#hausbaus

The Power of YES!

I knew holding on to resentment was only hurting me, and I needed to learn how to let it go. The interesting thing was, it’s not that I needed it to be gone, I just needed to be okay with it being there. When you accept the hurt and acknowledge it, you no longer give it power. This is when the healing really begins. As my wounds began to heal, I was still having a difficult time moving forward. I felt the negative energy and it was not welcomed in my internal or external HAUS. The next book I read changed my outlook on life.

For years I felt like I had a hard time saying no. It wasn’t just work obligations, but with friends, family, and volunteer organizations as well. I started to realize I had it all wrong. Saying no was not what I needed to learn, but actually saying YES! I needed to change my way of thinking, and saying YES! to everything was key. “Year of Yes” by Shonda Rhimes was the book that taught me the power of YES! For those of you who don’t know the writer, she is most famous for writing Greys Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder. Shonda writes about when she was challenged by her sister to say YES! to everything for an entire year. Shonda was at the peak of her career, yet was not happy with herself. She was overweight, in a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere, and as she hit goal after goal, she wasn’t feeling the happiness she thought she would. I related to Shonda on so many levels. I realized I wasn’t the only one struggling to find happiness in a world that I should have been ecstatic in. Shonda and I had different journeys in some aspects. Shonda was an introvert trying to break out of her shell, while I had everyone fooled that I was Holliethebombdotcom. It’s a role I could play well, but that’s not how I really felt on the inside. Shonda writes “I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass.” Now Holliethebombdotcom said that, but the real Hollie did not believe that. Even now, after months of working on myself, I often say “I’m not sure why all this good is happening to me”. My mother reminds me that I’ve worked my ass off, that’s why. I also couldn’t have done it without God. Having a negative mindset is something I think a lot of us struggle with, and even now, I have to constantly change my thinking to a YES! mentality rather than NO.

If you believe that what you put out, you get back, then why are so many of us not accepting of the greatness that comes back? I could write an entire book about how we are conditioned as children to believe we are not deserving. Once I began taking in what came my way, it started to multiply. Now we’re to the 17th power. I now come to every situation, relationship, or conflict with two key things in mind. Being open and honest. Open to possibilities and all outcomes. Also, open to other people perceptions of things and respecting their outlook. Honesty is the harder one. Not being honest with people but being honest with yourself. Honest about why I’m making a decision or feeling a certain way and making sure I’m honestly being and not playing a role. I say “being” instead of “being myself” because the minute you start trying to “be yourself” the trying takes away the actual being.

30lbs without exercising, say what?

The next week I did a follow up with my primary physician, who gave me some steroids and an anti-inflammatory; in addition to getting an x-ray, MRI and starting physical therapy three times a week. So, I might not have done all those things, but I did do most. Then the next sentence he said was what changed my lifestyle, “Hollie you look great, but losing the weight will only help.” Ohhhhh the weight… Why did he have to say that? Now it was no surprise to me that I had gained weight, but I loved my curvy body. I was in love, traveling and eating my way through one city at a time. To say I gained 30lbs in one year is very hard. The fact that I didn’t do something about it sooner, I still can’t understand. I will say one thing; I think you can love your body at whatever size you are, and not everyone should be a size 2. We are all different shapes and sizes, but there is one key thing that is important. “Do you love yourself at the size you are?” and more importantly “are you taking care of your body?” For me, the answer was no. I was depressed, I was drinking a lot every night due to the stress of opening our brokerage in a day, and I was eating out all the time. I noticed that now, it was even hard bend down to shave my legs because I had gotten so out of shape. I also would blame my back on why it was difficult to put shoes on. I felt awful about myself. Instead of changing my diet, I would pour myself another glass of wine and sulk. Losing weight is harder now than ever before because society is so hung up on LOVE WHO YOU ARE, just the way you are. It enables bad behavior. Instead we should be encouraging healthy lifestyle changes and taking it one day at a time. I was at rock bottom. Fearful of having my back fail me again was the wakeup call that it needed to happen now and it needed to happen fast. So what did I do??? NOW FULL DISCLOSURE, I have no nutrition or fitness background at all, so I’m not saying for you to do what I did. It’s just what worked for me.

