So I have been doing my toe sit ups and foot stretches and ankle exercises and I have to admit. MY FEET ARE KILLING ME!! HA HA!! But I know when you start doing new things you are going to be soar.
But actually considering I have been living with over pronation for a long time I am seeing a difference.my feet actually dont look pancake flat anymore!! WOO HOO! And it didn't take all that long to see some of the changes either. But, old habits do die hard.
When I walk I have to mentally remember not to sickle my feet so I can push of on my big toe and keep my foot facing forward. in order to do that I have to constantly remind myself to physically lift my arches while walking or doing any other tasks. It is easy to feel lazy and just say you will give yourself a break or not worry about it but I know I cant do that. If I want to solve this issue I have to be as consistent as possible.
I want to consistantly work on my arch strength for a lest a month. Perhaps after that I will be less hard on myself but the way I see it, I will have to keep with the exercises for the rest of my life to avoid injury and fallen arches all aover again.
Lately I have been meditating on the word "taking cause of yourself" and thinking a great deal about what that really means. When I was a kid I went through some experiences that made me feel like I was ignored and no one cared about me. Many of us in fact have had this. Sometimes I think that is why some of us become artists. We were sad and felt alone and we loved drawing and creating and expressing our selves and people applauded our work and it made us feel good and it was just a way to really escape. But the thing I also don't realize is that the life of an artist is one where a great deal of hours of your life is spent away from people and isolated in your own world.
That is ok for some but an artist also needs to feel love and affection and all these other things so you have to change your thoughts and be able to go out and meet loving affectionate people. When I felt like no one cared about me as a child I also decided I wasn't good enough to be cared about and I have noticed now that that decision to not care for myself also gave others permission not to care. It is like a weird cycle. How can an individual that does not take care of themselves or respect themselves or love themselves bring that same love and respect they desire into their life? Even if it is standing in front of their face they would be blind to it cause they don’t think they are worth loving.
You stand in a mirror in the morning before school and say you hate yourself and you are ugly and then you go to school and someone spits in your face or calls you fat. The question is, did they spit in your face because they hate and don’t care about you or is it the reverse, cause you don’t care about yourself the other person saw you as a target for taking out their own anger and self-hatred.
I had an experience once as a kid where a bully was teasing me calling me names and honestly the stuff they were saying was so ridiculous that I just started laughing!! Not the reaction they were looking for. I laughed so hard they walked away and that person never bothered me again. Thing is I didn’t believe any of the stuff they were saying was true or let it hurt me. But what if I had, would they have come back for more teasing and downgrading? Positivity can be disarming in a negative situation.
So, now the question I am asking myself is what does it really mean to take care of myself. Does it mean I tell myself how much I love myself and made other people love me as I deserve to be cared for. What are the actions I take that allow me to prove to myself I care. I know one thing I would do. Stop punishing myself with food. I would say Arie you deserve more than a night of binge eating in from of a TV by yourself. And my action in return would be choosing to do something that would make me feel good instead of eating garbage.
Changing that thought would allow me to make a better decision.I might say hey I love dancing lets go dance instead. I think that taking care of yourself means recognizing your own destructive behavior and deciding you deserve better and them choosing to do something loving and nurturing for your self.
So what if you are feeling lonely and unloved cause the person you thought loved you did something you didn’t like. All you really want after that experience is to feel loved and accepted and maybe even be hugged by some loving arms. But what if there are no loving arms around. Well who is to say that someone else giving you that embrace would truly make you feel better. You might get 1000 hugs from 1000 different people, but until you accept that you deserve better than the mistreatment you received and in a since embrace yourself and pamper and love you, you will always feel hurt. ALWAYS!!! You can’t change another person’s thoughts on who they think you are and how they treat you but you can very well change your own and until a person makes a personal decision to do so they will not be able to receive the love they are seeking. I really think life is as simple as that. Doing a good deed is not simply enough you have to do good things for both yourself and other. When I say good things for yourself I mean making yourself look nice cause you like looking nice, taking a walk cause you want to do good things for your body, making healthy food choices and letting go of bad experiences and sadness cause you deserve positivity and to be cheerful and happy.
Stand in front of a mirror and instead of putting yourself down tell yourself how much you love yourself. It isn’t about being vain it is about true self-respect. Cause love really starts with number 1. The old saying that you should treat others as you want to be treated has never been truer. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and do unto yourself as you would have other do unto you.
Ask yourself this question today If I was my friend would I like the treatment I am receiving from my friend. Would you do and say the same things you say to yourself on a daily bases to other people you love and care about.
So I came across this video on youtube called "You can heal your life".
I love how the video starts out because the woman in this vid is completely me. But it is funny cause then they show every person saying the exactly same things to themselves and then you have that one happy person and the woman thinks they are annoying. I know a LOT of people like that. I love being around happy people. They make me feel more positive.
Anyway, so basically the video is about how our thoughts shape our life and how we can make choices to have different thoughts. In a since the thoughts we think can be just like the bad habits we develop. Sometimes the thoughts just happen by default. You will think the same things all the time over and over and it literally shapes the decisions you make.
When I told my karate teacher I could not sit on my knees, He said you are exactly right. Because essentially whether you say you can or you say you can’t you are always right. Honestly I think that is the absolute truth. Example, A person tells themselves they can’t lose weight and they will always be fat. That person in turn, lives out that thought until one day they decide they can lose weight and they will lose weight. Then slowly the weight begins to go away because their actions as a result of that thought will dictate the outcome.
I also think that sometimes we are programmed with certain bad thoughts. Your parents and the people you grow up with. Not to say they are to blame for all of your problems, but really just to say that they often convince us of thing through their own words and actions and we take it to heart and make it part of our lives.
