Sorry for the long silence. I have been thinking a lot about the upcoming months in which we will be finishing up our sojourn with the California Health and Longevity Institute as our immediate mentors, and making our own all that we have learned and practiced. It is only now that I feel, after so many months of weighing and measuring, of exercising and learning, that all of this has become a part of me, actually a part of who I have happily become. I have had the happy experience of going through my closet and culling out all of the big clothes that no longer fit. Now, granted, I am not a person who has ever worn very fitted clothes. But even then, one cannot wear something that simply wont suit. Luckily I sew and can either alter, or make new. What delightful circumstances. I have no intention of holding on to anything "just in case". Been there, done that, and it is not healthy.
I had a pair of new jeans on a shelf in my closet that I had ordered by mail quite some time ago. They were supposed to be my target jeans for the interim. This morning I tried them on and guess what? I have passed right by them without knowing! They are too big for me to wear. I am happily putting them into a bag with other clothing to donate to a worthy cause.
However, I am thinking about what has helped spur us all to our successes. Everyone has made such magnificent progress, not that we are all finished, or at the point we hoped to be, some are I would think, but we who must continue to drop weight, and everyone, who must continue to practice our healthy lifestyle, eating right, getting enough rest, managing stress, are being asked to come up with methods to help ourselves stay on track.
There is certainly something to the process of accountability that we have experienced. We know that once every week we will be stepping on that scale, or working out with someone who has worked with us to show us how to perform the exercises that target our problems. Having a mentor, certainly more than one, who has been a friend, a disciplinarian, a teacher, and lots of other good things all rolled into one has been the experience of a lifetime. It has meant that we could not just drift, we could not just toss away our gains, we could not lose perspective or the sight of our goals. We are in a game worth playing, with goals worth playing for and each day, with charts, and reminders, and kind words and learning to trade new habits for old, we are changing the way we view ourselves, and the way we will view our places in the world.
I am sure that each of us has a body image that we are struggling to achieve, and one that we are struggling to let go of. I look at an article of clothing and think "Oh I can't wear that, and then a voice of reason quietly whispers in my ear "Are you sure of that? why don't you think again, you're different now" and I am forced to look in the mirror, a practice I have never liked, and see that there is a new "me" emerging. We are trading a lot of new things for old--new habits, new clothes, new thoughts, new bodies. the real triumph will be to achieve comfort with the new and not cling to the old and familiar.
There is so much to be grateful for, and so much to be proud of, and so much to add to each part of our new beginning until we reach a sense of true balance. I hope that we can all be pillars of strength for each other, the source of kind words and encouragement, and when necessary, a sounding board for moments when challenges need to be met with strength.
We still have some time left to let the learning take hold and sink in, and it is up to us to be open and eager enough to absorb it. So to all my fellow Project Transformationists, we are in the "home stretch" and I wish you the best. We have to remember that we are just like the people who began last April, only better.

