Please Keep Trying!

It’s funny that in this day and age I can look up and see a silver-lining in the crap-storms that rain down on us in our lives. I was called a Pollyanna for it (I laughed so hard when I heard that). I’m not blind to the negative, nor do I gloss over it, but I don’t dwell it on it either. What I do is make the choice to be grateful for what I do have and make the most out of what was given to me. Why focus on what can’t be changed?

I wasn’t always a positive thinker. I was actually quite negative and judgmental; ask any friend or family member. I had a habit of projecting how I judged myself onto other people, making them the ones who judged me. I wasn’t the one who was judging me and breaking me down, it was everyone else. In turn, I did unto them what I perceived was being done unto me; made assumptions on their character based solely on their looks.

People around me started to look downright evil. I kept reflecting my self-image onto everyone else. Nothing was right, nothing would ever be right, and it was everyone else’s fault I was fat. My negative self-centered “victim ideology” eventually took its toll in the way of emotionally eating to soothe the “judgment” being passed on me daily. Some of the judging was factual; the “Oh my god, look how fat she is,” was kinda damaging. That made me project even more.

This projecting not only reflected away any hurt, but also kept me from any retrospection. Everything caught up with me the day I had the epiphany I was the one who made me fat. Instead of setting me free, unfortunately, it clamped fetters of a different kind on my self-esteem. Now, everything was my fault.

I already had a complex of blaming myself for the little things in life; dinner’s late; I’m so sorry! The house wasn’t super shiny; God, I f*ed up again! I then added onto this already raging inferno the sin of being morbidly obese.

I tell people there’s no punishment greater than the ones we heap on ourselves. I made myself miserable for two years punishing myself for the massive wrong I had committed; mentally flogging my ego and self-worth. I had nothing. There was nothing. There would always be nothing. I deserved nothing.

Then I had another epiphany: not everything is black and white. Most things are shades of gray, and seldom as horrendous as we project them to be. I realized, yes, I made me fat, but I’m making me skinny. Thank you for this moment!

I began to mentally tally the things which had formerly been “failures” and started placing them in between the two extremes of “good” and “evil”. I became grateful for the things and people who make a small difference in my life everyday.

I tell my folks, thank you, whenever I can. I tell my husband how wonderful he is and how grateful I am we met. I try and express my gratitude to my best friend for always being there. I soon had this massive list of positive things in my life. I became rich literally overnight.

Being able to express gratitude gave me the internal reinforcement I needed to lose the weight with a positive attitude, versus the negative one I had before. I reasoned, I have so much good in my life, I must deserve to be happy. If I was truly as bad as I judged myself to be, why would I be surrounded by so many wonderful things?

The thing I’m most grateful for, is learning the ability to say thank you in some way, to everything in my life, no matter how it affects me. Thanks!