Secure Your Mask

I am on my way to the annual leadership retreat offered to all of the leaders on the number 1 team in all of Beachbody. This year, I am heading to sunny Orlando. It will be full of training, masterminding, photo shoots, pool time, yummy cocktails and the best guacamole ever. This house is HUGE and GORGEOUS. Check it out… 

But showing off this amazing house is NOT at all what I intended for this post. I mean, this trip is going to be amazing. Last year, I met and really connected with some incredible women.

Me. The girl who never really had a ton of female friends. The girl who couldn’t stand how catty and awful other women are toward each other. The girl who thought it would be nearly impossible to find a group of such supportive, genuine, happy people.

Currently, I am sitting in the Orlando airport waiting for a few to arrive to pal around with until we can get into the house. I got onto the plane. The flight attendant started going through the usual spiel and something really caught my ear.

“Please secure your mask before helping others.”

I mean, think about it. If the plane is going down, they want you to put on your oxygen mask before you assist other people including children. Why? Because if you don’t have oxygen, you can’t help anyone else. Gosh… what a metaphor for life.

So many of us just push and push and push until we have nothing left. We give and give and give until we are running on fumes. Women are especially guilty of this. We want to take care of our families and put ourselves last. Sometimes, literally to the point of exhaustion. Why do we do this to ourselves? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Yet, I know I am guilty of it at times too. Hell, it’s part of the reason I am so excited to be away on this trip right now.

We need to start thinking like we are on a plane and secure our masks first. Taking a little time each day to do something for ourselves is not wrong. It does not mean we are a bad mother, wife, friend, etc. It means that we care enough about the other people in our lives to make sure we are in tip-top shape and functioning at our highest level.

Of course, for me that is exercising and eating healthy. I surely don’t eat healthy ALL of the time, but the majority of my days include healthy, clean food. Plus, I work out 6 days a week. If I am laying on the couch like a tired blob because I ate too much or I don’t have any energy, how do you think I would be able to get up and play with my little dude whenever he wants to build a “station” with his legos or play baseball in the driveway? If I were overweight, unhealthy and unable to keep up with him running around like a crazy man at Kennywood (a local amusement park for those readers outside of Pittsburgh), how much fun do you think he would have? If I were depressed because of my weight, do you think my husband would enjoy being around me?

I workout and eat healthy because I know it makes me a better person. All around. When I hear people telling me that they don’t have time, I want to cry for them. I don’t have time either. I make time. I make time because I NEED to feel good in my own skin. I want my son to know that I am a confident and happy woman. I want to be a good example for him. He loves to come down and “workout” with me. He has a mean push-up already! That means the world to me that he is seeing how to live a healthy, happy life.

So ladies, please, find that thing that makes you a better person and do it. MAKE time for it. Figure out a way to fit it into your schedule. Because you are being watched. And you deserve to be happy too.