Feel with your Heart....Not your Mind

So as said in my last post is that I have discovered that I have caused a lot of my pain and situations over the years.  Over the past few days I have done a lot of soul searching and just trying to think about the way my thoughts have worked and how I can change them.  I have realized that I have been letting my mind control every aspect of my life.  My consumed thoughts and overreactive thoughts of what ifs and expecting the worst.  What I have been doing wrong for all these years is feeling with my mind and not my heart.  Actually probably not feeling very much because my mind would not let me.  I have more than likely missed out on a lot of things and relationships in my life that my mind and thoughts shielded me from.  As I was holding back thinking people were judging me and distancing themselves from me, they were feeling the same vibes from me.....Wow this is such a huge break through form me.  So now the question is....How?  How do I start letting my heart feel without my mind telling me all the negatives about it.  I am going to take it day by day.  I am trying to notice when my mind starts trying to go in that wrong direction.  I am striving to give everyone that crosses my path now a chance to impact my life in some way or not at all, but at least aT the end of the day I will know I didn not push them away. 

As many of you know already I had a wreck yesterday that could have been so very bad.  By the Grace of God I am just a little sore.  I am telling you that iT scared me to death.  After it happened I honest to goodness thought I was dead looking down on the accident.  It was so unreal bc there was the front of that van in my backseat, glass everywhere and I was ok....How was that????  I honestly sat there thinking "I'm dead and I am looking down on myself watching everything happen".  I was just so in shock that I was not hurt how does that happen????  Well I will tell you....God is not through with me.  He has plans for me and I have a lot more of my journey to travel.  He kept me safe yesterday and he kept my children safe by me being alone and I am so so so Thankful to Him for that!  Amazing how He works.  He made a lot of Very Loud statements yesterday that opened my eyes and I know opened others.  He gave me answers to some  very important things that have been weighing on me lately. Everthing happens for a reason you know. 

I have fought the battles I have fought. Dealt with the demons I have had.  Walked the paths I have walked and lived the life I have lived all to lead me to where I am today.  I could not tell my story to people if I had not lived the life I have lived.  All my life I have always said "Why?  Why me God?  Why do I have to be the fat girl? It just hurts too much!  Can I just be skinny just for one day????"  Everything is in HIS time and I went through the struggles I went through to bring me to where I am now.  AMAZING truly AMAZING!  I wouldn't go back and change a THING!!!!  I finally get it . I am here to make a change, to show people it is possible to take control of you life again.  This is about weight yes,  but it is soooo much more.   It is about living your life the way it was meant to be lived.  fighting your battles and telling the world LOOK OUT  here I am and guess what? I AM NOT SETTLING ANYMORE SO YOU BETTER WATCH OUT !!!THIS IS THE NEW ME AND NO ONE IS GONNA KNOCK ME DOWN!!!!!!

Hurting People Hurt People

As I sit and talk to friends about the things I have been through in my life and how I handled them I am realizing that I brought A LOT of the hurt and negativity on myself.  I am realizing that by prejudging..(yes I said ME doing what I have preached about in this very blog)of others has hurt me in my life.  See I assumed before even meeting people that they would judge me or not be nice to me because of my weight.  I am realizing that I pushed and still push people away without giving them a chance for fear of being hurt.  You see, in my mind they will eventually hurt me or let me down and it hurts a lot less now than later.....  I know I know crazy totally not a right way of thinking but as I have said before I am being transparent and writing these things is very healing to me and helps me recognize things and move past them.  

I am about to say some things that I have only told a couple of people very recently...This is very hard for me but I have to do this to get past this.  I am trying to think of a good example for you to understand exactly what I am talking about.  The thing that comes to mind is if I was out with my friends and a good looking guy actually gave me attention and talked to me I was very distant and pushed him away...Why you ask?  Because in my mind this attractive man couldn't possibly be interested in this overweight girl and his friends are probably in the corner watching waiting to see if he won the bet....YES this is a horrible way of thinking but it is honestly how I felt.  My head was just wired to assume that someone was always out to hurt me.  I now realize that maybe people weren't always out to hurt me but maybe I pushed them away and didn't give them a real chance to show me who they were.  Wow.......  this opens a whole other can of worms huh..... I was doing the very thing to people that I am preaching they did to me.......

