Living for me.

For those that read my last post, it may have gotten some mixed reactions. It was really hard for me to put a story of such great depression out there for everyone to read, but I felt that that part of my life needed to be told. I know a lot of people suffer from depression and don't even realize it or are embarrassed by it. I have overheard many conversations poking fun at depressed people or people needing to take anti-depressants. I'm not sure when that became a joking matter. I didn't write the last post to scare anyone or to make people think they still need to watch over me. I am a strong woman. I am well into my recovery and have no depressed thoughts. Ever. The point of my post was to show that things do get better, even when you feel like you've hit rock bottom. My life is wonderful and I wouldn't trade it for anything...but that's not really what I wanted to talk about today. I just felt like I kind of dropped something big and then didn't follow up with another post. Sorry about that...

Anyways, what I wanted to talk about today is a realization I had recently. I was at church when the lady that was teaching the lesson said something like "I'm sorry you'l have to suffer through my lesson", and I started thinking about a point I brought up in an earlier post about how we, as society, try to bring ourselves down to make others feel better. I then realized another reason we make tear ourselves down: for validation. We so badly want, consciously or sub-consciously, for others to tell us we're wrong and to fish for a compliment. We are looking for validation from those we interact with, but we don't just do it by saying bad things about ourselves. We also do it in the way we talk, dress, exercise...everything! We wear things that will be approved by our peers, we try to say things that we think will impress them, we work out and eat "healthy" (AKA boring, gross, bland foods that come in tiny portions) so that others will think we look good. Let's face it, I would much rather be home with my family than spending hours at a stinky gym. Why do we do this? Why are we wasting our time living for someone else? Well I decided on Sunday that I will be living for ME. That means doing things that make ME happy, creating my own style, finding out what I like without influence from anyone else. As I try and do this, I want to blog my progress. I know I can't make this 180 with just a snap of my fingers. It will take some work, but here's what has happened so far:

DAY ONE

My realization happened this past Sunday (Easter) during church. After church we would be having a big, delicious Easter dinner. Even though I am far in my recovery, it takes a long time for your brain to stop thinking about calories and fat. So my goal for dinner? Not think about the calories and just eat things that were yummy. It's also hard for me to over eat, even when it's a special occasion. But you know what? It's ok to over eat sometimes. So those were my two goals; to not think about calories or eat whatever I wanted, and to eat as much as I wanted. How did it go? I think it went pretty well. I ate the foods I wanted, went back for more sweet potatoes (YUM!!) and got dessert, even though I was quite full. Overall, a good start. 

DAY TWO

I think day two went pretty well. I went out to eat with my old roommate and my sister. I got some delicious food and really good dessert. I tried some of my sister's food and it was just a good time, focusing more on the good company rather than the food. 

DAY THREE

Day three was a really good step in starting to live for me. I split my leftovers from day two with my husband for lunch. Even though I had eaten, I was still hungry, so I kept eating. I then made a delicious dinner for me and my husband and had delicious popcorn for dessert. 

I am now on day four and so far so good. I think I'm getting the food aspect of this down, but I'm excited to try other things, like trying out different styles of clothes and doing things that I like. 

CHALLENGE

Now I'm going to challenge all of you readers to try doing this too: Start living for you. How do you start? Take a mental inventory of ALL the things you might do because of the influence of others. Trust me, you won't regret it! It had only been a few days but I already feel more free. 

I will live for me, my Heavenly Father, and my family.