Saturday, October 17, 2009

The Bag Lady and the Princess

Well, I have kind of established a routine I can work with regarding blogging. When I'm working, I only seem to be to manage one or two posts a week, for now. These posts are on the weekend, when I have some time. During the week, I'm just so tired by the end of the day, and can't seem to pump out many new ideas, after pumping out ideas all day with my students!

There's another reason I can't seem to blog more than twice a week, too. It's kind of that I am a bit shy sometimes about sharing my progress, or lack of it. For example, when I am doing well, I don't want to brag too much ... and when I am not doing well, I am a bit ashamed. Sometimes blogging feels like going around the room shouting, "me, me, me!!!" Haha! It doesn't have to be just about me, but that's the idea ... to write about my journey to weight loss .... and there's a part of me that sometimes resists that. I think it's the same part of me that sometimes thinks it's self-centred to demand my choice of healthy restaurants rather than MacDonald's. The same part that says that going for a walk to exercise this body isn't really worth it. The part that sometimes would rather disappear than ask for and work for what she wants. Call it my shadow self, or my addictive self, or my destructive self ... she's there.

A while back, I was receiving counselling for a relationship gone very bad. The counsellor asked me to draw two pictures of myself: one of the me that was depressed and hopeless, and one of the me that wanted to heal and move on. It was a very powerful exercise for me. One was a picture of a street lady .... dirty, ugly, cheap and caring nothing for herself. The other was of a very strong powerful, confident woman who always took care of herself and stood up for herself. I fleshed each woman out with a very detailed description, and realized that each one was part of me.

Wow! That experience helped to see that there was a strong woman inside of me, in spite of my depression at the time, in spite of my overwhelming feeling of despair. At the time, I told my counsellor, "I am getting rid of the bag lady." She said something I will never forget: "don't reject her. Honour her and her needs." Wow!! That bag lady needed love!

How does all this relate to today and my weight loss? Well, there is a battle going on in me ... and many of us, between the "bag lady" that doesn't think she is worthy of taking the time for, and the "gorgeous woman" who knows she is worth it. A big part of weight loss is finding a balance that works for us between being gentle with our weaknesses, and finding our strengths.

2 comments:

  1. I was missing your blogs! Hoping everything was fine! Glad to know you are. I love this blog. Love that exercise about the bag lady & strong confident woman! & love what your counselor said about loving the bag lady. :) hugs.

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  2. Awww, bless you, Melissa! thank you and have a wonderful day!

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