On Following Your Dreams

I recently finished Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis, (I definitely recommend it) and throughout the book she talks about following your dreams, making your dreams a reality, and imagining your dreams with such vividness that you can't but assume they will be achieved. So naturally, I started asking myself "What are my dreams?" and, well, I was kind of stuck. Maybe it was the fact that for the last few months, life had been a little bit more of a valley than a peak, and therefore I was feeling unsure about myself and the life that, until recently, I'd been pretty darn proud of building. 

Getting a little panicky, I started barraging myself...have I lost my ability to dream? Have the difficulties and realities of life gotten to me so much that I can't even dream big dreams anymore? Am I so caught up in my day to day that I can't even think outside the box of my small world? Of course, my impatience does not help this kind of self talk tornado, so for the last few weeks I've been asking myself and God to reveal my "dreams" as if something huge would slap me in the face. 

When I was younger, I had intense dreams to travel abroad and be a huge international business mogul. This later turned into aspirations of working in academia and being an amazing professor who travels the world for research. While I did achieve my dream of traveling during college and post graduate, I got married afterwards and had kids, and well, everything changed. The reality of putting others needs before mine happened. It wasn't just about me anymore. All my dreams changed, and not in a bad way, in a really good way but also a completely different way. The huge goals of being an international business mogul don't hold quite the same luster they used to and I'm more prone to daydream about making my home beautiful and getting a lake home to make family memories at, but somehow these kinds of dream don't seem like they are enough, not big enough - too boring.

Then, this past week, while listening to a Lenten reflection I felt a bit of an epiphany when I heard (I'm paraphrasing), "I believe that God's dreams for me are far bigger than those I have for myself." I have tried to trust that God will lead me by the right path (certainly not my spiritual strong point), even though I know nothing about it. Ultimately that's all I can do. I have recently come to discover and find great peace in the fact that doing all things, especially the little things, with great love, detail, and gratitude drastically changes what could be seen as simple and mundane tasks in life into extraordinary moments. This doesn't mean we shouldn't dream or push hard for goals we want, but I think that sometimes just waiting, watching and discerning the paths that are being opened to us, exactly where we are planted, can lead to far greater paths than we could have ever imagined for ourselves.

Looking back, I can see throughout my life the hand of God guiding me. I somewhat tried to follow the paths that were opened to me and that made the most "sense." During the times where I chose paths that were clearly not right for me, life was rough, and not make you stronger kind of rough, but make you fall apart and pull you away from what is good in life. When I chose what felt right and true (not necessarily easy or simple), I became a better version of myself and opportunities continued to reveal themselves. Many of these paths have been long and challenging and I didn't always feel certain in the thick of it that I was truly doing the right thing. I realize how vague this may all sound and it kind of is but my favorite prayer reveals the depth of this life long struggle we all have, and it fills me up when I'm feeling uncertain about life's paths:

"I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." - Thomas Merton

Trusting that God will reveal his dreams for us when the time is right and then working each day with love is all we can do.

SERIAL QUITTER

I always had an emotional attachment to food growing up. Food was a coping mechanism. When I was in high school, I gained about 20 pounds after quitting volleyball my Sophomore year to try out for cheerleading, Junior year I did swimming and Senior year I didn't join anything. After that one decision and gaining weight, I never stuck to much I committed to. I continued to gain weight in to my first year in college at Ball State. 

I know what my highest number on the scale was but more than what the scale said (about thirty pounds more than I am today), it was the hold that food had on me and the lack of confidence I felt in myself for never sticking to anything. I had tried losing weight in high school with weight watchers or no carbs or I'd go a day without any sugar and then binge the next. Basically, I had lost all respect for myself because I never kept the promises I made to myself. My self talk was destroying me. I was a serial quitter and it spread into about every aspect of my life.

After three years of gaining weight and countless evenings crying on the phone to my mom, I decided to make a change. I was reading French Women Don't Get Fat and a lot of what the author talked about resonated with me. I didn't want to be on a diet, I didn't want to only eat vegetables, I didn't want to be the person who wasn't any fun to go out with because "sorry, I'm on a diet," but I knew I had a problem. The truth is, I was addicted to food. Eating food was how I coped. Stressed about an exam - eat food. Feeling lonely - eat way too much alone in my dorm room while I watched TV. In these moments, I barely tasted what I was eating and I hated myself so much during and afterward that I'd go into a spiral of negative self talk inside my head. I finally realized that Spring that I had to fix my relationship with food. If I continued to abuse food, I'd never be completely free from it's grasp, I might be able to manipulate it to lose weight, but it would still have power over me.

I set out with a basic and mostly fool proof plan to lose weight and address the underlying issue. I didn't have much confidence when I started, but each time I stuck to the small commitment I'd made, I believed more in myself and not only did I lose weight but I wasn't constantly crying and hating myself. 

Here's what I committed to: 

1. I committed to being aware when I ate. I would only eat half of the portion size I usually did (any food was game), and if I was still hungry, I could eat more. I committed to tasting the food I was eating. I ate slowly, I always sat down, with a real plate and I specifically savored each bite. I started to really enjoy what I ate, but I also monitored how full I felt throughout a meal. If I wanted tiramisu, I drove to go get my favorite and I ate it slowing with intention and with a real fork and plate.

