My inner child brain needs to grow up... my past is keeping me from the future I want and deserve

 

 I am doing a weight loss challenge with some friends. It's a 10 week basic % of weight loss challenge. It just started and ends APRIL 1st - No foolin! We have a private FaceBook group where I instructed everyone to post a picture of their bathroom scale showing their current weigh. 

Here is a post I posted to the group this morning... Then I was thinking... Maybe this should be on my blog... 

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I really am glad I said you had to post our weight. I feel really "honest" about my efforts. I know you all are too. It's been interesting as they all get posted what my brain does.

- i get excited because another person has officially joined the challenge
- i didnt know there were SO many different scales
- i look at the weight... more than me? less than me? can I weigh that?
- it makes me happy to not be in this alone
- makes me want to beat you

It's so many emotions and thoughts. It's funny how my WHOLE life I compare myself to EVERY GIRL. Am I taller/shorter. Is my hair prettier/worse. Am I thinner/bigger. Do i like my clothes better/or hers? Am I smarter than her/is she smarter? Do I make more money/she is loaded? If I see a mini cooper - do I have more bells and whistles/whose car is cleaner (not mine)?

On and on and on! Let's be clear - I don't JUDGE you. I am JUDGING ME. I don't say it out loud - I don't think any of the answers makes someone a bad person or that I would not be their friend. It's all about building me up or tearing me down and I KNOW that it is NOT productive. It's not real. I don't even know how tall you guys are so comparing a number is silly. Like my front adult brain knows this but my back sad little girl brain doesn't.

Even when I have been THIN and FIT - still happens... I have a great car - still happens....

How do I turn this off and just accept who I am as I am?
How do I just see you and not compare you to me?
How will I ever lose weight if I can't just do it for myself and not to "BE" something compared to someone else?

I am working with a book group lead by a counclor around eating, why we eat and the group reads and discusses a book called "Women Food and God".

As you might know I am in a 12 step spiritual recovery program - I am working my 4th step this time with my sponsor around food. And writing about my food resentments.

I am attacking this at all sides. I feel like I KNOW what to eat. I have read 1000 diet books and been on countless diets. I know how to work out. I have two gym memberships, I have INSANITY, P90X, Tony Hortons 10 minute trainer, Jillian Michaels Body Revolution, I think I even have a hip hop abs dvd and lots of random one off DVDs. I have tons of work out equipment in my house and room to work out.

All of the knowledge in the external world is not going to help me until I understand what is inside of me that sabotages my efforts.

The more I sabotage my own I want to help others. Like somehow if I can help you lose weight, be a better skater, find happiness, etc then somehow my own shortcomings or lack of effort won't be so bad. I am a RAD coach. I am smart, like I said. I have read a ton of books on sports, working out, nutrition, etc. I have taken classes. I have studied hard to be the best coach I can be and it shows in those I coach. Why can't I take my own advice? Why do I not do the things I expect of those I coach? Why do I make excuses?

I am no lazy. I am messed up. I need to conquer my inner demons. I need to learn to love myself and help myself the way I love and help others.

I have a different perspective today than I have in the past about why I don't lose weight or if I do, I gain it back. This also goes into my financial situation and my house keeping skills, hoarding, other self sabotaging actions. Over the past year I have really cleared out my house. That has been a great achievement for me. There is still ways to go but I am currently typing this in my craft room which once was a room to full to get into. Progress not perfection. I can see now that it is not my genetics holding me back. It is not that I am lazy or my body can't do it. It is mental. I feel I am taking those steps needed to be the person I really want to be inside and out. I have not overcome them yet by any means but I see them now and am learning to understand what goes on in my head. I couldn't get past them before because I didn't even know there were there. I didn't understand that what was keeping me from my goals, weight loss or other, was myself. Not anything external or out of my control.

With the counseling group, the 12 step work (writing it out 4th step style) and lots of prayer and meditation I think 2013 is going to be a year of breakthroughs.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now which is a miracle itself, because until recently... I didn't even know I was in a dark tunnel.