Here I am, two weeks in...down to 268 (from 281!) and spending more and more time pondering what I have gotten myself into!  Honestly, it is much more mental than physical...the struggle not to give up.  The voices in my head and from my husband's mouth that say "this is selfish" "you wont finish the course...why start?" but I am pressing through.  How do I turn off those voices...make them useless chatter that I dont care about?

I am seeing more and more of who I am...God is revealing parts that need help.  So much of me is feeling beyond repair...that isn't true, but oh it feels like it is the deepest truth uttered.  How do I open up?  How do I stop considering myself a victim?  How do I take control and tell everyone else to buzz off?  I feel like I live my entire life to please others...that I am not important or worthy of effort.  That I please others to gain attention, affection, worth...I know I do this, subconsciously, consciously...on every level. BUT WHY??  How is it others just HAVE that?

I just got "The Four Agreements" in the mail and am going to start reading it.  It honestly has scared me...something Megan said in our first meeting about chapter two...not allowing others words to affect us...that what they say is THEIR perception...Whoa!  I choked up when she was talking about it!  All my life I have taken others opinions, criticisms, hate and ranting as my failures...that they could see what I could not and were telling me about it.  It has NEVER occurred to me that it wasn't true.  So much mental work to do.

I have felt more needy since this started...more desiring of companionship and a friend.  Maybe to open up and share what is so tangled up inside.  I have always "just dealt with it" - me, by myself.  I dont let people in, for fear they too will condemn and criticize.  It has been easier not to share...but it has also left me nearly 50 and just as stunted as I was as a child.  Maybe I don't know it all...huh...what a concept.