Self-image or the way we perceive ourselves and what we think of ourselves is also key to losing weight.
Some of you may have notices that I have not attempted to talk much on this subject. There is a very good reason for this and it is simply that I am not very fond of what or who I am. And that is part of the adventure here. Having adventures is not always fun and positives. It is dealing with the hard stuff as well.
The Hobbit will soon come out as three part film. Bilbo Baggins, in the book, does not want anything to do with adventure. He likes his life the way his life is, comfortable and quiet. He sees no reason to change the way things are. But in the long run he does go and fearful and horrible things happen to him. He overcomes them, but he would have preferred not to deal with them at all.
Self-image is my one of my fearful and terrible things that I have to deal with. I do not like myself much for various reasons. I don’t know if the reasons are true or false, but they exist in my head as true and somehow I must deal with this. Therapy, which is one thing I am doing, helps but for that to work you have to believe the things that are said to you and not the little tape recorder that is in your head that drowns the therapist’s voice out. Believing good things about yourself is very hard.
One thing that we all need to remember is that there are good things in us. We have talents and we do accomplish things. When people say that we are good at something we need to believe them. Then we need to add that to the deposit of good things and point to it when we start to kick ourselves. When Charlie Brown said “We have met the enemy and they are us,” he was speaking a deep truth, as we are all our own worst enemies.
Now let me make this very clear. I am not looking for people to say good things about me by writing this column. I am trying to help people that are like me out there and believe there is very little to value in their lives. If we don’t value ourselves, we will never do what we need to in order to lose weight. Really, what is the point of going through all the work if we truly don’t believe we are worth the time or the trouble. In this frame of mind we will slowly give up and go back to living in despair, liking ourselves even less. We have to love ourselves. Even the Bible expects a healthy form of self-love as it says to “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”
I have no clear cut answers for this. I have begun to buy little things that mark when I do something good so I have a physical reminder of the event, that I can point to and tell myself, “See I did do something good.” It is physical proof that I have some value. But that is as far as I have gotten on this journey. But those of you, who are like me, please, realize that you are not alone and we will see this adventure through together.
