Journaling...

For those of you who read my last post, you know that I was starting to log the negative thoughts in my head and attempt to put them on paper. I challenged you all to join me. How did you do? What did you discover about yourself?

I figured out that I suffer from road rage in a major way.....lol. I scream at random strangers instead at the people in my life that really anger me. It is much easier for me tell a perfect stranger that crawls up my bumper to go "F themselves" than it is to tell a love one that they have made me angry. Wow! Note to self....need to work on that.

I discovered, as I was standing in front of a full length mirror singing the theme song to Jello, "see it jiggle, see it wiggle" while playing with my extra skin, that I am having difficulty with accepting my extra skin from the weight loss.

But, what I found out the most is that I love myself so much more than I used to. When I was a teenager, that voice in my head used to scream at me saying the most degrading and hateful things. It no longer does that. I now feel worthy of good things. I now feel worthy of happiness. I now feel worthy of love and respect. The negativity has subsided, the battle no longer rages in my head. This was an amazing realization for me.

I will be the first to admit that I didn't get serious about getting "healthy" until my thirties. After years of abuse and self neglect, I believe I finally got sick and tired of being treated like garbage. There came a point in my life where the woman inside me decided that I deserved better. That spark of self esteem lit on fire. There was a time when I was tired of the bruises on my body and my heart. I was tired of allowing myself to be the victim.

I will tell you that the hardest lesson for me is forgiving myself. Forgiving the women I was then to allow people to treat me like that, for allowing people in my life that hurt me and exposing my children to people like that. But, we are healing and we love each other.

I look at the pictures before my weight loss surgery and I realize what I had done to myself. I had built a protective shell, a "please keep away" shell. It was my "I'm not worthy" costume. That was the old me, this is me now. And I love her.