My Why

This morning I started a 10 week stint at Ferrell's Extreme Body Shaping.  I have been blessed to have this opportunity, thanks to a good friend of my husband's, Wayne, who owns the FXB in Lavista.

To be completely, blatantly, unglamorously honest, I wanted to throw up ever since I committed to going yesterday.  Yeah, I literally wouldn't commit until Yesterday.

My husband did the last 10 week session with my oldest stepchild.  She wants to join the Navy, and to do so, she needed to increase her physical fitness and drop some pounds.  Sadly, a concussion and bronchitis sidelined her success, but my husband did great.  He wanted me to do this with him, and in my heart, I wanted to to - but I felt like...there's just NO WAY I can do it.

See - I'm fighting a huge battle with fear, after being diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension several years back.  It was a big deal when I was first diagnosed, and then a few months after my diagnosis, the pulmonary specialist I was working with said she didn't think I ever really HAD pulmonary hypertension.  So - we dropped all treatment, and I've been fine ever since.  I did quit working, and have spent the last 5 years at home raising kids, and then working from home, which greatly decreased my stress, but still - there has been no indication that I have any problems.  BUT THE FEAR....what if that doc was wrong and the first doc was right?  What if I try this and DIE?  What if I don't...AND I DIE?

SO, yeah, I am fighting that.  With prayer and determination, and a lot of encouragement from my husband (and the coaches today), I am fighting that.

One of the things the main coach said today was that we need to know our 'why'.  WHY are we doing this.  Because we're in the 5 AM class.  That means every day at 4:30 or so, I am going to be hating life and finding every reason in the book for why I can't go.  My coordination alone today during the 'learning' period of the class was enough to make me nearly give up!  I'm just SAD!

So here are my whys:
1.)  I have a beautiful, amazing 4-year-old daughter that has 10 times the energy I have.  I can't take her for walks.  I can't run around with her.  I can't hula hoop with her.  I am tired of not being able to do things with her.
2.) I have a beautiful, amazing 20-year-old daughter.  Someday in the not too distant future she is going to meet the man God plans for her, and have my grandbabies.  I want to be here for my grandbabies.

3.) I want to be with my husband, and be healthy with him, for a long, long time to come.

4.) I want to be able to stand without my feet and back killing me.

5.) I want to be able to sleep without Ambien.

6.) I want to amaze myself by doing something I don't think I can do.

7.) I want to set an example for my children of accomplishment.  Right now I just expect them to set goals for themselves and to achieve them. It has frustrated me that some of them don't set goals and knock them out of the park.  I have never shown them how to do that.

8.) I want my husband to kick diabetes, and to not reach diabetic status myself.

9.) I want to be able to go to the mall and shop in any store I feel like shopping in - not just the ones that carry bigger sizes.

10.) I don't want to ever feel again that someone looks at me, and before they know anything about my intelligence or skills, they've judged me unworthy because of my weight.

11.) I want to grow in my relationship with God as I trust Him to carry me along this path.  There is no way that I, looking at the 10 weeks coming up, can do it.  I just can't.  I haven't worked out in SO LONG - and when I have tried I've phoned it in.  I haven't pushed myself.  I can't do this without God.  So - this is going to be a time frame of really deepening my relationship with God to get through this.  Maybe this should have been #1, but I just thought to list it here.

12.) I want to love looking at me.  I know, that sounds enormously egotistical.  But it isn't.  I can't tell you how many years it has been since I didn't try to hide FROM MYSELF when I stand in front of the mirror after I shower.  Yes, this is an immense level of self-hate (or self-ignorance) on my part.  It's not that hard, you know, to drape a towel over yourself so you don't have to look at you.  To only look at your eyes, or your hair, or your teeth, and mentally block out the whole you.  But I want to like ME.  I can't think of a single outfit I own that I LIKE the way I look in.  I have no clothing I can wear that I think makes me look attractive to my husband.  I have just shut off that part of myself, and I need to find it again.  Not to be a clotheshorse or showoff or any of that.  Just to love me again. It sounds stupid, writing it, and maybe if you're not where I am, it doesn't make sense.  But this list is MY whys, and I know what that means.  And this is maybe the biggest WHY on my list.

So that's my Why.  Because the level of self-hate I have for myself is completely unacceptable, and the thought of any of my children feeling that way about themselves breaks my heart.  I guess I break my own heart, a little, too.

Today is 1 day in 10 weeks of what will probably not be much fun.  But it is Day 1 in finding my way back to me.

There is no way that this will all work, but God.

And I can do ALL THINGS through Him, who strengthens me.