March update! One hundred pounds later...

Life has been really crazy for me lately! For the past month, I have been taking part in an extensive training to become a volunteer on a suicide hotline. Between spending 10 hours a day with the kids I nanny, and 13 hours a week at training, life has been crazy busy. But not too crazy to fit in some fun time--the most notable fun being Disney On Ice! Ben surprised me with tickets the day after Valentine's and it was wonderful. I don't remember ever being so excited before! Despite all the craziness in life, I've realized lately that I have been blessed with so many wonderful people who love and care for me. 

Although I had a busy month with work, training, and all the fun I was having, I still managed to find plenty of time to concern myself with my body. This past week, I came to a milestone that has intensified my contemplation on weight loss and body image: I lost my hundredth pound. While a small part of me feels some sense of accomplishment, the greater part of me feels a great sense of frustration and a LACK of accomplishment. If I could have seen a glimpse of myself now before I started losing weight, I am confident that I would have been more than happy to accept the body I now have. However, willingness to accept my body as it is now is not the current set of emotions I am experiencing. All of this has really got me thinking: when will I ever feel good enough?

I don't feel like I am the only person who has experienced this before. I am now at a healthy weight, but I am still unsatisfied because I don't feel like I have yet met the standards of beauty and thinness that I am exposed to every day. The more I've considered all of this, I've come to realize that I truly never will feel good enough if I make the standards imposed on women by our society the standards I strive to live by. At the beginning of this new month, I am recommitting myself to live by the standards of womanhood that I really do feel are important. Those standards include becoming a person who loves others and serves them, and is kind to all people. It includes rejecting the impulse to focus my life on physical characteristics and to instead focus my life on becoming the kind of woman I have always desired to become. It includes using my time to make a difference in the world, and to lift others up. If I could lose 100 pounds and still not feel good enough, what will make me feel like I am good enough? I believe that the answer to that question is a shift in focus--from myself to others.

I could lose another 50 pounds and still not feel satisfied with myself. But I've realized that there are ways to be happy with myself right now. When I finish out a shift at the hotline, having been able to divert someone from their plan to commit suicide, I feel good. When I make a call to a friend who I know needs a little extra support to make it through a tough day, I feel happy. When I take the time to read stories and play with the children I spend my days with, I feel so much more joy and happiness. Truly, a life lived to serve others is a happy life. That is the kind of life I am going to live!