reality

You know you have zero self-esteem and zero self love for yourself when you are not even comfortable using face time with your own husband. I hate seeing my face in the little corner and am way to self conscience about how I look. Rather than focusing on him, I can't help but think about how stupid, ugly, awkward and so on I look. Selfish, extremely sad and pathetic. But that's my reality. :(

not good

Day 6 of the new year. Day 6 of my so called "journey". How's it going? Not good.

Of my original goals, I have only kept one so far... the recite my "I am" statement. But obviously just doing that isn't helping too much by itself with the way I'm feeling.

Strengthen my relationship with my Heavenly Father through morning and evening prayer and scripture study?... I think I have said a morning prayer twice, and have read my scriptures twice. Night prayer I say all the time, but I've always done that, so it's not really an accomplishment or improvement. Definite room for improvement spiritually.

Love my body?... Ha! Really this goal is where my problem truly lies... loving my body/loving myself. And it runs so much deeper than just physically. My problem is more mentally. But I thought first focusing on the physical stuff - eating healthy, drinking more water, exercising - could potentially help me mentally. But it's hard for me. Pathetic, yes. Yes I am.

So here's a story for the day... This morning I made a healthy choice by choosing to eat a ham, cheese and egg burrito on a whole wheat tortilla rather than eating the leftover brownies. Go me! But guess what I ate for lunch? Yep... the brownies. And then of course I over ate at dinner time because that is just what I do. But on a good note, I did make salads for me to eat at lunch time for the rest of the week. Let's just hope I stick to eating them now. Food is seriously my enemy. Really my lack of self control and motivation is my enemy.

Speaking of lack of motivation... My exercise challenge?... Yea, I am already 3 days behind. :(

So obviously I'm struggling. Is this the end of my trying? Absolutely not. But for now, I'm going to sit down with a bowl of ice cream and a good book. Tomorrow is a new day. I'll do better then.

CORRECTION (1.7.14): Upon a closer look at my exercise challenge, I was only 1 day behind. So after enjoying my bowl of ice cream last night, I did two days worth of exercises. Yes, that is something that shouldn't be done, but in this case it worked. So now I am back on track with my exercise challenge. I can do this!

a beginning

Time to get real. Honest. No more pretending.
I have a confession...

I don't like myself. Really never have.

I'm not happy most days.

But that is all going to change. This year I am going to change. Now is the time. But it is not going to be easy. It will take time. LOTS of time. Heck, you can't change 33 years of negativity and hatred overnight. That is why this is going to be a journey. There will be good days and bad days. Ups and down. But I can do this. I NEED to do this. I owe it to myself and my family. So here I go. So much to do. So much change.

My number one overall goal...

LOVE MYSELF

Easy enough, right? You would think. So what can I do to help fix that...

• Create and recite daily an "I am" statement. - Months ago I was at an event where we were encouraged to write down and describe ourselves of WHO we wanted to be. It was a very powerful and uplifting experience for me. But I didn't apply what I learned and felt to my life. Now I will.
  
  
  "I am a child of God who is SMART, PATIENT, KIND, BEAUTIFUL and LOVING."
  
  The idea is, if you say it enough, you will start believing it.
  
  

• Strengthen my relationship with my Heavenly Father through daily (morning and evening) prayer and scripture study. - Scripture study is ALWAYS my answer. Whenever I'm feeling down and looking for direction and guidance, the idea of reading scriptures daily comes up. No joke. Every week at church I am told to read my scriptures. That's the message I get. Every time. It seems so simple. And that's probably why I have really never given it a try. Feeling sad? Lonely? Frustrated? Stressed? Read your scriptures. Okay, okay. I will give it a try.
  
  

• Love my body. - Whew. Seriously? This will be the hardest one. Really. But I am so tired of looking in the mrror and hating what I see. So what can I do?...
• Eliminate the word FAT and all its ugly synonyms from my vocabulary and mind.
• Forget about the numbers - Who cares what the scale says. Would losing weight make me happy? Absolutely not. How do I know that? Because 10 years ago when I weighed under 100 pounds I still thought I was fat and was unhappy. So who cares about a stupid number. That's all it is... a number.
• Focus on getting healthy
• Reduce the amount of sweets I eat (But not get rid of them. I love chocolate. And ice cream. And getting rid of them would NOT make me happy.)
• Eat more fruits and veggies
• Drink more water
• Exercise!

This year I am going to complete a 60 day workout challenge I discovered years ago but have never fully complete. But I'm going to be realistic and give myself 70 days to complete it (not including Sundays). So really if I start January 1st and give myself a cushion of 10 days and Sundays off, I should be done with my challenge on March 22nd. Once that challenge is met, I'll find another.

So there's my start. My plan. So much more that could be worked on too. But it's a beginning. A beginning to a better me. A self-loving, happier me.

Let's get this journey going!