Self-Care. Self-Love. And a journey to lose weight

A Facebook conversation I had with a friend:

Self-love/Self-care 101 from a dear friend, Laura A Rowsey-Collins
*The shape of you is nothing to be ashamed of. If you wish to lose weight for the health of you that is certainly a good thing. But your value has nothing to do with a scale number or an appearance. your value has to do with who you are your value also has to do how you exist in the world and what you put into the world. So doing the things to improve your health that you know will improve your health that is self-care. Knowing you have value regardless of appearance or scale number or any other external metric that is self-love. Perhaps the transparency is that you are learning to love yourself no matter what shape your body has

* And perhaps part of self-love is knowing that you were doing the things you need to do to improve the health and the comfort of your body

> MY FRIEND:  'My greatest 'self-care' acheivement of the weekend was NOT BINGEING in order to bear my negative emotions over this picture!'

*That is indeed a self-caring achievement.

*You might want to think of negative emotions as "indicators" that what you are reacting to violates in some way your idea for what should be or what your goals are. For instance, regarding dismay over pictures, perhaps that is an indicator that you are not yet where you want to be. So, it is an indicator you are still on your journey to better health.

Or, it can be an indicator that your mental picture of self does not match paper image of self - and so there needs to be work on revising either the way to see your mental self or the way you perceive the paper version.

Distress is not a reason to lapse or wallow. (even though sometimes a good wallow is helpful)... It is instead an indicator that there is misalignment between a fact and a thought.

When distress is a tool that you can use to focus your attention, it stops being a trigger for self-destructive behavior. Instead, it becomes something useful and purposeful.

When you are broken...

When you are broken, you can choose to hide the flaws through masks of makeup or layers of clothing or pounds of extra weight.

When you are broken, you can choose to withdraw from your life, protecting the injury from any additional trauma... hiding so that nothing increases the pain.

When you are broken, you can choose to accept that form and shape may have changed, that work will be required in the present and the future, and then practice the art of Kintsugi.

Sometimes it is important to know that things can be stronger at the mended places than ever they were when surfaces were unmarred and the illusion of perfection existed.

New Year's Eve

I suppose it says something about me - I get more excited about the turn of the year than I do about all other holidays and events combined.  Birthdays - no big deal.  Religious holidays - joy and stress.  Family holidays and national events (4th of July)... mainly stress.  No, for me the biggie is New Year's.

It is not the ball dropping or any of the glitz.  Hey, I do not even have a television hooked up to cable (my TV is for DVD purposes only).  There are no television channels in my life.  No, for me it is the potential that hangs with great presence over the turning of the year.

Season's change do the same for me in a small degree.  But, it is New Year's Eve that makes me all shivery with excitement.  Much the same as Christmas did when I was small.  Now, I review the previous year and find great anticipation of the possibilities of the coming year.

And, New Year's Eve has a wonderful present ... the first day of a new calendar.  I find such delight in looking at the blank squares and knowing it is up to my choice as to how I fill those days.  Sometimes, I seek to rectify poor behaviors of the past.  However, I find more and more, as I grow older, that I seek to focus on where I am going instead of where I have been.  The past has relevance - it would be foolish to imagine that it did not.  However, it is the future that thrills me.  Each moment of that expanse of time can be written by choice and by action.  And, what a wonderful, heady thought that is to me.

So, my wish for each and every one is this:

May your New Year be the one you write for yourself.  May it see you become a better person than you were yesterday.  May you find joy and happiness and meaning.  May you be the blessing on the world that you have the potential to be.  And, when looking back upon the year, may you find peace and certainty that the year could not in any way have been lived to a better or fuller degree.

Prayer for responsibility of choices

Prayer for responsibility of choices - From June 2012

by Laura A Collins (Notes) on Monday, November 12, 2012 at 12:54pm

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Each person chooses, in every action and in every thought, how significant or how insignificant other people are in that person's life.  We can never control the actions of others, but we can control our reactions to their choices.  May your choices for the day help you to further your goals, to better the world, and to make your connections to your family and community healthier and happier.  May you become a better person by your choices and your actions.  This is my prayer for us all."