Day 582. 215 lbs lost (as of July 14)
When I started this blog, it was merely a place where I could hold myself accountable. I had no particular goals for my audience; I had no goals as far as where I wanted to take it. It was just a place where I could go and spill my guts to the world. I deliberately kept my subscriber count invisible because I never wanted to know who was reading. It was easy to talk about some of the things I talk about when I could make myself believe it was just me reading. As time went on, this changed and I found myself having to filter some of my thoughts. I have never been good at holding things in; it was never my style. Therapy played a significant role in that. I learned how to talk about hurts and allowed myself to become vulnerable so that I could heal. I wasn’t born with that, it developed.
Today marks 18 months exactly since the day I started. I have heard from a few people lately that I have “changed.” They are right about that, so let’s talk about it.
There are pros and cons to all of this and some things I have never said. When I first started, I didn’t have much of a voice. I was a people pleaser because that’s what I had done my whole life. I was hurt so badly for the first half of my life that I didn’t want anyone mad at me. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone being angry at me. I spent most of my life going out of my way to do things for others and to take care of other people that I completely neglected myself. Because I was a pleaser of others and when things start changing – these other people get mad. They get mad because you aren’t going out of your way to please them anymore. They only know you as one person so as things change, they are forced to change, and not everyone is on board with that.
When you are vulnerable and desperately looking for help and support, you inadvertently become a target. People will want to sell you and get you involved with every hair-brained vitamin, shakes, various products, pills, and potions because they “believe” this is what you need. At least this is what they tell you. The problem I had with this is that they never asked me what I WANTED. The second problem with this is they benefited financially which made it difficult to believe that my best interests were at heart. When I started feeling like I was being taken advantage of and bullied, I cut them off. The relationship was severed in an instant. I didn’t apologize for it, and I honored how I felt. Some people are okay with this; I’m not one of them. This type of experience changes you because now your filters are on high alert. Whether they were well-intentioned or not, there are negative consequences.
The grind itself is relentless. There are many days and nights I would cry because I felt too tired to continue. The endless 24 hours a day of taming myself to stay away from things not right for me angered me at times. I wanted to be able to have the chocolate cake, I wanted to go out and have the nachos with the group of people, but I had to say no, and sometimes it felt like punishment especially in the earlier days. My weak legs constantly wanted to give out, and I cried many days because I wanted them to work like everyone else’s. Sometimes it didn’t seem fair. This changes you… because you have to learn to be okay with the body that GOD provided and its hard. Its damn hard all the time.
I struggled for months and months with being the biggest person in my gym. The humility involved in being that person is hard. It sometimes felt as if I had been stripped naked. Now mind you, nobody ever made me feel bad for it, but it was something I had to grow through. This changes you.
For the first time in my life, I was exposed to a large group of people. I never had many friends; this went all the way back to when I was a kid. I wasn’t even allowed my first official friend until I was 11. In high school, I could count all my friends on one single hand because I was different. I learned how to operate in very tiny circles; I never knew any other kind of life. I was never exposed to large groups of people thought brought with them distinct personalities, dynamics, wants, desires, and opinions. I had never been a party to anything like it. I was learning as I went, but it was a struggle. In a gym setting, you have everyone dealing with some insecurity, myself included. You’re in there gutting it out and forming bonds – and because of this friendships develop, relationships develop and let me tell you, not all of them are necessarily healthy.
The downside of being so open is that people believed I was a person to confide in because I was so very open about nearly everything. I was honored they felt comfortable, however…. they shared information. I became the carrier of information I never wanted to know. Their secrets then would become my secrets, and it was a burden to carry. So here I am struggling every day to keep my head on straight and to continue in my grind, and now it seemed I had to shoulder other people’s drudgery. It began to feel claustrophobic, and I couldn’t breathe. I often asked myself why things that involved other people bothered me. “Athena, it’s their deal, why does that bother you”? Because I loved all of them. Very much. I strongly disliked knowing “secrets”; it made me feel utterly terrible. Knowing things that could hurt people hurt me. This can change a person. I get to honor that moral compass.
When you are put in a more public position, you become the inspiration for others. Weirdly it starts to add pressure in ways I can’t describe. It is humbling in the best way possible and I’m so proud. However, the pressure to perform and to keep on task became a real thing; one that I was duly unprepared for. I didn’t handle the pressure well for a while back in April. I withdrew, became stressed which created a kind of agitation. People would approach me and say things like “Hey Athena, I noticed you weren’t getting your badges lately how is the weight loss going.” I didn’t know how to answer questions like this. It made me feel put on the spot – again, something I never had to deal with. Well-intentioned I’m sure,…. but one more stress for me. I was doing everything right and couldn’t control those down times. It used to stress me out like nobody’s business. This can change a person. Getting asked those kinds of questions was something I had to grow through – because now they happen regularly. That took time.
The second downside of being so open is that it misleads people into thinking they’re entitled to know everything I do. I’ve had to make some decisions lately once again for self-preservation. Sometimes change is necessary to keep moving forward. Ahhh…. However, people love to speculate and fill in the blanks. This can change a person because…. It’s hurtful.
So what’s my point in all of this? Change itself changes you. When someone says, “Athena you’ve changed”. You’re damn right I have. Some changes are amazing and wonderful, and some are not so good. When the not so good things change, then new directions must be applied. When I mentioned before in a previous blog post that every new version of this journey requires a new version of me, it’s entirely accurate. However, every new experience good and evil also creates a new version of me. It may or may not…. be compatible with things ….or people……I once knew – therefore change… once again becomes necessary.
I will protect my journey, fiercely if necessary, and continue to make tough decisions to keep going. My journey has been pure and intentioned from the beginning. Once you realize you are the only one that can keep you moving – this changes you. The outside world only sees a tiny fraction of me. The struggle I go through the other 20-21 hours a day is the part that most people don’t see. It’s there… and it’s real. Only God knows that struggle and only GOD knows genuinely…. what I have been through since this journey began. When your goals and dreams are massively big, the things that get tossed in your path are also massively big. However, if you have the nerve to step through, the rewards and 10 times bigger as well. I get to decide how I navigate those big things and me alone. God only knows where I would be if I didn’t have GOD right now. I remain steadfast – no matter where my feet are planted – head down and moving forward. Since DAY 1.
Lovingly,
Bean
