madermouse's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9/5/01 I�ve made up my mind. I�m staying off the scale for a few weeks to a month, depending on how I feel emotionally. After many kind words of encouraging advice from you guys, I really began to think about the scale, and how its controlling me. And I thought, �What�s the difference between my food addiction controlling me (like before) and the numbers on the scale controlling me now!?� I realized there isn�t a difference. Because either way I�m allowing my weight to make me feel good or bad, and that was the exact thing I was trying to escape when I began this journey. As a friend of mine, Heather, pointed out, I�m not going to suddenly reach my goal weight and stop exercising and start scarfing down fried catfish & hush puppies every night. Am I? NO! I�m not going to do this because I�m actually learning and practicing new behaviors, new ways of being. I�m putting forth an energy to reverse my addictions, to become healthier physically, and to feel more confident emotionally. And although it would be ideal, I�m not doing this just for immediate transformation, immediate gratification. I�m doing this because I deserve to be happy, to be healthy, to be proud of who I am. I�m doing this so I can live the kind of life I deserve, do the things I want to do, and feel content and at peace with myself. Its strange, really, that I�ve come full circle. One day I turned around and realized I was at the starting line again, depressed and angry about my weight. How did I get here? Wasn�t depression the exact thing that I�d been running from in the beginning? I turned and looked back over the journey which had taken me through strange and foreign lands of self-discovery. I had overcome tired and weary negative tapes that were constantly telling me I would fail, that I�d never change. I�d leaped over emotional hurdles with the determined stride of a seasoned sprinter. Yet here I stood, at the starting line again, wondering how the hell I got here. This serves as a reminder to me, that change is constant. It is a living breathing entity that must be tended to, fed, and occasionally rested. Change is not something that you can box up, put on a shelf and forget about like Christmas lights in February. I haven�t conquered this change and then displayed the prize on my fireplace mantel for everyone to marvel. No, alas, its not as easy as this. Because although I have made advances in this journey, I still have to work. I still have to invest energy. Someone wrote in my guest book today, �There is no failure until you fail to keep trying.� I still have to try. I�d like to close, with a beautiful quote shared with me by Sarah, a friend. "And after they had explored all of the stars in the universe and all of the planets around each sun they realized they were alone, and they were glad, because they now realized they would have to become all of the things they had hoped to find." - Lanford Wilson 12:52 p.m. - 9/5/01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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