What are you grieving? You may be surprised.

As I continue to wind my way through this process called grief I find I'm unable to write about the topics that usually drive me to my laptop, topics like weight loss, motivation, addiction, fear, self esteem, shame, unworthiness, failure...you know the fun stuff that connects us all together!  I'd been thinking that I have nothing to say at this moment that will connect us in the way those topics do but then this morning I realized was wrong, we have grief.

The term grief is always associated with the loss of a loved one because that is the highest and greatest of losses but what about all the other losses we endure?  Are we grieving and not even aware of it?  

What are you grieving?  Could it be...

-the loss of what you thought your life was going to look like by now?

-the loss of the childhood you never had?

-the loss of the person you became when you lost 50, 60 or 70 pounds because you gained some or all of it back?

-the loss of the freedom to do what you want to do because you're looking after someone else?

-the loss of your purpose because you no longer have to look after that person?

-the loss of the ability to dream?

-the loss of the belief that dreams can come true?

-the loss of a body that no longer has the strength to do what it once did?

-the loss of a job you loved or hated?

-the loss of having somewhere to go every day?

-the loss of feeling in control of your life?

-the loss of the you that used to have hope?

-the loss of the idea that you would love finally yourself once you lost the weight?

I could go on and on because the truth is there's the potential to suffer a loss in all areas of our lives. As I read over my off-the-top-of-my-head list I noticed most of the list is made up of the loss of an idea instead of an actual loss, like a job or the loss/use of a body part.  When I think of it much of what I grieve over on a daily basis is an idea: the idea of what I thought my life was going to look like. 

While the things I listed may be lower on the grief scale they still deserve our attention because left unattended the effects of all grief can be accumulative and affect us in ways we don't realize.  In our workshops we often spend time trying to identify the emotions that lead us to over-eat or self-sabotage but all too often we can't put the "why" we're feeling those emotions into words.  Could it be because it's not brought on by an easily identifiable event (like a death) but because we're grieving an idea and not aware of it?

What has you so mired down that you often feel angry, numb, unfocused and unmotivated?  Is it the loss of something tangible or a loved one?  Or is it the loss of an idea?  If it's an idea of who you thought you were going to be and you're not, or what you thought your life was going to look like and it doesn't, allow yourself to grieve the loss. Chances are you've had that idea a very long time so look at it with love and acknowledge the pain of letting a part of yourself go.  Recognize hanging on to the idea no longer serves your highest self, then focus your huge capacity to love and your own bright light on what you do have so you can begin to heal and dream again.  

Even in grief there are gifts.

I've been grieving for a long time.  It started two years ago with the end of my marriage and a life I thought was mine, and now it is the loss of both parents in the space of 2 months to the day.  Mom left our lives on April 15 when she went into long term care with Alzheimer's and Dad died of a broken heart on June 15.  So my brother and I are now left to each answer the question grief insists you ask yourself, "So, now what?"

I think the one lesson we all learn is that there's no fast-pass through grief.  I, of course, learned that the hard way during my divorce thinking I could skips the stages and move quickly into a new life....and no.  We typically associate grief with death but in reality it's the suffering of a loss and every one of us has felt it.  This time I've decided to feel the pain and listen to what it has to say, really I have no choice because it never shuts up!  

The first thing my pain said to me when I was packing to rush to Denbigh to be with my brother was, "What will I wear to the funeral?  I've gained weight again and there'll be so many people who haven't seen me since I left 40 years ago, and why, oh why couldn't I have kept my divorce weight off???  I looked good then!"  So, yes, one of the first things I felt after hearing about my Dad's sudden death was panic and then shame.  Shame that in one of the worst moments in a person's life I worried about looking fat. Still grappling with that one.

Then my pain fed me the line that everything for the funeral needed to be perfect which sent every insecure fiber of my being into overdrive. I convinced myself that I could handle everything on my own and not fall apart.  Still haven't fallen apart yet, so that's not going to be pretty when it happens!  

We decided not to tell Mom about Dad for obvious reasons.  After "seeing" Dad at the hospital I went to visit Mom at the residence.  I searched her ever increasingly vacant eyes and felt a huge wave of sadness and then a huge wave of gratitude; Mom would be spared the pain.  She was shocked that I had come to visit her all on my own, after all I'm only 10.  Grieving the loss of someone who still walks the earth is the grief that never ends and that's what killed Dad.

