Girls trip to Cabo (travel recap)!

Do you ever think "I wish I had a job that allowed me more time to travel?"

I used to have that thought in the back of my mind. Well, I'm learning that I have to be careful what I wish for because this year has been chock full of adventures and trips!

Last Friday I leapt out of bed at 4am to escape cold, dark, chilly Chicago for the sunshine and turquoise waters of Los Cabos, Mexico for a long weekend. It was an incredible trip and I'm excited to share some of my pictures and stories!

My friend Kathleen and I traveled to Cabo together to celebrate the destination wedding of our mutual friend Deidre at Dreams Los Cabos Resort and Spa. This was our first time to Cabo and we had no idea what we were in for.

Well, after two endlessly long flights, a bajillion hours processing through customs, and navigating the gauntlet of overly ambitious drivers waiting to pounce on us at the airport (shit, I made eye contact... "do you need a driver? a ride? boyfriend for the week?" just keep walking), we made it to the edge of the Baja Peninsula and were greeted by our friendly airport shuttle driver Alfredo, who entertained us with stories and beers while he zoomed us down the highway to the coast.

And soon we arrived at THIS magical place!

The resort literally just re-opened a few weeks ago after being devastated by a hurricane last year, and it took our breath away.

The tip of the Baja peninsula is covered with craggy mountains, vegetation and cacti in a blend that reminded me of a cross between Cancun and Arizona, and the land edges up to the most beautiful turquoise waves of the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez.

Kathleen and I quickly settled into our new routine.

It's not hard to love your life when you're living in the lap of all-inclusive luxury and great service! 

It was really fun to travel with a fellow Tone It Up girl because we have the exact same lifestyle quirks.

Our ideal vacation day begins by waking up early around 6am, ordering a "pre-breakfast" room service snack of toast, coffee and tea, and fresh fruit, and then wandering out to the beach for a HIIT workout.

Then we would get showered and dressed in our bikinis and cover ups before wandering down to the breakfast buffet for a mimosa-soaked feast. 

Then comes a couple of quiet hours under our shady cabana listening to the waves and relaxing before a light al fresco lunch, and then meeting up with the rest of the wedding party for cocktails and an afternoon at the pool!

The wedding itself was absolutely magical. I've never been to a destination wedding before, and being there to celebrate Deidre and Howard with a small group of their closest friends and family was extremely special.

After we all sobbed our way through the ceremony, we were treated to champagne, appetizers, and a three piece string Mexican band before our dinner on the terrace overlooking the beach!

Seriously. I can't even believe these pictures are real.

We all sat around one gorgeously arrayed communal table.

And spent the evening drinking, eating, laughing, and celebrating with the happy couple!

I absolutely love love love weddings, but this one was really something extra special.

Kathleen and I made the excellent decision to spend an extra day at the resort after the wedding. 

We loved trying out all the restaurants and making friends with the staff. I think they were amused by two young women traveling together :)

It's really hard for me to take a few days "off" to completely relax and unplug (and I admit I checked my email a couple times), but overall this trip was the first time I've ever taken an official vacation for myself.

It's surreal to be able to experience places like this.

Two years ago I would never have believed I'd be traveling all over the world multiple times a year, and I'd be feeling trapped by my 9-5, hoarding my limited vacation days to see my family for Christmas.

Now I'm in the middle of literally designing the lifestyle of my dreams, and I'm finally starting to believe that I am worth experiences like this. It's pretty crazy and a little overwhelming, and the process is long and hard, but I will never take it for granted.

Honestly, it's kind of hard for me to share this trip because I don't want to come off as bragging or "look at me, my life rocks!"

But quite frankly, my life does rock right now. I am literally happier than I've ever been. And I want to feel that happiness without dampening or second-guessing it.

Most of all, I want to SHARE this feeling because I want you to feel this way too.

For the first time in my life, hard work is paying off, I don't have to change to fit a mold or squeeze into someone else's expectations, and I am free to travel and design the life that I wouldn't even ALLOW myself to dream about even one year ago.

What are YOUR dreams?

And most of all, how do you want to feel about your life?

Giving myself permission to ask and answer both those questions has changed everything.

xo Anna

October Life Update!

Oh hello!

I started this post to share a life update on what's been going on over here in my corner of the world, and it turned into a heart-fuelled vent session! Such is life, haha. 

So I'll start with the updates, and then if you want to get a peek into the inner workings of my mind, you can read on ;)

First of all, October! It's October. One of my favorite months of the year!

Ben and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary!

