What Are You Afraid Of?

What is the daunting thing you’re afraid of to lose weight?  When I looked closely at my thoughts, I found I list of things…

• I won’t get to eat pizza ever again
• My thin friends only eat healthy stuff BLAH
• I’ll lose some weight and gain it all back, fail again
• I won’t have the willpower to finish
• I can’t imagine how I’ll have to eat the rest of my life
• And when I do imagine, it looks miserable

There’s a running theme through these thoughts. Discomfort. I was afraid of feeling discomfort. I was avoiding discomfort like the plague.  

But I was feeling discomfort, every single day, with all the excess weight. Here’s the kicker, I was comfortable with my current discomfort.  I was used to it. It was the discomfort I knew. Some of my daily discomfort included

• Ashamed of how I looked
• Uncomfortable clothes
• Physically feeling crappy
• Always felt like the fat girl in the room, UGH

I realized I was afraid to trade by current discomfort for the discomfort I didn’t yet know. That new discomfort somehow seemed worse. Really? It was all in my mind.  Perceived discomfort. Truly I was imaging what it would be without experiencing it.

The other day I had an epiphany about discomfort.  I had debilitating pain in my knee, having trouble even walking.  It was affecting my sleep. I went to the doctor and the first treatment was a cortisone injection.  Wait! You’re going to stick a really long needle into the middle of my painful knee. FEAR raised its ugly head.  Would I rather stay in excruciating pain or face my discomfort and try the cortisone? I chose the treatment. The IMAGINED fear I had about getting the injection was much worse than actually getting it.  The cortisone helped. I still have discomfort, but it’s different and not nearly the discomfort I had before.

Which discomfort are you choosing? The discomfort you’re comfortable with? I encourage you to trade it for the discomfort you don’t yet know. It’s the only way to change.