So this is a whole new hurdle I have got to clear as I work through this incredible journey I am on.  I am so blessed to have the friends in my life that will step up and tell me these things because if I don't change these thoughts then what good am I doing?  So now I have to figure out how I am going to change these thoughts.  hmmmmmmm

I think that might require a blog of its own in a few days,  after I pray a lot and reflect on my past and figure out how I can change these thoughts.  Here's a little food for thought and I love this saying "Hurting people hurt people "  also my mother tells me this one all the time "The ones that are the hardest to love are the ones that need it the most". Both of these are so true...my life is a prime example...I was hurting and I hurt other people trying to avoid more hurt for myself.  In the end I was still hurting and hurt innocent others at the same time.......

Am I amazing?....I'm just me

People say to me "You are amazing you are this strong person now and have accomplished so much...How can you not see that?!!!!".  See I am the same girl I have been my whole life, I just held it all in because I didn't want to be noticed.  I don't see myself as this amazing person I just see myself as a girl who said "ENOUGH" and took my life back under control.  I completely and totally have a HARD time taking compliments... I guess it is one of my worst character flaws.  Over the years I have convinced myself that I was not pretty, not sexy, not worth anyone's time, not good enough at anything and never, ever did I think I deserved the best of anything or even to be successful in life in any way.  All these thoughts protected me from getting let down bc if I was let down..I convinced myself that is the way it would be bc of my weight.  So saying all this, you can see why when I am told I am pretty or amazing or whatever someone says, I am like, "whatever".. I am trying to learn to say thank you but it feels so funny bc if they tell me I am pretty or beautiful,  I don't see it, I really don't.  I just look in the mirror and see the same girl I have always been.  There is so much out there in life, I am realizing that.  The sky is truly the limit and I am going to ride this journey as far as it will take me.  I am gaining more and more confidence every day.  I will get there. I know I will. It just takes time and healing.  Yes I said healing.   I have a lot of wounds and scars that have to heal...A lot of these wounds and scars, I have allowed society and people to give me...a lot I have given myself.  Lets face it guys society is ugly to overweight people.  You know what I think bothers me the most....Now they make such a big deal about bullying.....IT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR A VERY LONG TIME...It is all how you see it.  They make a big deal how mean kids are....They were mean to me..called me fat left me out wouldn't be my friend.  I have a lot of scars from this.  To be told and looked at your whole life as the fat girl the happy jolly girl that was just putting on a front and all of a sudden now people tell me I am amazing and beautiful and that I inspire them...It is a lot to swallow.  I am working very hard on changing my thoughts but as most of you know our mind is our biggest enemy in every aspect of our lives.

I just hope that if people get anything from my blog you get at least one thing.....Please don't judge people bc of their weight...remember there is an amazing person under those layers DYING to come out.   Don't be that person to add another scar that will add another layer to their armor...Be that person that gives them the  hope that one day they can decide they want to make a change and gain control of their life  like I did. 

It is scary,  SO scary, I will not lie.  So many days I want to just go back to being that person that hides and the person that  no one expects anything great out of, but at the end of the day there are too many ppl out there that need me.  Too many people  that are losing hope.   I want to be that person that steps up and says "Look what I have done, I am no different than you.  You can do this and the sky is the limit"  So many people are looking for that one little glimmer of hope.. I want to be that hope.  I want to show them I am no one special....Just a girl that was tired of settling and refuses to settle anymore!!!!!