"After life care" is the gentle term used for the paperwork that has to be done when someone dies.  About a month before he died I was reading Mom's POA, Dad was reading over his Will and said it was good. He then told me that when he died I would have to look after everything.  This is where feelings of anger towards Dad have come up.  For someone who was always, and I mean always, right and dotted every "i" and crossed every "t", how could he have missed that he neglected to remove Mom as his executor! I understand he was grieving and beyond worn out but the extra hoops I now have to jump through from the bank to HydroOne are so frustrating!  And almost every change has to be made in person so that means 7 hours of driving for me.  I feel guilty for feeling frustrated.

I also feel guilty about the few times I put myself first and opted to stay home for a weekend instead of going to Denbigh.  My logical brain tells me that I made those decisions knowing that self-care is important for all care-givers but now all I can think of is one time after spending 2 days with him Dad begged me to stay another night and I didn't. 

And then there's the guilt of feeling resentment. I was just getting my life back and starting to feel on solid ground again and now the ground beneath me feels anything but solid.  Guilt is extremely versatile, it can be served as a main dish but also pairs well with other negative emotions.

And then there's the precursor to all negative emotions: fear.  As I've mentioned in past blogs Dad, like many of his generation, lead a fear driven life and instilled that quite nicely in his children.  He was a Warrior parent, if a crisis hit he was the man you wanted on your side.  He would circle the wagons in an instant and make you feel safe.  Who's going to circle the wagons now?  Apparently I am but where in hell do you get wagons these days??  Costco? Some days I find myself crippled with the fear of inadequacy and must force myself to get out of bed.   Thank you again to my cat Stuart who can be quite insistent.

I just realized a gift this very instant.  As I was writing some of the words above there was a voice in my head that kept whispering,"That's no longer true."  Grief has forced me to question my life long belief that I'm not capable, that if a time came for circling the wagons I would not be up to the task.  The reality is I was the one who circled the wagons around the family when we needed it and Dad knew it.  And he also knew Mom would continue to be encircled for a long as she lives.  I need to revise that part of my story.

Another gift of grief (and writing) is as we are forced to face our feelings it becomes very obvious what we still need to learn.  How glaringly obvious is it that my ancient wound of "not being good enough as I am" has not healed?  But as embarrassed as I am to write down my panicked thoughts about not wanting to look fat at my Dad's funeral, I did it because my desire to heal is stronger than my embarrassment.  

Grief is complicated, unpredictable and insidious.  Because it's tied to every negative and fearful thought we have about ourselves it forces us to question everything we've come to believe.  And that's the gift of grief.  We perhaps don't recognize it as a gift because it's wrapped in pain but it is a gift.  Or maybe it's more like an Escape Room and you can only get out once you've answered all the clues and found the right key to the lock.  Either way, you can be released if you choose it.

Now to answer the question, "So, now what?"  To loosen the grip grief has on me I've adopted a spiritual philosophy which states we can choose to look at all situations through a lens of fear or a lens of love.  I see now that for most of my life I've looked at situations through the lens of fear and have the battle scars to prove it.  But now I choose/try to look at all situations with love and the moment I do I feel a shift in how I feel!  When I feel weighed down I look for the love and feel lighter, feelings of weakness dissolve and strength shows up,  resentment is replaced with compassion, and when I feel overwhelmed and drowning, focusing on the love lifts me out of the current and fills me with peace.  Pretty big gifts, right?

During the past two years I have been so blessed to have shared similar life-altering stories with so many of you and continue to do so. It's like we're all in an Escape Room working together to solve the challenges laid in front of us in order to navigate our way to freedom and we've finally discovered the key......and it's love.

Life is not meant to be white knuckled.

"I walked in hating myself and never addressed that.  I just white knuckled it."

That is part of the comment B. left on our WW FB page after reading my last blog.  I broke down in tears when I read her pain.  In the past weeks her words "I just white knuckled it." have stuck with me, in fact I have used the example of "white knucking" it in my workshops because I know so many of us do exactly that.

With some people it starts right off the get-go because their self loathing is so great they perceive any small weight gain as proof of their unworthiness.  Others start off with a burst of believing they can do it but that belief is tied to their idea of what success looks like and the moment they don't measure up to that idea that fragile belief is shattered, fear sets in and they force themselves into white knuckling mode.  But as we have all no doubt found out white knuckling is not sustainable so we let go and it's then we realize we've not developed the new habits and thoughts which will help us navigate through life's situations. We slide back into old habits, and even older thoughts, this time desperately clawing and grasping to any thing and any idea to prevent more weight from coming back on.  I know this from years of experience, and it is exhausting both mentally and physically.  Not to mention, it doesn't work.

