Some may look at my life and think “she’s how old and this is all she has to show for her life”. Well, there was a time I would agree, but when I look back on my life, I have got to realize how blessed I am to even be here.
I won’t bore you all with the details of my past or the mistakes. What I will tell you is, my life hasn’t always been easy and I have been known to do things to cause my circumstances to be worse. I was the queen of zero confidence and I chased my problems rather than preparing myself for the future. I lived in lack and never gave myself the chance to prepare for the future. I never really thought I would still be on this earth at this age. I mean don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to die, but I lived in fear of living, and I lived in a mindset of tired, stressed and with the thought that things could never get better. I wanted to live but yet I didn’t want to live. I have learned that fear is the enemy of true living, and your dreams and desires have to be more than just wanting them..
About 10 years ago give or take I weighed my heaviest at over 300lbs I always felt bad physically and mentally I was sick . I wanted more but I was comfortable in my misery. A lot of good has happened since then and a ton of bad, I was completely defined by my misery. I was a mom, a wife a friend, and all the other adjectives that defined me, but I didn’t really truly know my identity.
This is not a story of greatness, however it is one of greatness in the making. Greatness and success are not defined by money, or status, but of grit, determination, and overcoming that which can destroy you.
In 2019 in January I made some important life decisions that changed me forever. I was going to step back into my life and live it.
I was running an in home daycare, I loved the kids and what I was doing but it allowed me to become content with the struggle and I slipped further and further into a dark hole within myself. I was no longer good at what I did, I was angry and bitter and stopped caring. I was working to build my relationship with God and becoming more faithful, I was running two businesses with no direction and my family was literally crumbling. I was slowly but actively dying and as harsh as it sounds I was acting out what I call complacent suicide. Fake it till you make it was my mantra but I couldn’t even fake it well. People saw it, I just didn’t realize it. Life was happening all around me, and I allowed my circumstances to keep me down and the very things that should have been motivating me forward were my excuses to stand still.
Before I tell you what has changed, I will tell you old habits are hard to break and I’m still a work in progress that still falls into old mindsets and behaviors, I’m still figuring it all out, I may not ever have it 100% figured out, but now I know I can never stop trying because life really is too good to let it slip past your fingers.
First off with cliché, “what you think about you bring about. I have always been verbally optimistic, but didn’t believe what I was saying. Hope was something I encouraged others to have but, I didn’t have it, but I thought I had faith. Those two things are definitely a pair that must go together. So I started there unintentionally. I always believed in God and considered myself a Christian, but I really had no true belief. I knew I had a purpose and even a calling, but didn’t think I had what it took to bring it to fruition. God must not have known who I was to put such a thing on me. Actually, he knew, I did not. I surrounded myself with people who believed in me and believe I am who God says I am. That was my best life choice ever. The true family I cultivated, believed it for me when I couldn’t, and now I’m stepping into that and have been, I always will be stepping further until the end. In life there is no destination all though we lie to ourselves and say, “if I accomplish this...if this happens... when I accumulate this, then I’ll be a success”. No baby, it is a journey filled with all kinds of surprises we couldn’t possibly be prepared for.
So I’m working on my faith, and creating hope daily, but my heart is broken, and I feel so sick all the time. I learned about the power of forgiveness and therapy. Y’all therapy is a gift from God. There is no shame in it so get over yourself and get it if you need it. Having someone impartial to unload to then you be given an unbiased perspective is amazing. My therapist is actually great at asking the right questions to help me figure out my own solutions to my dilemmas. Forgiveness is the tougher of these two. You have to realize forgiveness is for you not them, and it does not mean you have to tolerate people mistreating you. Forgiveness is allowing yourself to let go of the hurt and bitterness so you can heal. Forgiving yourself is even harder. If God can show you grace and mercy why can’t you show it to yourselves and others? Are you better than God? Do you know something he doesn’t?
So I’m figuring out forgiveness, and moving past the past and overcoming hurt, trying not to repeat bad behaviors and showing grace to others and myself. But I still feel physically ill. I still am extremely obese, diabetes out of control, high blood pressure, high Cholesterol, And diminishing and arthritic joints. I made a decision and in October 2019 I had bariatric surgery. As with all the things above the weight loss is still a work in progress but my diabetes is almost nonexistent my high blood pressure is nonexistent except in high stress situation and my cholesterol is great, I feel better than I ever have physically in my entire life. I have to take a moment to say to anyone who would say she took the easy way out, shut up! I decided to physically mutilate my body and yes I do look at it that way, in order to create a better life for myself. It was a very deeply personal decision that I did not take lightly and I sometimes regret it for a day, but overall I feel like it was the best decision that I made for my life ever. And in no way has any of this been easy it’s been very difficult I’ve had days where I shed tears, I signed up for an abnormal life for the rest of my life but to have a different life I had to live a different life.
At the end of the day I had to make a decision that I was worth making all of these changes. I had to believe that I could do what I was made to do. I choose to live in abundance rather than lack. That does not mean that everything is perfect for me, that does not mean that I don’t have any problems anymore, quite the contrary.What it does mean is that my mindset is different and I have empowered myself to be better. I have plenty of days where I still don’t feel good enough where I am celebrating and choose the wrong foods or I’m sad and choose the wrong foods because they make me feel better. There are days that I sleep the entire day because I just don’t feel like I can live my life, but it only last for a moment, I pick myself up and I move on because I am worth that.
This change in my mindset has brought me a closer relationship with my family, more confidence, the freedom that I’ve never felt before. My business is doing greater than it ever has before and I have my friends and family who support me to thank for that, but at the end of the day it comes from me making all of the decisions that I’ve told you guys about today. But most importantly if you hear nothing else hear this; if it were not for my relationship with God, if it were not for me trusting in him in the hard times, if it were not for him allowing to work through me, If it were not for me allowing him to work for me when I’m unable to do it myself, I promise you I would not be alive today.