In the bible, it says you should guard yourself, or protect yourself from bad influences. It also says you should choose every word very carefully. I think this idea that thoughts and words shape our lives shows a very good example of why.
If you spend all your time with negative selfish hateful people you will also become a very negative and selfish. Or is it the other way around? If you think negative and selfish thoughts will the only people that you attract or draw into your life be negative and selfish.
That is a crazy thing to think about. If you are a negative selfish unhappy person and you spend all your time with selfless loving people you are bound to change over time. You even transform your approach to life and how you treat others as a direct result. In the end no matter what kind of life you had as a child, as an adult the way you live and the thoughts you have and the words you speak are completely up to you. No matter how bad things may have been YOU as an individual will always have a chance to live as you see fit and change your environment as you see fit.
So I have been taking karate now for about 9 months and my teacher fusses at me a lot about my foot placement. He constantly is telling me I need to turn my feet in!!
So what does turning your feet inward have to do with flat feet. Well What it is medically called it over pronation. The feet basically fall inward cause the arch collapses. It usually starts when you are like 3 years old and your feet are developing.
So what I didn't know was that as a result your feet will turn out to the sides. I have often been teased for walking like a duck. Over time all the muscles in your entire skeleton have to adjust to the incorrect movement of the body so it leads to other problems like problems with posture, back pain, shin splints, heel spurs etc. the list goes on.
Well one of the things I was was researching was why my feet turn out to begin with and how to correct it. There are some different way suggested to resolve the problem. you can get Orthopedic arch supports for one. My mom and grandmother use to force me to wear them as a kid. But I got teased so much about my feet that wearing them made me extremely self conscience. It was like they were confirming that there was something wrong with me so I quickly ran away from it. Not to mention arch supports hurt cause your feet are being forced into a different position. When I was in highschool I went trough a phase where I tried to force myself to walk with my feet pointed forward. Of course I didn't know this wouldn't work unless you raise the arches of your feet so I never could seem to make that work either.
So the question is. How do you get rid of flat feet especially if you don't wear arch supports. (I wish someone had told me this long ago, cause seriously for many years I thought I was just a lost cause.) By exercising your feet.
I use to think man there must be some kind of gristle in other peoples feet that I don't have. Boy was I wrong. Actually the main problem that causes flat feet and over pronation is lack of muscle strength and development in the arches and ankles. WHAT!!! Yes you don't exercise your feet enough.
Basically if you wear shoe all the time. (Like most of us do it will cause weakness in your feet as well as weird muscle and tendon issues.) I once had a roommate that told me that she had flat feet until she started doing ballet in school. Basically, Ballet dancer have feet with the flexabilty and and muscle controls of their hands. Its cause they have to have extremely strong feet and ankles if they want to be able to prance around on there toes all the time.
In fact, most Ballet Dancers have such good muscle control that can actually raise and lower the muscles in the arch of the foot at will. So I did a little more research into the types of exercises and stretches you can do to make your feet and ankles stronger and more flexible. I have almost no range of motion in my feet. I cant sit on my toes like most people can cause I don't have the foot flexibility.
Some things that are suggested are what is called toe sit ups. These things are cool cause you can do them any time you are just sitting around. You don't even really need any specially equipment. I already had a flexy band thing sitting around the house too so I do use that when I do these. I keep it next to my bed and before I go to sleep or get up I do these little exercise.
I can feel it all across my arches and up the edge of my ankles.
some of the other ballet stuff you can do to improve your feet are in this video. I like these cause you can do them while sitting or standing around. nothing special needed.
So there ya go. I never knew I could ever exercise my feet. It is something I rarely hear talked about in sports and exercise programs but it is actually very important for our balance and walking and especially preventing sprained ankles. in fact I am recovering from one right now.
I put in these chunky twists using a little bit of kinky twist hair to fill them out and they look AWESOME!! I have been working on keeping my hair moisturized and learning a great deal about hair PH and protective styles.
Did you know that your hair has a ph Balance of like 4.5 and that if you products that are way above or way below that it is very damaging on your hair. Especially soap. I had been trying got figure out for the longest why my hair was breaking off and I got so irritated that I stopped using shampoo and started doing Conditioning washes. That is where you wash your hair with conditioner basically. I also cut off about 2 inches.
It will grow back.
My hair is so much softer then it had been!! like I am so serious, it doesn't even tangle anymore it is so soft. I guess the shampoo was basically to harsh on it and it was causing my hair to break. I was literally dreading washing it every week cause every time I would go wash it I would have a wigs worth of hair on the floor. I was just pulling it out by the strand. I thought I was going bald!!
So then I found out the ph balance thing and why you shouldn't shampoo to often especially if your stuff is curly. the detergent literally breaks down your hair strand.
Some things I invested in for my hair care this month are:
Aloe Vera Juice (I am also growing my own aloe plant, cant wait till it is big enough to use the leaves in my shea butter mix,
Aubrey Island Naturals conditioner. The stuff is like 10 bucks but I am mixing it with other things and using it as a leave in so it should last a long time.
I usually use Herbal Essences Hello Hydration and a leave in but it has cone in it. Basically cones are like silicone based and they coat your hair strand like a plastic and keep it from getting good moisture. this explains why my hair in the back always feels dry and brittle no matter how much I condition.
I am using Burt's Bees for my conditioning wash cause it smells good and I like it lol. no reason other than that.
Even if I don't post artwork. Been thinking alot about exercise. How often do you exercise. I have gotten a lot stronger over the past year. I started out with trying to do p90x and it was really hard.
I also was doing all these cleanses for a while cause I wanted to lose weight but in the end the biggest benefit was I had muscles. LOL YAY!!
I can actually do like 10 foll extended leg pushups now. I have totally never been able to do that. YAY!!