Oh, my wonderful, and often hurting, Tribe members, life is not meant to be white knuckled! But when our motivation to change is only self-hatred I think white knuckling is inevitable because like B. we don't want to address it, we just want to change. I looked up the origin of the term and noticed another term, "White Knuckle Sobriety"...."the practice of desperately holding on to sobriety without working a recovery program....by trying to hang on to sobriety without working toward recovery, they are attempting to treat the symptoms rather than the disease."  Sound about right to you?

So what to do?  When I think of the years and years of effort I've put into trying to fix myself and I still feel unworthy in many ways it makes me so sad to have wasted so much time. And I wonder what would have happened if I had spent that time cultivating self love?  But the reality is that I did what I did and there is no going back and changing it but, good news, every day we wake up is an opportunity to not make that same mistake because "when you know better, do better."  Every day gives us the opportunity to do better by loving ourselves better.

I know many of you have no idea where to start and the thought of releasing the tension on your knuckles fills you with fear, I know the feeling well!  But fear and self hatred are just practices, but you don't think of them that way because you've been doing them for so long they are your way of life.  But we weren't born full of fear and self-hatred, we picked them up in bits and pieces at a very young age and soon that's who we took ourselves to be.  Time to change our story.

How? We're going to start releasing that tension on our knuckles by picking up bits and pieces of self-love and joy!  And, more good news, you're already doing it every time you:
-notice a feeling of self-hatred
-choose to read or watch uplifting messages
- empathize with the pain in others
-choose to do what is right for you regardless of what others think
-desire to live your life in a different head space
-voice your thoughts to others or write them down
-show a kindness to another
-make a conscious effort to live in gratitude
-make the choice to eat a healthy meal
-go for a walk or dance in your living room
-give your attention to what you want instead of what you don't want
-give yourself permission to feel good
-choose to believe when others tell you how wonderful and fabulous you are
-choose not to believe when others, or the voices in your head, tell you that you're not wonderful and fabulous
-join a community of like-minded seekers

And, even more good news: we don't have to white knuckle it to shed the fear and self-hatred, it will begin to fall away on it's own as we shift our attention to picking up those bits and pieces of love and joy!  And I know it works because I am experiencing it in my own life in a huge way and you can too!!  Love and joy is there for everyone, you just have to start letting go so you can pick them up! Yay you!

Embrace your emotional pain.

We all have it and we all hate it because it hurts!  But think about it, being in emotional pain is perhaps why at times we're open to personal growth and change, and yes, I know it's often because we're desperate but that's okay, desperation is often the last shove that gets us to the threshold of change.

When we're unhappy and in emotional pain self preservation springs into action.  We start seeking out ways to relieve the pain and often that's when, and why, we walk through the door of our WW workshops.  We join up, start tracking, walking and losing weight...Yay!!!... and for a while we're on a roll so we stop seeking.  We believe our emotional pain is caused by our weight so it stands to reason once the weight starts to come off we believe our pain will end.  But it doesn't always, does it?  And once the honeymoon weight loss period is over for some of us the weight starts to come back on and we start to panic, and more weight comes back on.  

And I know what you're thinking, "What about So&So, they lost weight and they've kept it off?"  Yes, it's true some people lose the weight and keep it off and believe me I've talked to those people at length and here's one key factor they have in common: THEY walked through the door loving themselves but wanted to lose some weight NOT wanted to lose some weight SO they could love themselves.  

They say a toothache or a migraine is some of the worst physical pain one can have because it's in your head.  Emotional pain is some of the worst pain a person can have for the same reason.  I've been running from emotional pain my whole life and it's just now that I've learned that in order to ease my pain I must first embrace it. And that's a scary thing to do because embracing means 'bringing closer with affection' and that's the last thing we want to do!  But as it has turned out embracing my emotional pain is leading me on the most profound and loving path of my life. My pain caused an emotional fight or flight response which painfully lead me to understand you cannot fight your way out of emotional pain, you have to grow your way out.  And the way we grow emotionally is to plant new thoughts and ideas.

So I started seeking. Since self-help books put me to sleep, I listen to self-help audio books and inspirational Podcasts daily and I watch Oprah's Super Soul Sunday, TED Talks or YouTube videos to start my day.  I am replacing my constant seeking of ways to make myself worthy with constantly seeking the joy that is uniquely me.  And that is not a statement of conceit, haha...if you know me at all you know I deleted that line several times before leaving it in!  And yes I still hear my father's voice "about getting a swelled head" but now I understand he only passed on what he was given. I left it in because it's part of my personal growth to acknowledge that there is joy in being uniquely me.  

