How do you see yourself?

It was a lovely and rewarding weekend that began on Saturday with our group (minus one) meeting to discuss group health strategies. I have found it to be energizing to meet with the group and to get to know each other a bit at a time. Where we were all pretty guarded at first about our more personally held worries, now we are feeling a bit safer I would say. Some of us have sleep issues, some weight issues, and some other health issues. I always spend some of the time coming and going from the Hotel thinking about the program, where it is going and why I am there and how I am best going to take advantage of all there is to learn, to partake of, and to do. So on Saturday we talked about goals and measurements of success. Hearing everyone's ideas is such a help, and everyone is so generous with encouragement and good feeling. I think that we are becoming an actual group rather than just a gathering of people. I feel so good when I am at the gym and run into someone. Every now and then I see Kristy working hard, and Dave and I were the sole users of the gym on a recent Saturday nite. I've learned that Sophia finds the treadmill boring so she walks outside, and an injured foot caused Bill some slowdown. I saw Kristin after a workout and found out her hair is really wavy, and Percy had a wonderful trip and is starting later, but with equal enthusiasm. Casi's hours make it unlikely I will run into her except when we have group meetings, but all the same it's like learning about the people who live on the same floor in a dorm, or getting together with a new book club or something. We are learning about each other and finding differences and similarities that make us real to each other.
I thought that I was the only one for whom the first blush of excitement has worn off and who now has to buckle down and make it work. But I found out on Saturday that I'm not. At first it was the excitement and disbelief about our great good luck at being winners that made us sail along in the deep waters of new experiences, new ways of doing things and looking ar our time and our exercise and our food commitments. Now, I think that we are all aware that the hard work sets in. It is the scheduling, the fitting in of blocks of time to do what needs to be done, the changes in lifestyle and eating styles on a more or less permnent basis that makes it a challenge. After all, we have been doing what we did to get the way we are for a lot of years. Now is the time for change and so now we face challenges, and I am sure that each of us faces different ones.
Meditations on body image, diets, all kinds of programs that are geared to weight loss or change ask the practitioner to visualize him/herself the way they hope to be. If it is thin, to hold that image of themselves in the mind''s eye. I use "thin" and "weight loss" here as examples because that is my issue. If it is fitness for others, they have other images to hold. This morning I realized that when those meditations asked for a "picture", I have just kind of been glossing over that. I realized that I don't have or haven't been able to conjure that picture. I know that I want to be wearing slim fitting jeans with a tucked in blouse and a belt, but my own head, my own face is never in that picture. So when I say "what's wrong with this picture?" the answer is that I don't recognize it as me. That's a real challenge. The ability to see myself as I want to be. I wonder if any of the others have that problem, the ability to visualize themselves as they want to be.
So does it, do you think, as my cousin suggests, have something to do with feeling deserving? It's an important question for me and one I really have to ponder. I have always been the kind of person who felt that I could have what I wanted if I just worked harder at it. Not always the case as we know. You can't make someone love you by working harder. You can't keep someone alive by working harder at it. But I guess those two examples can be refuted. We can keep ourselves healthier and presumably alive longer by getting healthier with this program as the CHLI teaches us. And I guess we can learn to love ourselves by giving this golden opportunity everything we've got.
I'm learing that there are personal weak spots that I have to plan for in order to overcome them. I am getting better at it, but it needs work. Isn't it nice that there are things to do and learn and improve no matter how old you are? And isn't it delightful when you find a group of people that happened to come together through no fault or effort of their own and yet find a way to be friendly, encourage each other, learn from each other, laugh together, and work toward personal goals in concert with each other. In concert, I like that. By the time we finish this program, we could be a symphony. Wouldn't that be terrific?