{"id":36,"date":"2016-11-05T18:57:58","date_gmt":"2016-11-05T18:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heididarst.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2016-11-05T18:58:20","modified_gmt":"2016-11-05T18:58:20","slug":"plank-part-2-strengthening-skin-spirit-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/05\/plank-part-2-strengthening-skin-spirit-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 2: The Original Plank Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Humans are comprised of three parts: skin (earth suit and all of its physical components), Spirit (our eternal energy and life source) and soul (mind, will, imagination and intellect).\u00a0 Often, especially in western culture, we focus on the physical realm only.\u00a0 However, research shows the importance of nurturing all three<\/a> parts of of our beings.<\/p>\n

This blog is a continuation of The Original Plank Challenge<\/em><\/a> (Please be sure to read it!).\u00a0 I am journaling my effort to strengthen my physical and spiritual core strength through planking.\u00a0 The physical plank is an exercise of body.\u00a0 The spiritual plank is self-examination and removal of toxic thought or behavior patterns – as Jesus admonishes in\u00a0Matthew 7:5 NIV<\/a> \u201cYou hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother\u2019s eye.”\u00a0 The Original Plank Challenge <\/em>includes my first two days.\u00a0 This entry will include, well, I’m not exactly sure.\u00a0 The number of entries will be determined by how lengthy they are.\u00a0 Ok?<\/p>\n

10\/30<\/strong> 00:25:??\u00a0 I don’t remember the milliseconds, which I will address momentarily.\u00a0 I could not believe I lost ten seconds on this!\u00a0 I had been so happy to see growth between days one and two.\u00a0 However, my lower abdominal muscles just “hung”.\u00a0 I wasn’t certain the reason, and was determined it was a glitch, and that I’d improve by the next day.<\/p>\n

Plank in my eye: Not taking care of myself as I know how to, consistently.<\/p>\n

I walked home from church today with three of my kids.\u00a0 We had had a family fall picnic, which I served through most of it, happily.\u00a0 On the walk home, I became overheated – am still not sure how, because it was not that hot, at least not for south Louisiana.<\/em>\u00a0 I ended up napping for most of the afternoon in effort to shake a headache.\u00a0 I finally remembered to use my peppermint essential oil, which gave enough relief to sleep.\u00a0 I reflected later on the day, and realized I waited, once again, entirely too long to eat that morning, yet had coffee.\u00a0 Caffeine + hypoglycemia + no food is a pretty reliable formula for a headache and nausea.\u00a0 Add standing on my feet (which I enjoyed, not complaining) for three hours to serve hundreds of people.\u00a0 Finally ate.\u00a0 Then, served a little more, drank a little water, then walked a mile home in high 80s heat.\u00a0 Not a rigorous day in itself, but throw in a crazy busy lifestyle, 18 years of overall sleep deprivation, with the last four years not granting a single solid night’s sleep — and the need to take care of myself and prevent episodes is self-evident. I missed out on a Sunday afternoon with my family because I failed to take care of myself properly.<\/em>\u00a0 That’s not loving myself or my family.\u00a0 I can and will do better.<\/p>\n

10\/31<\/strong>\u00a0 00:22:??\u00a0 Again, I failed to properly record my time – perhaps at the shock and disappointment of losing another three seconds.\u00a0 Again, I formed the plank in effort to catch the prematurely started stop watch, and my abdominal muscles were not in proper position. Boo.<\/p>\n

Plank in my eye:\u00a0 Pushing down frustrations and having lower tolerance for kids being kids. Ouch. This one hurt. I desire to always<\/em> respond in love to my children — well, to everyone, but especially<\/em> to my babies.\u00a0 The past few months have been difficult with a particular child.\u00a0 I endeavor not to react, but to respond — doesn’t always happen, but I try.\u00a0 But, I realized on this day that I was being short fused with my other five children because I was frustrated that I saw no effective recourse with one particular child.\u00a0 And, as I was in mid-sentence speaking gruffly to a child, I saw the situation clearly.\u00a0 This was not the first time I deflected frustrations onto an innocent party.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, God told me He wanted me to focus on His joy and our relationship.\u00a0 I have.\u00a0 I need to focus even more on it.\u00a0 When I do, I am amazed at His peace surpassing any human reason or understanding of what could be a very stressful circumstance.\u00a0 A friend asked me recently, “How are you not crying right now?” when she witnessed something.\u00a0 Another friend witnessed something else and asked, “How are you just standing there not going off on ___?\u00a0 If that had been my ____, I’d be going off.” All I can say is: the grace of God and His peace.\u00a0 Going off on someone is not the answer.\u00a0 The situation(s) need(s) to be addressed, yes, but not in a fit of rage.\u00a0 However, in my endeavor to maintain peace throughout these situations, I must ensure I truly cast my cares to my Father and do not cast them indirectly on an innocent bystander.<\/p>\n

11\/01 <\/strong>00:00:00 – Decided to rest my body from the plank for a day.<\/p>\n

Plank in my eye – Not taking the time to properly execute a task if it’s related to “me”… Oy.\u00a0 If we do not love ourselves, we will not properly love others.<\/p>\n

During the time I would have planked, I thought about what I had not done correctly the previous two nights.\u00a0 I realized that rather than reset the stop watch, I rushed into the plank, trying to “set” my form after being in form.\u00a0 To plank effectively and safely, I should tighten my muscles as I position my form.\u00a0 I should not have rushed myself.\u00a0 What would the big deal have been to reset the stop watch?\u00a0 For reasons I will not discuss here, I have avoided spending too much time on myself.\u00a0 No justification for it.\u00a0 I understand why I have done it, and have decided I am worth pushing past the nuances of others’ attitudes and misconceptions of me.\u00a0 I will not allow this to dictate my self-care any longer.\u00a0 Jesus shed His blood for me, endured torment.\u00a0 Surely, I can stand up for myself and truth — but more importantly, love myself enough to return to the discipline of exercise and health that I enjoyed the majority of my life.\u00a0 I will schedule myself accordingly, and purpose time for my health.<\/p>\n

11\/02<\/strong> 01:01:23.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 What is that digit in the minutes section?\u00a0 A one!\u00a0 Yes!\u00a0 I planked for a minute!\u00a0 Happy, happy, happy dance.\u00a0 Elation.<\/p>\n

Plank in my eye –\u00a0 Procrastination.\u00a0 I have not recorded my blog entries for the past few days.\u00a0 Must.Do.Better.\u00a0 But, life happens at a fast pace, and the bed calls rather loudly at the end of full, fast days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Humans are comprised of three parts: skin (earth suit and all of its physical components), Spirit (our eternal energy and life source) and soul (mind, will, imagination and intellect).\u00a0 Often, especially in western culture, we focus on the physical realm only.\u00a0 However, research shows the importance of nurturing all three parts of of our beings. This blog is a continuation of The Original Plank Challenge (Please be sure to read it!).\u00a0 I am journaling my effort to strengthen my physical…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40,"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heididarst.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}