And I believe with my whole heart and soul that there is joy in being uniquely you too!  Now is the time for you to start believing it.  It may seem impossible to weed out the negativity you feel about yourself, but what IS possible is to plant new joyful and loving thoughts.  And once you do and start to feel good and hopeful the emotional pain will start to be released.  You will be in growth mode and no longer content to feel unworthy so you'll want to seek and plant, seek and plant and reap the benefits.

Embrace your emotional pain, it's your soul's way of telling you it's time to grow!

.

I can totally relate.

This morning I was so lucky to have a moment to answer a fellow WW member-friend's message inquiring about my Mom and received back message filled with words of kindness right when I needed them. I don't need to share why I'm feeling empty right now (if you're reading this you most likely have read much if not all of my sharing (over-sharing??) in my blog. I've felt the need to write an entry but just couldn't land on a topic until now. In addition to the many lovely and kind words you have shared with me about my blog, one word keeps cropping up: relatable.

This is what I wrote back to M.:

"Thank you so much for you words, I really need them right now. I know it's grief, guilt and fatigue that are hitting me now but I'm really struggling with food because I have huge chunks of time when I just don't give a crap and then I feel like crap both mentally and physically. I'm carry a 10 pound food baby right now and yesterday I thought my skin was going to burst! And I feel so guilty about wanting to come home last night when my Dad begged, actually begged, me to stay another night but I just didn't have it in me. I reasoned that if I stayed until 6 and he goes to bed at 8 and would not be up until long after I had left in the morning that I could do what I needed to do for me but still feel guilty as hell. He's lost the love of his life and yet she still walks this earth and he's in so much pain. So thanks for your words, best timing ever, and love the comment "Continue to be the Fruitloop in life’s bowl of Cheerios!"

Well, Tribe, can you relate?? I know you can because everyone has something in their life that causes them to feel grief, guilt and/or fatigue. And even though I know for sure that when you least want to go to a workshop you most definitely need to go, if it wasn't that I'm coaching the workshop tonight this WW member would skip it and sit on my couch and eat, possibly a whole lotta chips.

But M's words have lifted me so I'm going to send them out to all of you and hope they lift you too!

"Give yourself permission to feel what you feel without the guilt. You got to do what you got to do to get through this nightmare. Most important is to get your mental health in order and be sweet and kind to your lil self. Do some nice things for yourself that you enjoy. Find good counselling, meds, meditation, walks, friendships, salon, spa, ....... Don’t go near anyone that’s negative or a pain in the ass right now if you can help it. Yeah. Your dad needs you but you’re no good to him or anyone if you’re exhausted, guilty and depressed. Make good WW food choices when you can and track...... but other than that, let it go and you gotta fix yourself first. You gotta a friend in me, so feel free to bend my ear."

So, Tribe, 

if you're having a day, a week or a year we can all relate

 and if you join us maybe we can lift you too!

"Some days you just got nothin'."

This morning I sat down to check with the WW topic for this week and was dismayed to see it is "Ease emotions (without food)".  Normally I would love this topic because ya'all know I love to delve into the food/emotion pot and stir it up!  Love it!

But today I thought, "I'm going to have to really fake it today, cause I got nothin'."  Today I'm recovering from a weekend of trying to ease my emotions with food.  My Mom is still in the hospital waiting for her slow-down-Rebecca meds to kick in so I can move her to a secure floor in a retirement residence.  My Dad, brother and I spent the entire weekend pretending all was okay because apparently I'm the only one who likes to talk about our feelings.  I was determined not to repeat the cookie episode from last weekend when I chowed down somewhere between 3 and 8 large Macadamia nut cookies and then took the last 37 of them and soaked them with soapy dish water, then mashed them up and hid them in the compost container.  Yes, that happened and yes I belong to a family where no one notices when 45 cookies go missing!  But this weekend no cookies, just everything else that was not nailed down.  Have you noticed that they don't nail chips down like they used to?

On my way to Denbigh I was not hungry but stopped anyway and got a can of Pringles and on the way home three days later I was not hungry but stopped anyway and got a can of Pringles.  Both times the can was gone in about 7 minutes and that's not an exaggeration...about 7 minutes.  Yup, I'm that good.

Back to this morning...still nothin'!  Even though as a WW Coach we are members first we still try to lead by example but today...."I got nothin'!" 

