Finding happiness

I started writing a blog post over a month ago, but never finished it.  Why?  Because life seemed to take over as it usually does.  The days go by quickly and those things you think you will do tomorrow, you do a week later... or never.

The last 4 or 5 months have been awful in regards to my weight.  No other way to put it.  I struggled mentally with my weight loss and it showed up physically.  I haven't given up, though looking at me from the outside, it may look that way.  But there is a constant mental struggle going on each day, each meal, each snack.  

Looking back over the last five months I'm not sure what happened to my drive, my determination, my motivation.  It got lost in the stress of work, the holidays, family, and the stress of having my mom in the hospital.

I've let the little annoyances, frustrations, and stresses in my life turn into bigger things then they actually were.  I let my "worst case scenario" thinking turn into worse case scenario in regards to my weight.  Then I let that bring me to the brink of depression.  Not actually there, but I could see it lurking around the corner.

The situation with my mom has pushed me to come to grips with my weight and what I need to do about it.  

I love my mom.  But, at times, I don't like my mom.  I envy my friends that have that great relationship with there mom, because although I've had moments in my life where I had that, for the most part it's been a feeling of mutual tolerance.  My mom favors my brother.  I don't say this with hate or jealousy or sibling rivalry.  It is fact.  Anyone who has spent any time with my family can attest to this.  Growing up, I was very aware of this in the way my mom dealt with my brother and I, and though it bothered me, I figured it evened out in the end because I was a Daddy's Girl through and through.  That never stopped me from trying to get praise from my mom. That was until, at the age of 40, I came to the realization that was never going to happen.  And it would be my weight loss that made me come to the that conclusion.

When I got to my 100 pound weight loss in April of 2010, my awesome Weight Weight leader and receptionist gave me flowers for my achievement.  I was awed they would go out of there way to do that and little surprised because I had been bouncing around that goal for several weeks, which meant for several weeks they had had flowers on hand "just in case."  My mom was aware of my weekly struggle to get to that goal, and the day I finally did it, I called her.  Excited beyond belief and wanting to share this news with the people I love, I couldn't wait to tell her.  I told her I finally did it, I got my 100 pound weight loss!  There was a pause, and then a remark about how the flowers must have been dead since it took me so long to get the weight off.  I was shocked and hurt and stammered something about how that was a mean thing to say, then my mom replied, "oh, you know I was just kidding..."  And that would be her reply a lot over the next year as she made other comments about my weight. 

But that will always be the day that I realized no matter what I achieved in my life, I was never going to get the praise I so desperately wanted to hear from my mom.  It made me realize that I couldn't count on others to make me happy, feel worthy, or loved.  I had to do that for myself.  And I learned when others do make you feel that way, accept it, hold on to it, and reciprocate the feeling as much you can.

Somewhere in the last five months, I forgot all that and began looking externally for happiness.  I felt lost without my focus on running, but was too scared to try because of the knee pain.  I used worked stress as an excuse to eat junk and to overeat. As my weight ballooned up, as my fear of running increased to the point of being irrational, and I lost sight of my internal happiness and self worth.

Then, the end of January, my mom went into the hospital with back pain.  After many tests and after seeing several specialists, they determined the back pain was actually related to her esophagus issues.  She has what the doctor called a sloughing esophagus, constant acid reflex has caused her esophagus to wear away and slough off.  The acid reflex is caused by a hiatal hernia and being overweight (her stomach is being pushed up due to the weight around her waist).  While in the hospital, she fell numerous times due to her neuropathy, which is caused by her diabetes.  The diabetes was caused by her bad eating habits and lack of activity.  I happened to be visiting her one day when the doctor came to see her, and was surprised by how many times the doctor said her problems and issues were caused or increased due to her weight.  It was a clear reminder of why I started on this weight loss journey to begin with.  I did not (and do not) want to be in that situation.  I do not want to be in the hospital, in pain, bed-ridden, and on so many medications it takes a spreadsheet to keep track of them.

So you would think hearing what the doctor said and seeing what my mom was going through, I would go home, throw on my running shoes, run to the natural grocery store, and stock up on healthy foods, right?  Nope.  Not at all.  Instead, I drove to the store, bought junk food, and ate it in the car.  The whole time berating myself for letting myself get so far off track with my weight loss.  And I didn't do that once, I did multiple times over the month that my mom was in the hospital and then in rehab.  

It wasn't until I started reaching out to friends and talking about what I was doing that I was able to stop.  Okay, not stop, but at least cut back.  

I've spent the last few weeks, trying to figure out what went wrong and what I could learn from this massive detour on my weight loss journey.  The problem is, I don't think anything went "wrong."  Life happened.  With life comes emotions.  The old hurts, resentments, and fears crept back into my life.  They came slowly at first, but once I opened that door, they flooded in.  I lost confidence in myself.  I let the fear in and quickly forgot what I am capable of doing, of the wonderful things I have accomplished.  I let in the negativity and it robbed me of my contentment and happiness in every day things.  Why this happened, I have no idea... there was no trigger, no tragedy... just every day things that I let bother me.  And like I said, it started slowly and then snowballed.

I came to realize I needed to stop dwelling on the why it happened.  I needed to get past the negativity that has been permeating my life, and focus on happiness.  Not over the top happiness that annoys everyone, but little things.  I found a great app to help with this (yep, there are happiness apps out there... there truly is an app for everything!), it's called Daily Challenge.  And within this app, you can chose a "track" whether it be eating healthy, activity, clearing up clutter, and many more.  The one I chose is "Emotional Enrichment."  After 7 days, I'm loving it.  The challenges are interesting and thought provoking.  In the last week some of the challenges have been to make a list of 5 things that make you happy, dance to at least one song, give someone a genuine compliment, "turn off" for 5 minutes with no electronics, spend time appreciating a piece art, and one that truly meant a lot to me, reconnect with an old friend.  

I immediately thought of my friend Sibyl.  We don't see much of each other now that our lives are taking different paths, and when we do see one another, it's usually in a group setting.  I sent her an email asking if she wanted to meet for lunch or for a lunchtime walk, just the two of us.  She quickly responded with an offer to meet at the local park for a lunchtime walk.  The day we picked was windy and cool, but we trudged along anyway.  So glad we did!  It was wonderful to talk with her to get caught up, I told her about the issues with my mom, she told me about her IronMan training, we talked about our significant others, and I confided in her about trying to find my inner happiness/contentment.  She understood what I was saying before I even finished saying it.  She knows I need to find happiness or I will never be able to get the weight back off and keep it off.   If I'm not happy with myself as I am now, I will never be happy at my goal weight.

I know this.  It was a hard lesson to learn when I first got to my goal weight.  Getting to the ideal weight does not make you happy.  It does not fix the problems in your life.  It does not make your life better.  

Getting to your goal weight makes you healthier and gives you more energy to deal with life.  Period.

So before I can restart my weight loss journey, I'm purposely making a detour to find contentment in my everyday life.  There is happiness and contentment within me, and I will find it.  And I will share it with those around me.