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.