Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and now you should be in full swing celebrating 2019. Yes, you heard me right…C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-I-N-G the New Year! Rather than bogging yourself down with impossible resolutions or stressing out over how you’re going to accomplish your list that’s a mile-long of goals to fulfill throughout 2019, instead rejoice in the newness that is now!
For so many, January is a time of cutting out (carbs), giving up items (Dry January), reflecting on the old and trying to change it (I did too much of this last year, therefore this year I will stop…cold turkey…right now). Not that these are necessarily “bad”, in fact they can be great for you, however I believe it’s all in the approach. And for me, the All or Nothing vibe, although is a perfect “fit” for my Type A, “get it done” personality, backfires in the most epic way and leaves me feeling like I failed. And let me tell you feeling like a failure on January 2nd because you already fell short of your News Year’s Resolution is not a fun feeling.
And so, I was so excited when Arizona Living Producer Melissa presented me with our theme for 2019: New Year, New Challenges. I loved the positive framing! It wasn’t about improving or cutting out, it was about expanding. No more vowing not to eat sugar and instead find myself 3 hours later with empty boxes of cookies, etc. scattered about (because as I mentioned I go big, not home…meaning I don’t “cheat” with one piece of chocolate I see I messed up and go down in the most dramatic fashion ever). Instead, I am promising myself I will have more ready-to-go satisfying and delicious go-to snacks — take that sugar temptation!
Our Rock Climbing episode was the perfect way for me to put this new forward (or should I say upward) thinking to the test. If you’ve promised yourself you’ll get to the gym more, might I suggest the Phoenix Rock Gym. I had never rock climbed, and so attempting it for the first time, while on TV conducting an interview was a “challenge” to say the least. It was the most incredible lesson of “letting go”. Literally, that’s the mantra the instructor said to me several times….when I started thinking too much about where to move my hand next (in climbing you actually want to propel by using your legs first, moving your hands second which is not a “natural” way of thinking so all of a sudden my racing mind was in a meditative state as I focused on my task at-hand, err foot), or when I started to get inside my own head (at about 25 feet up I started to think, I am done, I don’t need to do this anymore…for the record, I pulled it together and did get to the top which is exactly what my mind wanted/needed) and then there was the getting down, yes you had to “let go” then, and free fall down trusting your partner. And while my death grip was at its best to start my landing, by the end I was spinning down and laughing because it felt So great to free fall (never thought I’d say that!)
“Letting go” is not easy for a control freak. It’s a “challenge” but “expanding” my comfort zone for this episode of Arizona Living was liberating. New Year’s Resolutions can make you feel like you have a mountain to climb, but I am here to tell you, that’s okay because you CAN climb it, one rock at a time!
Catch Kate Longworth on “Arizona Living, Your Life Your Style” airing on YurView Cox Cable Channel 4 in Phoenix and Channel 7 in Tucson, Sundays at 9pm and again on Mondays at 6:30pm.