Finding Calm and Ourselves

Last night I was happily reminded of an old friend that I haven't had the food fortune to see since we left the place of work where we first got to know each other. He was the calmest person I think I have ever known. He is a Buddhist, and after an interesting discussion over lunch one day he brought me a book, the title of which had a huge effect on my thinking then and since then. It is entitled, "When the Student is Ready the Teacher will Appear" and I don't know but I believe that this is a very important tenet of Buddhism. I have been thinking of this in relation to our Project Transformation. I think that one of the reasons that we were chosen for this program is that we appeared to the panel to be ready for this Transformation for which we were asking to be considered. I keep that book in the drawer at my bedside, and just looking at the title sometimes calms me, because it tells me that the things that I might want to happen right now, and am angry and impatient if they don't, are perhaps not ready to happen, or perhaps, even though my conscious mind would disagree, perhaps I am not ready to have them happen. My point is that we were ready, and the contest appeared for us and we were chosen. It has been up to us to take advantage of the teachers and to learn the lessons.
And the reason I bring this up is that yesterday I received in the mail another book, one that I had forgotten I ordered quite some time ago, and it is entitled "Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be" and while it has to do with loss and change, just the title caught me up short. As we travel though life, we experience many different kinds of emotions, events, and places. Each one affects us in a way that changes us or affirms us in some way, even the smallest way that we may not recognize at the time. We have in our minds an idea of who we are, and yet, events and such are changing us all the time. Lately, some people I haven't seen in awhile have been telling me that I look different, but when I look in the mirror, I can't see the change. It tells me that I haven't yet let go of the person I used to be and that I better be pretty careful about how I look at things like food and exercise.
So far the exercise part is getting to be a part of the new me. I crave that hilly walk that I take if I miss a day. I like the way I feel when I am tired out after a workout with "the demon", and I hardly ever think "oh I can't do that, it's too hard" like I did when we went on our hikes that scared the bejezzus out of me.
But ice cream still looks good to me, and cake still sounds good, even though I was thinking the other day that the last several times I indulged in cake, it wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be. The texture wasn't really satisfying, and the taste just didn't live up to expectations and wasn't worth the calories. So if what I "crave" proves not to be as good as anticipated, and yet it still appeals, is it because I have not yet let go of the person I used to be, who ate sweets without thinking about whether they were as delicious as I expected them to be? That behavior belonged to the person I used to be.
Now, in truth, the book about 'letting go' is about reacting to loss and change in your life. When we lose a loved one, if we get mired down in the loss and the bad feelings, then we do not grow from the experience. In the last six years, I have lost both of my parents. I realize that I was very fortunate to have them for so many years, and we were close and I miss them, but I have come to realize that I have grown in ways that perhaps I could not have without the experience of loss. The person I used to be was a daughter, in addition to other roles. That daughter role no longer exists for me, and it's absence, although sometimes painful, has also freed me up to be something different, to take on another role.
I think that all of us at Project Transformation are perhaps shedding a role that we used to fill, and we may not find a new role so comfortable as we thought. It is important to think about how we want to embrace the new role, and how to let go of the old one so that the new clothes that we wear (figuratively) in our new role, are as comfortable as the old. Going from being the person who always worked behind the scenes to the person in the starring role of the play can be frightening, but it's the only one where you can see your name in lights.
So, the whole point of today's blog was to point out that there is a lot about us that is new and if we are not ready to let go of the person we used to be, and embrace the new, then backsliding is a distinct possibility. It happened to me before, but it is not going to happen to me again. I am ready to let go. Are you?

The gifts of friendship

Isn't it just amazing when you have a friend-- or even better-- friends, who help you to be the best 'you' that you can be? I started to write about friends who make you be the best, most authentic you, but the truth is, that no one can make you be anything but yourself. A friend who helps you along the way gives you opportunities to be the best, perhaps sets an example, offers a helping hand, or even asks for a helping hand.
I have been so blessed in my life to have friends who have done just this, and I hope that I am proving not to be a disappointment to their vision of me. Some friends are those of youth, who share your memories as you share theirs, and they are priceless, golden, above any treasure you could name. Some are recent, friends who see and listen to who you are right now, and how you have come to be that way, and with whom you explore new and perhaps different experiences and adventures than you have had before. I am lucky enough to be blessed with both and I cannot imagine how I ever got so lucky.
I look around me today at the evidence of what friendship means, and I see a book that was a gift, that has made me think, has made me reflect on what it means to be a child in a very dangerous situation, to be a man willing to extend a hand to protect a stranger even at the risk of his own life and perhaps even the lives of those he loves. I see my well used gym bag, which would not be there without having been urged to try my luck at entering a contest, the results of which have changed my life, perhaps lengthening it so that I can accomplish things that need to be done by me. I think of the new experiences, like hiking, that have become a part of my life due to the camaraderie that has developed from sharing and cheering others on, hoping for their success as much as for my own. I feel the muscles in my arms that are fatigued from the hours that I have sat here at my computer finishing and polishing stories that I had written long ago, but never did anything about before a friend and angel urged me to dig them out, to join a writer's group (I still haven't done that, but I will) to look for an agent, and to do something about them. Yesterday, all day, I even smelled friendship, from when I was embraced by a friend who inquired about my husband's health and hugged me, leaving the smell of his cologne on my cheek. All day I was reminded that I could count on him if I needed to.
So for me, what friendship means is enrichment. It means the deepening and broadening of what life is really meant to be. It is meant to be shared and embraced, to be used as a learning tool and a teaching tool, to help others to be the best that they can be, both by helping and by example. It is a gift to understand that the world is a far richer place with the love of a friend, that the scenery is more beautiful when shared with a friend, that the laughter we share with friends is delicious, better than any dessert, that the tastes and sounds and music we hear are brighter and clearer and sharper and feed our souls to the brim when shared with friends.
So here is a toast to all the friends that we have made, and all those we have yet to make. You make our lives so much richer, so much more worth living. Without you, the world would be a much duller place.