We had an amazing dinner at a local restaurant, Gather. Highly recommend if you're ever in Lincoln Square!

I finally feel like we've reached adulthood. Being able to go out and completely enjoy a multi-course meal and cocktails at a nice restaurant (without worrying about the cost or calories) is bliss.

And yes, marriage rocks.

We road-tripped down to my hometown in central Illinois to celebrate my 10 year high school reunion. It. was. a. TRIP.

It was also the weekend of our high school homecoming, and I gave my little sister Nicole her first hair straightener as a combo birthday/freshman survival present :)

I've been spending a lot of time outside just soaking in the glorious fall weather and getting back into a running routine.

Running has been really therapeutic for me lately, just a chance to get outside, THINK, and clear my head.

I have gone on a FULL OUT creative bender.

Throwing my business books and hustle to the sidelines to re-connect with my inner feminine energy and creativity, after way too many months and years of ignoring her.

Starting to learn how to live from my values and how I want to FEEL, instead of trying to get shit done 24/7 and feeling inadequate if I don't measure up to random external markers of success.

Basically...breaking up with goals, pressure, expectations, and the idea of "productivity."

SO HARD but so worth it! 

Lots and lots of journaling, candles, and turning my home office/studio/gym into a cozy retreat.

OH! And I'm also working on phasing caffeine out of my daily life. Yeahhhh. It just gives me too much anxiety and makes me feel like shit! Seriously, I feel like as I start to accept my emotionally sensitive nature, I'm becoming more and more physically sensitive too. It's weird but I don't really miss my daily coffee habit! Chai tea, fun herbal blends from David's Tea, and decaf Americanos have been my new BFF's.

On the work front, I have been letting my energy and heart guide me. It feels amazing. I won't spill the beans because I'm in development stages, but stay tuned for more!

So that's the external update!

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Here's my internal update...

It's been a couple weeks since I dramatically announced I was breaking up with my ego and over-riding my inner critic, fears, and doubts.

And since then, well, I've been going through a particularly INTENSE phase of growing, expanding, seeking, and reconnecting with my creativity.

I haven't been blogging but I HAVE been writing. Journaling and brain dumping and purging my heart onto Word documents and Google Docs and the pages of my notebook. It's like there's this spirit inside of me that's desperate to get out, and I can barely keep up with it. When I can't keep up with it, or when I ignore it because it's uncomfortable, or when I distract and numb myself with "busy work," it makes me feel physically sick and anxious.

I know the spirit is me, my soul connected to God, this inner wisdom, and it's REALLY weird and  freaky. I'm here to share a message, and I know deep down what that message is, but I"m still struggling to fully embody it myself.

You are enough. You are creative. You are meant to be happy and share love with other people. You are a leader. You are worthy of all your desires and dreams. Step up and rise.

It's like I am in the process of giving birth to something that's huge and beautiful and I don't really know what it is yet, but I'm learning to be ok with living in the uncertainty and the process.

I'd be more scared, except I've been inundated with signs and coincidences and teachers who seem to appear in my life out of nowhere and support my discoveries and breakthroughs.

One of these teachers is Elizabeth Gilbert. I've been reading her new book, Big Magic, and she's teaching me that it's ok to be creative. It's ok to live with fear. It's ok to feel like there's this restless, burning OBSESSION that wakes me up at 5:30 am, keeps me constantly feeling on edge, and drives me to be constantly seeking and exploring and experimenting. That obsession is simply inspiration.

I've been dealing with days of intense joy and calm and purpose, alternating with days of anxiety and fear. The closer I get to who I'm meant to be...the louder my fears and insecurities start screaming at me.

The more you feel like breaking down, the closer you are to a breakTHROUGH.

Anxiety, for me, is misplaced creative energy. When I finally buckle down to write, or create, or get into the flow, the anxiety goes away. I'm still trying to figure out if all this restless energy is a good thing... or if it's a clinical disorder... 

I don't know. This year has been intense in general. I was just telling Ben how I feel like I'm going through some massive awakening right now, and he was just like, "aren't you always?"

Yeahhh. It's been over a year and a half since I started feeling this nagging aching stirring deep in my heart and gut. I guess it had been there for even longer, but I had chosen to ignore it until finally it got so loud and uncomfortable I was forced to take action.

Question the path I was on, launch a coaching business, learn how to follow my heart, quit my job, learn and grow and expand and explore and ultimately it's just been a big, long, hard process of coming home to myself.

Self discovery.

I'm slowly getting used to the idea that I'm not who I thought I was. I am so much bigger than that.

