Success makes success...the first baby steps are so HARD!

Edit: I didn't intend for this post to be this long or this reflective or this anything but it is. In fact I'm not even reading over what I wrote...I'm just posting it straight from the proverbial horse's mouth...so whats there is probably a hosh posh of things going on in my head. I know you'd like to get in there and visit but you'd likely get lost, very lost. So read at your own risk, you've been warned!


Back when we started dating, the BF would constantly compliment me on a witty comment, on if I looked nice that day etc etc and my response would always be a shrug or a "stttooop" or a "oh, if you say so" lukewarm response. And I remember we were watching a movie one day and he turns around, looks at me and goes, you have the most beautiful eyes of any person I've ever known. And I go, OH OK-ay! And he just stopped me right there and asked me why I did that to myself. He goes "You know the things I say to you, I don't have to say to you. I say them because I truly mean them and I want you to know that its what I'm thinking." This completely threw me off. I mean, I didn't even realize I was doing it! Never before had a guy confronted me, challenged me on what I did and challenged me to change...because they cared.

I was thinking back to this incident last night as I was laying in bed. I had just gotten off the phone with the BF and had said the "I love you's" and the good nights. But I realized last night that maybe, I truly, finally was getting a hang of this love thing. Of course, the longer I'm in a relationship with the man, the more I realize how much I love him and how much I didn't know about love but I thought that last night, I finally got it. The man taught me how to love peacefully, without the drama by just doing it. He accepted me as I was; challenged me on things that he thought I should change but always in a manner of partnership -- unlike my past relationship where it was a change for the external, the BF has challenged me to change for the right reasons...because he wants to see me happier.

Now, getting to the point of where all this bed time reflection is going is that I have learned to love other people because of the way that I have learned to love myself. I'm not saying that I love everything that I do or that I even accept everything that I do but I take things at face value more. I'm less of a defeatist and I do believe that I too am capable; that I do have something to offer. I know that this is something that is really easy for most people but it's really hard for me. Since August 2007, I pretty much hit what I believe to be rock bottom so far in my life. My grades in school were down, my weight was at an all time high, I applied to medical school (which I've been working towards for literally 5 years) and I didn't do as well in the application cycle as I thought I would (or as anyone thought I would for that matter!), I started questioning my motivations in following a career pathway, my job sucked everyday that I was there and everything was spiraling out of control. I have a little bit more clarity now but at the time of, it just felt like one thing led to another in an endless spiral of self defeat and so many things had spun out of control that I didn't know where to begin in taking control. And so I just wallowed...everyday, in what had already passed and it all led to one thing: a constant chatter in my head that relived my failures, that told me I wasn't capable of anything. It came to the point where I even started questioning my capability to dress well or even talk to people and socialize well...I completely let myself go.

But things are changing now. Things are still out of my control...I'm still playing the endless waiting game on where the job search will take me; whether I should take up an offer at a medical school that I believe is below the level of medical schools that I am capable of getting into etc. etc. But one thing has changed. I decided to take control of one thing and that was my weight. There were tons of things that I needed to take control of in my life, that needed fixing and I'm working on those...with the energy that I get from taking control of my weight. Success builds upon itself...motivation builds upon motivation and the first steps in the journey are usually the hardest. After the first few steps, you can feed off the first steps to continue the journey. I'm learning not to wallow anymore, I'm learning not to look at the half empty side. I'm learning that I am capable and that loving myself has really helped me to get motivated to lose weight. Yes, its hard and yes it takes time, but I can only control one thing at a time and this time, I'm choosing weight loss! I'm choosing everyday to do something good for myself because I AM CAPABLE. So if anyone out there is reading this and wondering if they can lose weight...just do it; just take the first few steps. The first 20 days lets say and the rest will build upon itself. It's liberating in some ways to take control of something.

I know its been said before but sometimes you can hear the words all you want and the meaning is never clear until one day you just have an AH-HA! moment. "You have to love yourself to love other people." I never believed it; I always thought it was cliche but its starting to make a little bit more sense now. You know yourself best and if you can't learn to motivate that self or forgive that self...how will you have anything left in you to motivate others, to forgive others and to do good for others. Yes, we are kinder to the world all the time over ourselves but that stream of goodness is going to run out or its superficial. If you have to get down to the base level and really make a difference in someone else's life, you gotta have the energy to wake up in the morning and believe that your life is great to begin with. If we can't really do this, then anything else we do to motivate others or empower others is really just superficial effort isn't it? Are we really believing in it?

I guess what I'm trying to say (though I'm not sure I'm being very clear) is that I love the fella for loving me...for loving peacefully. And I'm learning to love myself which in turn is the only reason that I can motivate myself to lose weight. It's not for the world, its not for the external, its because taking control empowers me and it helps me believe that I can succeed. And in turn, loving myself means that I have more energy, more patience and more to give to the world around me.

I dig the fella. As a matter of fact, I'm about to call him right now ;) Ciao.