Scared to say I enjoy it or it comes easy

So yesterday I did my first television appearance about my weight loss.  My brain and how it used to work wants to tell everyone I was scared to death and I don't know how I did it and it was awful.  But I now have to dig deep down and let who I am now override that old person and I am here to tell you I enjoyed it, I wasn't really that nervous and I cannot wait to do it again....Shocking I know!!!  I told my counselor a few weeks ago that I enjoyed talking about my journey but that it shouldn't be easy and I should be scared.  She pointed out something very important, she asked why I said that and I told her because I have always felt that way.   That was the old me.  See, that was the way I used to think about those things and I guess it is just so foreign to me to like it, to not be scared, and want to do it more!!! The best part; I am learning that I enjoy it tremendously and I hope to be able to do  it more and more!  I hope that I continue to have opportunities to share my story because I guess for the first time in my life I feel a true passion for something.  When you feel this way about something it just comes natural sharing it with people.  There is no planning a speech writing down what you need to say and preparing for it.. You just get up there and speak from your heart and it just comes and maybe that is why it is so easy for me. I don't have to stress and try to remember what to say or forgetting something I just share my journey and that is that.

I have had a rough few weeks. I am here to admit and be transparent right?  I have hit a plateau that I knew I would hit being so close to the end of my weight loss.  I cannot really say the end of my journey because I feel that I am not even close, that just reaching my goal is not the end of this; not anywhere close!!!!  I have finally gotten back to my running so now I am having to work hard to get these last few pounds off.  See, I know I have come so far and grown so much but I still struggle.  Sometimes it feels like much more of a struggle because I am inspiring people and helping people and I feel I have to stay strong and positive for them when I just want to cry and have someone lift me up.  Fortunately I have a great support group and have plenty that do this for me in my weak times!!  I wouldn't change any of it for the world and am so blessed to be where I am.

My best friend of over 30 years was with me yesterday for my first television appearance.  I am so glad and blessed to have had her in my life all these years.  She has been by my side during so much and all my struggles and has never judged me or put me down for my weaknesses.  It was so surreal yesterday, being there and her being there.  Both of our lives are about to change so much for us. It is crazy how parallel our lives are as they change!!!  We are both pretty much about to be living out our dreams at the same times in our lives... How cool is that!!!

My hopes for all this in the end is that I can at least help and inspire one person.  At the end of the day if my struggles and successes have helped or inspired someone, then my job is complete!

The obstacles I have overcome

So this weekend I did my first ever 5K Mud Run.  This is a 5K with crazy hard messy obstacles and lots and lots of MUD!!  I had a blast!!!  We had a little group of people and we just had so much fun!  Now I don't think anyone realizes that this was not just a obstacle course for me it was a life obstacle for me.  I conquered SO many fears through this run.  There are so many things in my life that I have not even let myself try because I was afraid of failure.....well not anymore!!!!!!!  I have always wanted to do something like this but knew it wasn't an option because of my weight.  I find myself still holding myself back from things because I am just so used to it.  I am scared of pushing my body to it's limits because it couldn't do much with that extra 135lbs on it so pushing wasn't really an option.  In this mud run there were walls to climb over WALLS TO CLIMB OVER!!!!!  I think that was one of my biggest fears.  I would tell myself I could never do that I don't have enough arm strength I am going to fail!!!  Well don't fall out of your chairs people but I DID IT!!!!!  The biggest feat of it all was that I had to step into a guy's hand and get a boost to the top of the wall!!!!!  I don't think I have ever had someone boost me up before....I am totally serious.  I was scared to death I was afraid I weighed to much of that I couldn't pull myself up the rest of the way up and over the wall.  But I DID IT!!!!!  Thanks to my group we pulled together and got everyone over and I did it!!!!!!!!  And this best part of this...I cannot wait to do it AGAIN!!!  I also had to climb a hill using a rope to hold onto I was scared I just wanted to say "Nope can't do this", but I didn't I just took it on and it was EASY!!!!!!!  I am really amazed at myself I am just amazed at what my body is capable of now and I don't give it credit for what it can do.  I hold back so much and do not push it anywhere near as far as it could go.  So this is my next challenge to myself, is to push my body to it's limits, find out my limit.  As a dear friend said to me, "Your body is a machine, get your mind out of the way push it and let it do what it is capable of ".  I have learned this statement is so true.  My mind is my biggest enemy, it tells me I can't do it, but I know I can and I realize now that my body is capable of so much, it just needs to be pushed.  

This journey just continues to amaze me at ever turn.  I just truly cannot wait to see where it takes me.  I know I am where I am supposed to be in my life and it feels so good!