I am here on earth to be creative and joyful and share that light with others.

The Anna I completely lost touch with as I spent age 14 to age 27 convinced I needed to pursue a career in science.

The thing about science is that it's so freaking linear and competitive, and it kind of squashes out any room for creativity.

But science = jobs, and creativity = struggling. Right? WRONG.

There was a point along the way when I realized that I would rather hike in the mountains simply for the sheer joy of immersing myself in nature, instead of trying to scientifically name each flower and collect data and turn it all into a rigorous and dry scientific publication. But I couldn't accept that.

My whole adult life I've been living under this idea that I need to BE someone, and DO something with my life. Get a job. Have an easily understandable job description.

When really, all I need to do is be myself.

But who is she? THAT my friend, is what I'm figuring out.

I am in the long, extended, lifelong process of breaking up with the old me, the scientist, the achiever, the perfectionist. And coming back home to the imaginative, creative, visionary leader.

Learning how to relax and trust the process, instead of striving towards goals and achievements.

Learning to accept that I am already enough.

And helping other women crack open their hearts to accept the possibility that THEY are already enough too.

Whew! Yup, so many ideas and feels swirling around. I'm sure they'll make their way onto the blog when the time is right. Thanks for reading and following along :)

xo Anna

How to break up with your ego

Happy October!

This month I'm starting my second round of Jess Lively's e-course, Life With Intention Online, which is focused on values-based living, creating a sense of fulfillment, and tuning into your intuition. It's coming at a perfect time for me! Jess is one of my favorite spiritcrushes, and speaks directly to my over-achieving, perfectionist, creative soul.

Funny story: I wrote most of this post yesterday, when I had a glorious, calm, anxiety-free day and was celebrating my Ego break-up. Well, the ego is a sneaky beast. It woke me up at 4:30 this morning and wouldn't shut up (you're not doing enough, your business is growing too slow, you need to push harder, don't fool yourself, etc etc) as if to say YOU'RE NEVER GETTING RID OF ME MUAHAHAH!

That's the whole point, I guess. Your ego isn't something you can ever overcome, because it's always going to be a part of you.

And I'm not writing this blog from the position of an expert who has OVERCOME all my issues (cue gospel chorus). 

I'm writing it as a normal girl who has a tendency to take life too seriously and is still in the trenches processing my own shiz too.

What I'm learning: as soon as we have a break through or start to commit to making a positive change in our lives, our inner mean girl voice will start blaring at us to second guess ourselves because she wants to hold us back and dramatize everything. If we listen to the negative voice and get caught in our emotions, that's when we sabotage ourselves. (Have you ever lost weight and then gained it all back? Yup.)

That is lesson one. Your ego = your inner critic.

Lesson two: it is not real.

But now I'm getting ahead of myself...

Do you see the whiteboard calendar behind this gorgeous half-wilted bouquet from my Grandma's farm? I didn't even notice when I took the picture, but note all the goals and deadlines I set for myself....I didn't accomplish ANY of them!

In fact, I'd say my biggest accomplishment in September has been releasing my dependency on the eternal goal-race.

This weekend I took a big trip to Iowa to visit my college roommate and her new baby girl, and then stopped by to visit my grandma and Uncle on their farm in the Quad Cities where I went to college. One of my biggest values is connection, which includes connecting to the places and people I love. Needless to say, this weekend was super fun, a great chance to re-focus and center on my priorities, and also gain some clarity on the bigger picture of my endless question “what am I doing with my life?”

I ended up driving for over 12 hours by myself, through the cornfields, listening to podcasts and sometimes just sitting in silence.

Having the freedom to choose my own schedule and take 4 day weekends or trips whenever I want is one of my favorite parts of working for myself, but it doesn't come without its own costs.

I took a lot of trips this summer, either by myself or with Ben. And everytime we spent a weekend (or week) out of town, instead of reveling in the freedom of being self employeed and married to a teacher on break, I felt a little overwhelmed at balancing work and life. I felt like if I didn’t get to use the weekend as a chance to catch up on errands and chores and emails, I’d set myself behind. So every time I went out of town, I felt stressed out when I returned.

But this weekend was different. I took Monday off so Tuesday was my first day “back at the office.” Tuesday night Ben tentatively asked me how my day went, expecting em to vent about how overwhelmed I was. But instead of feeling overwhelmed by diving back into work and CATCHING UP, and feeling like I need to sprint to get back where I was (aka how I’ve felt after every other weekend trip this summer), I have been feeling a surprising and welcomed sense of calm and peace.

