Attention is love
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Attention is love
How are you doing, my friends? With the war raging in Ukraine where its citizens are not just fighting for their lives and country but also our democracy it can feel impossible or improper to talk about things like weight loss, self-care and wellbeing. After spending the first week doomscrolling I was able to find a balance of donating and petitioning while keeping my news exposure to a few select sources. I am most definitely not qualified to make any assessments or predictions about this conflict and all I can do, in addition to supporting those who are helping on the ground, is hope that humanity and love will prevail in the end.
While my weight loss journey has no bearing on the world at large it is oddly something that gives me a sense of purpose and comfort. With that in mind I made a few small changes around here to bring me into better alignment with where I want to be.
Over the years this blog has seen many iterations and names: Gipsylife, Dear Diet Monster, New Life Monday, The Reluctant Cook and, most recently, Autumn Diaries. Which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, I move around a lot in real life as well, so why wouldn’t I do the same with my digital homes?
There are many reasons why I enjoy moving and why it’s so hard for me to stand still and root myself in one place. I love discovering new places as well as the promise and thrill of new beginnings. I embrace change, it makes me feel alive. However, I have also learned that there is an element of escape in all of this, in many ways moving has been a very effective strategy for dealing with my anxieties.
This year, however, there is a voice that keeps getting louder that says:
Stay.
Stay the course. Stay where you are. Simplify. And pay attention.
Simplify has actually been a big theme in my business over the last year and I am feeling the same pull in my personal life. My decision to move back to “Write More. Weigh Less.” came when I was reminded that I was paying for two websites – Autumn Diaries and this one where I still had the planners – and the subscription for this one was up this week. I realized that I wanted to streamline and merge everything back into one website and also return my full focus to being a weight loss blog. I’ve been on this journey a long time and it looks like I am not done with it, after all. I am just done with the attention switching.
It’s very interesting, as I was merging the two websites including my old blog that I started in 2005 (which is no longer published but I still have all the original posts) I re-read some of my previous entries from when I was doing well on my weight loss journey. In the past this always made me feel depressed because ‘I had it and then I lost it again’ and subsequently I would throw in the towel and declare that I was done with it all because clearly it wasn’t working. This time, however, I decided to take a different viewpoint: those months when I was in flow with my program were good times when I felt alive, present and engaged. My self-care was excellent, I ate well and my physical and mental health were improving. I not only know how to do this, I have done it. And every time I leave and eventually come back to this path is a step closer to the point where the gaps in between are getting smaller until one day this will be how I live my life: paying attention and feeling lighter in body and mind.
I retained the format of the Autumn Diaries blog because I love how simple it is. My decision to not turn my weight loss journey into a business stands for now, and I only offer the planners for sale because people often ask me about them. I am almost finished with the January-March planner and amazingly I’ve been using it almost every day, even when my eating wasn’t so great. Again, it’s all about the attention and daily tracking + journaling are really helping with that. I just received the April-June planner and I am genuinely excited to start a new quarter! Feel free to check it out here, there is a blank undated version, too.
Wishing you a calm and bright week,
Kerstin xo