I started to think of Weight Watchers re-imagined to WW - Wellness that Works.  And Wellness is not just about the food, it's also about self compassion and perseverance. It's about not berating yourself when you can't get your rings off because of all the salt in the chips.  It's about drinking more water to offset all the salt in the chips.  It's about going for a walk to clear your head or going to bed early if you haven't the strength to try and clear your head.  It's about getting up the next day and deciding to have scrambled eggs with a side of fruit for breakfast instead of the last 3 cereal bars with a side jar of peanut butter. It's about going to a workshop and lightening your burden by sharing it with your people.

So the next time you think you've got nothin' remember all that Wellness means to you and work the ones you've still got.

"It's such a horrible disease..."

That's what people say when they ask about my Mom, who has Alzheimer's.  Almost two weeks ago at dinner time she was taken by ambulance to Renfrew hospital with pneumonia.  It really wasn't the pneumonia that landed her there, it was that she didn't know she had to stop eating if she started to cough, so she kept trying to eat and swallow while she was having a coughing fit.  It's such a horrible disease.

I've been visiting Mom daily these couple of weeks.  Once while visiting her I went to the cafeteria for a bad cup of coffee and ran into a woman I grew up with and she asked about Mom.  Her Dad had just recently died with Alzheimer's so she knew first hand what we're going through.  Unlike my Mom who has remained very sweet, her Dad became mean and at times violent with her Mom before he went into long term care. She said, "One time he just grabbed Mom and through her up against the wall, and Mom is smaller than you so she really went flying."  

My brain slowed right down as I remembered a thin Mrs. M. from 40 years ago and I'm ashamed to say I stopped listening to my friend and thought, "Did Mrs. M. gain weight so now she's much bigger?  Or am I almost as small as Mrs. M.???"  Luckily at that point some sense of decent sensibility kicked in and told me to shelve that thought and get back to acknowledging my childhood friends' pain.

Back walking the halls with my Mom, I allowed myself to take that thought off of the shelf to examine it.  I'd like to write that I showed self compassion and gently questioned why in the midst of sharing great pain with another person a part of me was thrilled with the thought that I was almost as small as Mrs. M. but my first thought was, "WTF is wrong with me???  What kind of shallow, ego minded lunatic misses the part about an old woman being thrown up against the wall, but clings desperately to the part about the poor woman being "smaller than you"??? Ahhhh..again...WTF???"  Fortunately, again, sensibility kicked in and I thought, "What would a Weight Watcher do with that thought?"  The answer: A WW member striving to become their best self would acknowledge the thought and lovingly shine the light of curiosity on it, so that's what I did. 

Watching my Mom mindlessly trot ahead of me, stopping every few minutes to ask me "Who's going to bring me my lunch?", I marveled at the human brain.  First there's my Mom who has lost most of what made her unique (like being both wonderfully well-read and adorably naive!) yet her endless preoccupation with the next meal remained.  And then there is my brain that in the midst of great stress still has the capacity to think about my weight.  Here's proof Hartman's never stop thinking about food!

It's such a horrible disease, and this time I'm talking about the disease of low self esteem and even lower body image.  It's insidious with far reaching thought-tentacles that can worm their way into any situation at any time.  At my beloved Nan's funeral a rather nasty cousin commented that I looked lovely in my black wool dress and fur hat.  A person with a healthy sense of self-worth would have given her a polite thank you and moved on to the people whose opinion mattered, but not me.  I still remember every moment of it like it was yesterday: I was 24, still very deep in my eating disorder and I was thrilled!  Thankfully that's now a sad and sympathetic memory and not a happy one.  

My next question is "What have I learned from this?"  I've learned not to critically judge any thoughts that come up even during times of stress. Perhaps they're able to surface during stressful times  because our mental sentries are running on empty so they're able to slip through and insert themselves inappropriately into current situations?  But what I've really learned is once again, "Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know."   Damn it!!  Why is learning self-love taking so long???  Perhaps I should be asking myself why do I keep putting it at the bottom of my to-do list?  Why don't I give my most sincere and loving attention to the part of me that's still in pain?

I do know that I don't want to get to the end of what will surely be a very long and fabulous life still wondering if I'm good enough, or even worse, trotting around a hospital ward endlessly searching for that which only I can give myself but sadly is no longer within my power.

Wow, doesn't that blow your mind???  

That's a whole other blog topic!!

Where do you live?