I’m finally creating boundaries around my expectations, and giving myself permission to slow down and honor my energy instead of pushing through. I’m living in the questions and the uncertainty instead of pretending I need to know all the answers, like, yesterday.

I’m finally choosing to break up with my ego.

• Do you ever feel like you're stuck inside your head? Like you are controlled by your fear and anxiety, and always blowing things out of proportion?
• Do you base your sense of value and self-worth on external achievements like promotions, a number on the scale, relationship status, getting another degree....but then you're never satisfied because the more you achieve the farther you still have to go?
• Do you hold yourself back because you're afraid of failure?
• Is it hard for you to just be present and still (in church, doing yoga, in bed), without your brain spinning and spewing uncontrollable thoughts, or without compulsively reaching for your phone or food to distract yourself?

If so, you might need to ego-check yo'self too.

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What’s an ego?

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Your ego is not an inflated sense of self.

Your ego is that little negative voice inside your head. Your inner critic. You know, the one that tears you down and tells you that you aren’t enough, you are too fat, you aren’t pretty, you will always be a failure, you suck, you don’t deserve to be happy, etc etc.

It’s the voice that loves to-do lists and goal setting and making vision boards, it tells you that you have to hitch your wagon to achievements, that life is a competition, that if you don’t “measure up” you’ll be a worthless failure.

The voice that tells you you’ll never live up to your own expectations. The emotion, the fear.

It lives in the past (re-hashing conversations and analyzing how you could have done better), or the future (future-tripping and worrying about things that havne't hapened yet.)

But you know what? Your ego is NOT you. And you are in control of whether or not you CHOOSE to listen to it.

As a reforming perfectionist, my ego and I have a particularly complicated relationship. It has been my Achilles heel since I left my job last summer to build my coaching business full time. The thing is, I am addicted to chasing success and to-do lists, and with the incredible structure and recognition system that I get from Beachbody, it’s easy to lose sight of my bigger picture and get swept up in the "success vortex" and comparison trap.

TRUTHBOMB: Success is a mindset. Feeling overwhelmed is a mindset. And your mindset is a CHOICE.

This summer was fast and intense, and early in September I hit a breaking point where I didn’t really break, but I just felt icky. Uncomfortable. Not myself. I felt like I was pushing myself and my coaches too hard, and not stepping back to think about how we actually want to feel.

So this month I decided to take a step back. To slow my roll. To break my streak of “wins” and break up with my ego.

I "failed" to hit some goals and benchmarks in my business this month, but I'm ok with that! I'm choosing to lay off the pressure and be nicer to myself.

Breaking up with your ego (and the old you) is hard. It’s heartbreaking. It is painful and you will feel emotional and physical GRIEF. You will have moments of extreme self doubt. You will relapse.

But it’s ok. Keep moving forward. Surround yourself with positive, supportive friends who get you and aren't  judgmental. If none of your friends or family understand what you're going through, shoot me an email and vent away! I would love to be your friend and hold space as you process your mini-crisis. I am there with you, I totally understand. You are not going crazy :)

Most of all, don’t suppress the feels!

Ready?? Here we go...

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How to break up with your ego

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STEP ONE: Awareness

Simply start to become aware of the thoughts and feelings inside your mind. What are you saying to yourself? I like to journal stream-of-conscious style first thing every morning to siphon the chatter off my brain, which really helps me feel more calm and centered!

Recognize that there's a difference between the voice, and your actual deepest self.

E.g. if you think "I hate myself," there are two identities at play. The "I," and the "self." Yeah I know, this is trippy and getting deep. Stay with me!

STEP TWO: Separation

Once you become aware of this mental chatter, start to separate yourself from it. You don't have to conquer or eliminate your ego, because it's not really bad. It's just another part of who you are! But you CAN choose not to listen to what it's saying. If you ignore it, it will get quieter. (A general lesson I've learned as the oldest sister of 4, hahaha).

STEP THREE: Patience + Forgiveness

Your ego is always going to bubble back up, but now that you are aware of it, you don't have to let it control your emotions and sense of self worth any more. Be really really really really patient with yourself, and forgive yourself whenever you slip back into abusive or negative thought patterns. You're just human :)

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If you want to learn more about your ego, check out Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now, or Marianne Williamson's A Return to Love!

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So there you have it, a peek inside my mind. Good lord this stuff is hard to write, but it does feel good to get off my brain, haha.

Did this post spark something in you? I would LOOOOVE to hear!! Shoot me an email and share your story!

xo Anna

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