Are You There, God? It's Me, Marja

SO! My total loss is 56.2lbs. Freaking amazing right? My body looks better than it has in 5 years (I can't stop caressing my own collarbones, they're so pretty now!), and everyone is noticing the change-- including ladies who knew me before and who were (and still are) heavy like I was. I feel vaguely guilty, so I make sure not to gloat, but at the same time, I want to encourage everyone to feel good about themselves, and I want them to be able to make the changes that I have. You see, (and I know I've said it before, but--) we are addicted to feeling like crap. Be it to alcohol, drugs, processed foods, our own laziness or apathy, whatever! For some reason we just can't help ourselves, so we continue whatever cycle we're used to.

Now, I say that I feel "vaguely guilty" because I feel like I shouldn't feel so good in front of someone who is probably at least a little envious of my success (and believe me, I would be too). This brings me to one of my points, one of the things I've learned on this journey, which is:

THE IMPORTANCE OF POSITIVITY

I feel like so many of us are trapped in this mindset that positive people are dumb. Positive people are stupid; look at our poets, our writers, our rockers. Angst makes art, but I don't think it necessarily makes for a happy life. And really, how many of us are poets, writers, or rockers who should be sacrificing our happiness for a sonnet, novel, or album? Probably very few. But yet we sabotage our happiness simply because we don't want to be that positive person. Positive people are annoying. They don't get it.

I am a completely different person from the Marja of May 2011, which is about when I finally decided to start putting in the effort that was needed, and finally started seeing the scale drop. I had quit drinking for a while (which was good, I was drinking every night and my tolerance was getting high, not to mention I'd occasionally black out) and decided to quit smoking (I was a closet smoker for quite some time). I started taking walks to start feeling better and make sure that I would stay off the smokes. I was unhappy, I was depressed, I thought, Why me?

Seriously folks, taking control of your life is all you need. Too many of us have too many expectations in life, which is why I think so many of us are unsatisfied and our unhappiness continues on. We're not millionaires, so life isn't worth living, at least to the fullest in our situation. It's not worth it to take control of our lives because we think that what we want is impossible. But if we don't take control of our lives, we can't change our lives. That's the deal here. And if we don't stay positive and have faith, we're setting ourselves up for pretty brutal failure (which we're fine with because we don't want life to be great because we don't want to be that jerk positive person who comes over for coffee and refuses to complain about anything!!!) which brings me to my next point:

THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH

I get tired of people bashing religion. I know there are some awful people out there that do bad things for organized religion, but I think faith itself is essential to living a fulfilled life. And any motivational book out there will tell you that in order to realize your dreams, you need to acknowledge that there is a higher power. You can name it Buddha, God, Mother Nature, whatever, but you need to have faith that the universe is in an order and that you can use it to your advantage. For me, God is a being that rewards positivity with more positivity. (And what's so bad about living a life that's good for the whole world?) The more people I treat right, the more I treat myself right, the more I simply enjoy taking walks, cooking and eating healthy food that makes me feel good, the more God will let me feel these things and take that wonderful experience out of them. I say, Thank you God for letting me see how beautiful the world is! 

Even recently, when there was a 36-hour power outage and my husband and I were worried about saving thousands of dollars worth of food; God will get us through, I told him, and I believed it. You see, if you have faith, then you are allowing the option of something good to happen, if that makes sense. I don't go to church every Sunday, I don't quote scripture, but I worship the universe, or God, or Buddha, or Mother Nature, in my own way. I take all of the good things I can get out of the world and use them to fuel my own positivity and faith. 


It's hard to cultivate faith (although they say it's God who "allows you to have faith," which is a pretty cool thought), and it's hard to cultivate positivity, especially when you're in that limbo of trying and not seeing results. You need to have faith. I mean, I think back to 50lbs ago, when I did the math and thought, if I lose 1 pound a week, I can lose ___, did I really think I was going to do it? I don't know! But I did it, and as I kept feeling better, or at least not feeling worse, and I knew that I would have to see results or at least keep feeling better, and my faith increased, my positivity increased. Sure I have stress, I get sad sometimes, or down on myself a little. But, with me in control, my life is going to be a happy one. It already is.