2. I committed to journaling my feelings either before or after eating. If I overate, I would journal why I had overeaten and then forgive myself and recommit to journaling before eating next time, so I didn't eat my emotions. This was what I had never been able to do before, recommit after a mistake. Each time I forgave myself and started again, I built trust in myself.

3. Finally, I committed to running three times a week. I set up what days and times I would run based on my class schedule. I had absolutely no excuse not to go. I literally started running for 5 minutes and then I walked the rest of the 30 minutes. A week later, I ran 6 minutes and walked 24 minutes, and so it went, until I was able to run a full 30 minutes, very slowly. 

4. I committed to praying EVERY day. I prayed a short scripted prayer every day asking God to help me be healthy and I put this struggle in His hands. 

Over the course of the next year, I paid attention to my body and my clothes, but getting on the scale was just confirmation of what I already knew. Slowly, very slowly, weight came off. I think I lost about 15 pounds in a year and then another 10 in the next year. Since then, I have lost about another 5 or so depending on if I'm training for a half marathon or pregnant or postpartum. It was never really about the weight, the weight was the symptom of my addiction and as that lifted, I didn't worry as much about the number on the scale.

Not only did I lose the weight, I finally trusted myself. I finally discovered I could stick to something and I have used these tactics now for every other goal I've set in my life. Today, I can tell you with complete honesty that I eat whatever I want, but I only eat when I'm hungry and I always stop when I'm full. More importantly - FOOD DOESN'T CONTROL ME - and I'm not a serial quitter anymore.

Grandpa Stayanoff

As I've matured, mortality has started to have more depth of meaning. Each time someone I know dies, it cements the realization that life does have an end and we cannot know the day nor the hour of its arrival. I have found myself much more aware of the need to be ready for the true purpose of my life, to reach heaven. At each discovery of death, I have this intense and anxious moment of prayer toward heaven, asking that the dearly departed will reach God as quickly as possible.

My Grandpa died last week and while I know that death can be the most beautiful and most important part of our existence, it doesn't take away the need to mourn the death of someone in my life. Grief is hard to understand and for me personally, it has come in waves. I also want to celebrate and remember the life of the person, to verify my own experience with him, process the life of my grandpa and put his life in the context of my own.

As a granddaughter, I think I have to good fortune to see the best parts of my grandpa; a generation removed, I have space to see how his life impacted mine through my mom. I am blessed that he passed on some of these things.


Heritage. My grandpa was a first generation American. His parents came over from Macedonia and he didn't speak any English until he went to school and was forced to pick it up. Every school project I had about family history, I interviewed my Grandpa about his, my family history. I feel lucky that my history is so intriguing and that I had the opportunity to discuss it with him many times. I believe that a lot of my grandpa's other qualities and characteristics came from this upbringing that is so different from his future generations. He told me that he started the school year with two white shirts, two white pairs of socks and two pairs of jeans and by the end of the year they were too short, too tight and brownish instead of white. I also remember him talking about how he was so excited when he would go to a friend's house and have hamburgers with cheese slices because at home, on a self-sufficient farm, they had "farm to table" style meals of for example, rabbit stew that his mom would work on and cook all day - this kind of meal was foreign to him!

Garlic. Grandpa loved it and so do I. I don't think there's a Stayanoff that doesn't use garlic in the kitchen and usually, the more, the better. Grandpa was always, in my estimation, a great cook and food was important to any gathering. Eating a meal together happened often at his home and I have lots of memories of his old home with the blue carpet and gas stove and him cooking over the stove and leaning on the island to chat. He had the best homemade vinaigrette dressing I have ever tasted. Naturally, there was garlic in the dressing too. Usually, grandpa had some older style music playing as well. Lest I leave it out, I learned how to make the "world famous slug-o-burgers" from Grandpa as well.

Frugality. Again, I don't think there's a Stayanoff that isn't frugal nor one that keeps anything extra in the house. I am incredibly grateful to my Grandpa for passing down his frugality to my mother so I in turn could learn good spending habits. As a financial advisor, I see the true value in living below your means and not only in order to save for retirement, but also to buy what really has meaning and value to you. It's also thanks to Grandpa that I had some savings bonds to use for my first year of college.

Stubbornness. We all have faults, but some faults can also be a strength. Grandpa stuck to his guns and I like to think I do to, and I have a strong inclination I get this trait from my grandpa through my mom.

Faith. While my grandpa and I never talked a lot about faith, I always knew him to faithfully attend mass each Sunday. I am grateful that he converted to Catholicism and that I was raised Catholic and that we were able to share mass together from time to time. There are two times in my life when I remember my Grandpa talked 'passionately' (in his own way) about his faith. During one of my school interviews with him, he mentioned that the only thing that really matters in this life is faith in God. At another instance, he talked to me about really truly "buying in" to the Catholic faith and all it teaches, just as he had. Finally, soon before his death he welcomed a priest to his home for his last sacraments, confession and Eucharist. This, this is exactly what I pray wholeheartedly for, that all who are dear to me, truly discover why it is we are here on Earth and that we may all be reunited one day together in Heaven.

The last time I saw my Grandpa he was in great spirits, he was sweet and kind and I was able to give him one last smooch on his cheek. As I walked away, I looked back to wave goodbye with his daughter in front of me and my daughter in my arms he waved a sweet goodbye wave with a sweet smile that I will remember forever.

Thank you, Grandpa, for being in my life and shaping many parts of who I am.