Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

I am almost six months out of surgery and my progress and the changes it brings are amazing. I am changing in many ways; when you lose weight things shift in unexpected ways. My loss is up to about 56 pounds, albeit more to go, I am so pleased. I am having some sciatica pain mostly when I sleep, but for now I can deal. My confidence level has improved too, yay.

I've been thinking a lot lately about fear and what it does. Fears and insecurities are nasty little things that close us off from many things we need or want to experience, but why? Perhaps because all our lives we hear judgments of everything and certain opinions stick with us. We hear, oh it hurts to get a needle in the arm, therefore people expect pain without even knowing if we can stand the little prick or how much it will actually hurt. We hear intimacy leads to heartache and pain, so we shy away from getting close. We give fear so much power over our actions. We build up the unknown in our minds based on what other people experienced, and how could we not; it's all we have to go on. We base our insecurities on our past failures and disappointments and expect the same outcome.

 

After years of doing this the idea of something painful causes us to shutter away from it. The anticipation fear creates is what helps brace us for how it will feel or in some cases make us stay away from the "danger". Yet we have no hard evidence there really is danger. In some cases, it may be even be better. Then the fear of success can lead to building up the feeling of losing what we gained from our risk. We create the insecurity, it's a choice. The best way to overcome our fears is to walk towards them. That gives us the control to feel the fear and master whatever it is you want to experience at the same time seeing that fear is an illusion to be laughed at.

 

There is fear in weight loss surgery and losing weight because what if I lose weight and still don't feel good about myself? What if I am still unattractive? What if I am healthier in some ways but its not enough? What if nothing in my life gets better? The truth is that losing weight guarantees only one thing, you will weigh less and surgery only guarantees you will lose weight. The fear builds up these expectations so high that anything less will be a disappointment. We may pass this along to others, therefore making weight loss and surgery something scary. The illusion vanishes when we realize that like I said in the past everything is a trade off and yes you may gain something by losing weight but lose other things you can't imagine. Faith and trust in ourselves is the strength we have to overcome the fears. You are in control of your fears and how you react to them. Run towards them and they will dissipate.

 

I can't take credit for this but fear has two options: "Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise."