Beliefs...

Rattlesnake Point, Vernon B.C.

I sat down to write a post, not 100% certain about what exactly. I swore that I would not write a blog post if I felt that I was constantly complaining about the same things, never taking action, blah, blah, blah. Then I realized that growing requires getting uncomfortable and continuously peeling the onion. I have yet again peeled another layer of my onion that is my weight loss journey...

There have been a lot of “beliefs” that I have regarded as cold hard facts…truths, if you will, that are all of a sudden being presented to me as false.  As human we develop these beliefs out of decisions we make in a split second from events in our lives. For most, you don’t question them, for me, I’m like a pit-bull looking for blood when it comes to personal development, so here it goes.

False Belief #1: In my world I have to lose a ton of weight before I can find love. I had to lose weight before I could be in a relationship, get married, have babies etc… Although, yes, I saw plus size girls all the time, married with children, what always went through my head was “That is great for them, but for me I have to lose weight first.” Well this has been thrown out the window with me being in an amazing relationship, where he tells me, on a regular basis, how beautiful I am and how much he loves being with me.

False Belief #2: No one can love me as much as the boyfriend says he does, because I don’t even love myself that much. This one stung a little because its admitted that in the world of love, it wasn’t possible for me to love myself at this size, but don’t worry, when I lose weight I will very much love myself because I would be more acceptable and easy to love.  “That which you resist, persists” By not loving myself no matter what, the weight stays exactly where it is. Now, I ‘ve made strides in the area of loving myself since I started my journey earlier this year, but strides is no longer good enough. I can take the love that my boyfriend, my friends and my family give me and use it to train myself in the art of loving myself. Your partner, friends and family love you unconditionally and since we all know that I haven’t been very good at it, why not look at myself through someone else’s eyes and love what they love, see what they see…

False Belief #3: I’m screwed. I developed this belief when the popular gym teacher told me I wasn’t going to be able to participate in an exercise because of my size and the entire class looked at me. I decided that it didn’t matter how hard I tired I was screwed because if the popular gym teacher said so, then it must be true. I was overweight, but not to terrible at this point in high school and with the help of my mother had been trying really hard to lose the excess weight. I’m screwed became the perfect excuse to give up.

Closely in behind I’m screwed, is I have to be perfect at everything. I’ve held the belief, since elementary school, that if I wasn’t going to be able to do something perfectly, don’t bother doing it at all.  This has crept in and out of previous blog posts, but I’m calling it out now. Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, kind of like beauty. You are the only person that dictates what perfect is, because perfect to me is different than what is perfect to you.  What I’ve discovered is that perfect doesn’t matter, it’s trying that counts. I’m reminded of what someone said to me once “I don’t care that you’ve tried 1000 times Nicole, try 1001, 2000, 4000 if that’s what it takes, just try”.

So, with these beliefs now turning up bunk what am I left with? Well for the first time in a long time I have a little bit more faith in myself and it’s time to have a little fun and give a whole lotta love my way. From this, the Drop Dead Diva Project has been born, stay tuned for the next post…

Your Heart...

Sometimes giving your heart to another is one of the scariest things you can do in life. It means opening yourself up to a world of potential hurt and heartbreak.

As most of you know I have entered into a relationship that I have dreamed about for a really long time and I thought that everything was perfect. I placed my heart into the hands of a man that I have loved since I was 14 years old. When you place your heart in someone else’s hands you hope and pray that they take care of it the way that you will take care of theirs, assuming they’ve done the same. You want them to cherish it, love it, nurture it and put their life on the line to ensure that it doesn’t get broken.

This week it feels as if mine is being tossed up in the air for a game of catch. It’s like I'm watching a baseball pitcher, standing on his pitcher’s mound, tossing the ball up in the air and catching it with his glove, but not looking at the ball, he’s looking at his teammate over his right shoulder.  I watched as events unfolded and conversations were had that made me want to jank my heart away from this person with such freight that I remember saying to myself at one point “I’m never going to give this thing away again”.

Then thanks to a quote posted on a friend’s Facebook, I remembered, you have to love someone with everything that you have, every fibre of your body. Holding back this love doesn’t serve any purpose. There is a line in a quote that reads “love like it will never hurt”. If you‘ve ever been through what I’ve described above you know what I’m talking about. Loving like it will never hurt takes something deep from within your soul. You have to give up all protection mechanisms that we develop as humans over the years. IT’S SCARY! But when you stop and think about what not doing this gets you….do you want a life of “what if’s” and regrets, or do you want to arrive at the pearly white gates with scrapes on your knees and mud in your hair saying “Sweet ride!”