PbyCj

Perfectionism. I didn’t know really perfectionism was a thing a couple of years ago.

The journey of just understanding myself and who I am and how I have been created and designed—things like that. I don’t always have the words or the language to express how I feel or where I am or what’s going on with me.

Emotions are something that just not—it’s never really been… you know.

I’ve taken emotional intelligence—let’s call those things tests—where I scored low in all categories. There’s like four categories of where your emotional intelligence is. I was low in all of them.

At the time, I was just in the height of the divorce process. It made sense for where I was.

I took it a year later—still low, but better. I believe if I take it again this time, it’s definitely improved.

I didn’t always have words to process or the capacity to process.

I dealt with suppressing. Suppressing was the big one. Suppression, avoidance, just not facing things. One of the things they would always say was to lean into my discomfort—lean into the things—and I would never do it.

But it’s a process of coming from all that.

Gonna fit right here.

Actually, don’t want to fit right here.

Let me park. Let me park.

Might have to just turn that thing around.

Let’s see.

It’s kind of tight in here.

I don’t like parking in tight spaces, and I will do the extra turn.

Let’s say 30 minutes.

I do need to make sure this workout is quick. I ain’t got time to be here all night.

But also—oh look at that—you’re not coming around this way. Excellent.

I Austria.

So yeah—like I was saying.

Reading The Gifts of Imperfection, after doing all these different styles of tests and learning, intelligence, and other stuff, I would really prefer—not to feel anything at all—rather than deal with an emotion.

That book helped me put words to it.

I had been dealing with imperfection, and it was hindering the progress I desired to make—because things just wouldn’t be pretty.

Now my word for my life and how my day-to-day looks is textured.

That’s the best way I can explain it.

There are details of my day and life that I don’t share—but I do need somewhere to put it.

So I find creative ways to deal with it.

Trying to have the perfect scenario, the perfect day, and all that—it’s just…

Not only is it not realistic, but it’s okay.

Progress is still made—even when things are ugly.

Things can be ugly.

And I use that word “ugly” not in a bad way—because I found in my archives, something I wrote called Ugly Part One.

I need to go back and read what I was saying.

But I was calling it ugly and being okay with the ugly—and putting the ugly on paper.

Because even ugly is a start.

Ugly is better than nothing.

What I’m working on now is rebuilding the trust I have within myself—to do the things I need to do, no matter how I feel and what it looks like.

That’s a big thing.

Because I’ve dealt with—I don’t even know—the fight against exhaustion versus the fight of where do I even start?

Things don’t go away.

Even though I’ve suppressed, avoided, put to the side, backburnered, procrastinated.

I’ve done all the things opposite of success.

I’ve failed.

I’ve turned things in late. I haven’t turned things in at all.

I’ve missed deadlines, appointments, payments.

I’ve messed up.

I’ve made a mess.

I’ve been divorced.

That’s the reality of what I’ve experienced.

The opposite of dealing with things.

I’m grateful for God’s grace.

It’s only God’s grace that I’m still in the fight.

I’m still in the fight.

There is hope for me.

Just being transparent.

Now, I’m about to get this workout in.

Yesterday—I hadn’t been in the gym in a minute. I gained some weight.

And I like where some areas of the weight have gone—because body still tea, okay—but there’s some areas that gotta go.

Yesterday I said, “I’m hitting the gym after work.”

But after work, I sat in my truck.

Then I got home.

Didn’t get out.

Just sat there.

The weight of exhaustion came down on me.

It was getting late. I hadn’t eaten dinner.

Excuses started coming in.

The heaviness sank in.

Then I opened Pinterest.

I have a board: Fitness Girly.

Started looking at my fitness goals.

Now I have a goal.

Before, I lost all the weight, and I was skinny. I was working out for fun.

Now? I got a little motivation around the gut.

Remember the Big Backing or Bulking blog?

Yeah… there’s some rolls going on over there.

So that’s the motivation.

I looked at the goals and said, “Yeah. I’m going to the gym.”

Had a good workout.

And now I’m back.

Because there’s no way I’m reaching the goal without putting in the work.

Today was an interesting day.

Very interesting.

High-level interesting.

Don’t know if I want to talk about it here.

But I’m at the gym, trying to fit a word in.

Not trying—but I am going to fit a little workout in.

Really stick to what I set my mind to do.

Not give in to the usual.

Stick to it.

Keep my word.

Practice keeping my word.

That’s how you build trust.

One of the things I realized—

I had stopped trusting.

Not only was I not trusting myself, I wasn’t trusting God either.

Not trusting God—and saying I believe in Him—

But not believing God?

That’s evil.

And that’s just what it is.

This is a transparent blog.

And the name of it—

Okay, don’t laugh at me.

But the name of this blog is Lemon Pepper Tuna.

I know in the last blog, I asked why I name blogs what I name them.

I usually name the blog based on what I ate that day.

Before this workout, I had lemon pepper tuna on crackers.

It was actually good.

Talk to you later.

-Cj

Other news – recent T-shirt designs for “Good Job For Doing The Good Thing You Did Today.”

Let me know what you think 🤔.