Do you live in the past, present or the future?  You may think you live in the present but every time you wish something was different than it is you're living either in the past or the future.  

I tended to live in the future, always planning for the next thing that was going to make me happy: a trip, a relationship, a new job or a new haircut.  I was always searching for the next thing.  

I think it started when my Aunt (yes, the 80 year Las Vegas cocktail waitress) started bringing me dolls from all of the countries she visited on her many travels. Playing with those colourfully dressed dolls from Spain, Italy, France and Thailand, to name just a few, took me far away from my present and into a surely happy future.  Even my Barbies were always packing their little suitcases and leaving for bigger and better lives.  Malibu sounded lovely.

For no sinister reasons, I was not a happy child in my home town.  I always thought life would get better when I moved away but since I was only about 10 at the time I did the only thing I knew to get me out, I retreated to my thoughts and Harlequin romance books.  I also started planning my move to Toronto and even created a Toronto persona, Diane Rahm.  I used to walk out the back door of our house and walk around to the front door of our general store, walk in and pretend I was a tourist, "Hello, I'm Diane Rahm from Toronto."...fortunately my Mom made my family play along.

Finally I was 18, moving to Toronto and life was going to change!  All my years of merely existing and waiting to be happy had come to an end.  I was going to let Diane Rahm loose! I would lose weight, find a boyfriend, get new haircuts and be happy, happy, happy!  But, alas, since life is not a romance novel or a movie on Lifetime I was left with reality, and Betty Crocker icing. 

Fast forward 40 therapy-filled-and-self-reflection years later and where do I live now?  Well, I still plan the next trip, think about changing my job and ponder new relationships but each and every day I now take a moment to breathe and gives thanks for the life that is now my present.  I've come through a lot to get here and I don't want to miss the life that is my one and only anymore.  I have joy, peace and a haircut that suits me.

So where do you live?  When you say you used to lose weight so much faster, that's living in the past.  When you wait to celebrate how far you've come on your Plan, that's living in the future.  When you accept what is your now and find the joy in it, that's living in the present.

Stay in your own lane, you're doing just fine there.

As a coach I often have members share their struggles not only about their perceived lack of progress but with thoughts of how their progress is not measuring up to that of others.  While it's okay to take a look at how one might tweak their own personal plan to get the results they desire, it's never productive to compare yourself to another.  

As soon as you start comparing you will find yourself lacking in all sorts of ways because one only compares when they feel they are lacking so they start searching outside of themselves.  A person who is secure in who they are rarely compares themselves to others and if they do it's more out of curiosity than the need to be different.  All you need is within you, it's never inside of someone else.

So time to embrace the unique blend of DNA that is you and know you offer something the world needs...YOU!  No one offers support like you do, love like you do, joy like you do or kindness like you do.  No one has your light to shine out to the world, only you!  Comparing yourself to others only serves to dim your light not make you shine brighter.  I think many of us have learned that particular lesson the hard way and wasted a lot of time in the process. 

So stay in your own lane, you're doing just fine there!

Walking through the door.

I remember well the thought I had running through my head weeks before I walked through the door of WW for the first time: "I really want to join, but I want to lose 10 pounds before I do."  Didn''t make sense but I know many of you thought the same!  And then after becoming a member there were the thoughts that always followed an off plan time, "I won't go this week, I just wait until I lose the weight I've gained while I had company" or "on vacation" or "after 3 birthday celebrations in one week" or "on this new medication", or fill in the blank.

As a coach and guide I've heard all of the reasons to miss a workshop and have used most of them myself.  The absolute truth of the matter is the most important workshop we can attend is the one we don't want to attend!  When the plan is going well and we're losing weight it's fun to attend, watch the number go down on the scale and hear the "Yay you!.  I've seen people actually hop on that piece of tin instead of stepping gingerly as they often do!  I've also witnessed many members who've showed up when they didn't want to and were so glad they did.  They put their best interests first and were rewarded; they connected with their people, soaked up some positive energy and left renewed!

The courage to show up for yourself is not always easily summoned and we often have so many negative thoughts that strive to over-ride it.  Having our own best interest at heart sometimes means stepping towards our fear and doing what we know to be best instead of what we know is least painful.  Ignoring what is best for ourselves may be least painful in one moment, but it almost always brings more pain in the next one.  Showing up shines a gentle and caring light on your fear and can help release your pain.  

So the next time you're contemplating not attending your workshop for whatever reason remind yourself there is no judgement waiting for you, only love and understanding. We are here for you always. So show up for yourself, no one deserves it more!