without being hard on myself for not knowing them in the first place. As my TAM friend Michelle would say, I'm "failing forward". And the thing about failing forward, is that it no longer feels like failure...at that point, it's just called learning.

Day 53: Overcoming Fear of Failure

(Sarcastically) Golly, great way to start the 1st of November, World Vegan Day....I had work early today so I decided I'd do my workout when I got off. Well, then I ended up working late, visiting my bf on his lunch break, getting dinner. By the time all this was done I was pooped, and didn't want to workout. Well, I did my toning work, but no cardio today. However, I learned yesterday that an hour of cardio is really not too bad. So I can easily make up for my missing cardio tomorrow.

I will say that doing an hour of cardio made a difference as I woke up this morning and though I don't have a scale could definitely tell I had lost weight!! I probably won't do an hour a day of cardio 6 times a week, but I'll shoot for every other day and work my way up! It was really encouraging to tangibly see my hard work pay off though, and to have a real solution come to fruition! So if you haven't given an hour of cardio a try and you want to experiement with it, I say go for it. If you're body is ready, you'll enjoy it. If it's too much, no worries! Kudos to you for having the courage to experiment.

We're so trained to fear looking the fool aren't we? I know I am. I remember in elementary school I went to a roller skating rink. The announcer then told everyone to skate backwards. Many if not most people got out and watched from the sidelines. I had not developed any reservations or self-consciousness at that tender age, so I tried to skate backwards. Some girl from the side lined yelled "You can't skate backwards!" That was the first time I can recall someone saying something like that to me. This random girl (who I'm sure didn't know any better) said something to make me feel bad just because I was trying. I didn't do ANYTHING wrong, yet here I was being criticized for no reason at all other than being fearless and being myself. Honestly, my throat is getting choked up just thinking about it. At that time, I think I was so confused by her statement because I'd never experienced someone being mean like that before. I rememeber looking up at her, but I can't remember if I got out of the rink or not.

I can tell you that all these years later, it still affects me. Not on an everyday basis like I think about this one incident all the time, but certainly little incidents like that have added up in my life that fear of embarassment and fear of failure are very predominant themes in my life. I'm not sure what it takes for wounds like these to heal. But I can say from experience that taking it one day at a time, baby steps of accomplishment add up to a positive momentum in the right direction. I rememeber at the beginning of Meta for example I really had a fear that I couldn't get through the workouts. I had a fear of failure and embarassment even though no one else was around to judge me except myself.

Even before I started level 5, I rememeber previewing it and being scared (fearful) that I wouldn't be able to do it (failure). However, I learned a big lesson from that level. I learned that when I perceive something is difficult, it's best to at least give it a try because sometimes it's not as hard as I thought. Certainly there was no reason to have FEAR over it. Nothing bad was actually going to happen! Now I'm able to approach levels and new challenges in TAM by reminding myself that I do not need to be perfect to succeed. Once again, I just need to try, and learn, have kindness for myself, patience, faith, and keep moving forward.