DIET IS THE ANSWER For years, I have yo-yoed back in forth in weight, so I needed something that I hadn’t done before to make sure it was a lifestyle change and not a temporary fix. What I recognized was over the years I was working out to be able to eat and drink the things I wanted. So naturally, as life sped up, I started to cut out work outs and would find myself 10-20lbs up or down each year. This wasn’t an option, because in the beginning I was not allowed to work out at all. So, what did I do? I focused on what I put into my body. Now a “normal diet” is for an active person, and I was the opposite of that. At first it was tough, because I was so used to overeating.

I started by cutting out all alcohol, dairy, limiting protein and soy products. I was also making sure my carbs were for energy and not for pleasure. For years I’ve heard protein, protein, protein… but they are talking about active people, again that was not me. So all that “protein” was just turning into fat. About that fat; not only did I cut out dairy, but all high fat foods and even things like “nuts”. My philosophy is “If I’m fat why would I be eating it?” As my doctor started giving me permission for “light” workouts, I gradually incorporated more “good fats and proteins” into my diet. I also only ate things I craved. Now with all the “bad” things eliminated from my diet, I continued to make good choices, but it was only what I wanted to eat and not just sticking to a schedule.

You might be wondering with all the explanations of what I didn’t eat’ “well… what the hell did she eat then?” Honestly, mostly vegetables were used as my main source of food with added in carbs and proteins. I was never one to buy organic until Trader Joes came along and it became affordable. Now on Sundays I go to the local farmers market and get as much as I can there. The amount of difference in taste will shock you. I figured out that when you are buying local and fresh, you don’t need to add oil or salt. The vegetables taste amazing by themselves.

We are going to start in January 2017.

Not because that’s when it began but because my attorney told me not to get sued over a blog and because it wasn’t until then change really started to happen. Not just any change the internal one, you know the one you read about in books. For prolog purposes only, I opened brokerage in the shortest amount of time possible, one day. No that wasn’t a typo, one day. Not the one day I decided to open a brokerage kind but literally one day I applied to the State of Florida and the next they said you have a brokerage which was great because the previous employer wasn’t available. Now that’s all I’m going to say about that.

For the first few months of HAUS, myself, Stephanie, and Sylvia, my old neighbor then, my life line now, were just trying to keep our heads above water. Trying to figure out how to continue doing business and somehow figure out how run a brokerage, starting from scratch. Now anyone who knows me, knows I am a planner and do not like any surprises or winging it. I actually avoid these things. But here I was opening a company in a day. Something I would have planned for a year or two had it been my idea but once again we aren’t going to start back then we will start from January. Needless to say within five months we got our shit together. Like really got our shit together. People started loving the brand, loving the marketing, started sending us lead after lead and ready or not we said GO!

So, what happened in January that drastically changed my life? An injury. I woke up one morning late as usual trying to get my amazing daughter Giuliana to school on time. Half way ready I dropped her off and I ran home to finish my hair, walked up the stairs and that was it. I fell, actually not even that bad. I would like to say I fell down an entire flight of stairs and it was all dramatic but it wasn’t, it was more of a slip. Then I realized I could not get up. Have you ever had your body fail you? I mean really fail you. Here I laid half way on the stairs, half way in the hallway and could not stand up. Now I did have issues with my back previously when I was pregnant with Giuliana. You know the Giuliana that is now 5 going on 35, I just rolled my eyes while writing, I’m in trouble with that one…but the back pain I had felt during pregnancy and the years after never was like this. When I say I couldn’t get up, I mean that. I finally army crawled after many minutes which felt like hours to my bed and slowly pulled myself up.

For 3 days I laid helpless with only having my five year old or my boyfriend at the time to help me to the bathroom. I was 31 years old and I could not walk. I imagined my future would be like Stephen Hawking. Cue the self pity card and also I just compared myself to a genius, now that's something I really should be analyzing. I’m not one to be about toilet talk but I had to hold back the tears when sitting down to pee and couldn’t even do the other thing that’s how much pain I was in. Over the next 3 days I thought a lot. I mean what else can you do besides feel bad for yourself when you’re lying in bed at 31 years old and you think your back is broken and you will never walk again.