Day 125: True Forgiveness

“The reality of true forgiveness lies in setting ourselves free from holding on to the pain. It’s simply an act of releasing ourselves from the negative energy.”
~Louise Hay~

It sounds so easy … releasing yourself from the negative energy. In reality it’s not easy and there is nothing simple about it. It’s a daily struggle to keep that from creeping back into your life. I have let so much go but it doesn’t take much to bring it all back. I do recognize the triggers sooner, so I feel like I’m making progress, but it’s a frustratingly slow process. You want to wake up one day and be completely healed and I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen. Maybe it’s one of those unrealistic goals I’ve talked about. As it stands I still sometimes let things simmer until they boil over …. then I feel regret about lashing out. I pretty much lambasted a service provider over an outstanding issue with my heating system and in retrospect I could have been a little nicer about it. I felt like they were dismissing my concern and giving it no priority yet I waited .. and waited … and waited for resolution. I finally took action late last week, in a not so nice way, and today I’m a little regretful because that’s not me. I have no doubt they’ll make it right but nothing infuriates me more than someone assuming I don’t know what I’m talking about or someone who dismisses my concerns. So I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to letting go of the pain. I’ve been laser focused on weight loss and not thinking about the emotional component of a balanced life. Food used to be comfort ! With that coping mechanism gone you have to find other ways to cope and I don’t think I’ve quite figured that out yet. It’s easy to say “just deal with it” or “get over it” … but the “how” is the hard part ! How do you “just deal with it” or “get over it” ? There’s no easy answer and that’s where I am today. I had thought I was past all this but recent events have shown me I still have a lot of work to do. You can push things aside for a while but they will eventually come back to bite you. I’m still a work in progress and I don’t know if I’ll ever be “fixed”. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel like I’m in a good place and I still feel incredibly blessed, so this is more about building on that positive energy.

Breakfast today was a 2.1 ounce 180 calorie cinnamon roll with hazelnut coffee. Cup #2 was French vanilla. I had my breakfast Power Fuel (100 calorie string cheese) around 10 am and didn’t think about eating again until lunchtime, so I missed my morning snack. Lunch was a 4.25 ounce 200 calorie turkey pot pie melt with raw carrots. I had also brought a chef salad so I had that around 2 pm with some “Skinny Girl” dressing – only 10 calories per 2 tablespoons ! Forced myself to have my 155 calorie morning shake around 3:15 when I refilled my water. Afternoon snack was a 180 calorie Sargento Balanced Breaks. I feel like I ate all afternoon but Nutrisystem stresses that you have to eat in order to lose the weight. Starving yourself throws everything off and can sabotage your efforts. After all this I had 383 calories left for dinner and an evening snack. I don’t worry too much about “extras” like salad dressing because I keep them to a minimum. The peanut butter powder in my morning shake is an extra and I do log those 35 calories every day. Occasional salad dressing or a sprinkle of romano cheese are really the only other extras I ever have. I try not to fixate on every calorie but I also don’t overdo the extras and I make an effort stay under 1200 calories every day. Dinner was a 7.5 ounce 220 calorie chicken fettuccine alfredo sprinkled with some romano cheese. My evening snack was a 1.8 ounce 150 calorie chocolate cupcake. My calories for the day are 1187 but I’m rounding up to 1200 because of the salad dressing and romano cheese.

On the car front, the spring behind the fuel assembly is broken so that’s why the fuel door won’t latch. The dealer won’t have the part until tomorrow so they’re keeping the car another day. I pretty much figured this would be the outcome. So the Wrangler and I will spend another day together. Funny story – this morning I had to pull over before I got to the parking garage because I didn’t know where the window controls were ! Hard to use my access card without opening the window ! So I pulled out the owner’s manual again and found them on the center console. Makes sense to me now, since the doors are removable ! This vehicle is like a Transformer – latches all over the place to take parts off ! I also looked online today and tried to pair my phone with the car before I left the parking garage. Couldn’t get it to work so I came home and tried again in the driveway. Of course I got it to work then ! At least tomorrow I’ll have my music back ! I don’t know how FM radio keeps going … nothing but people talking and commercials ! Enterprise did offer to swap the vehicle for something else so I can’t complain about their service. I did discover the car has heated seats, which was nice considering it was 39 degrees this morning ! No heated steering wheel though ! I will tell you one thing – 50 pounds ago it would have been a LOT harder for me to get IN this vehicle ! Backing up is no picnic either because I have to rely on the mirrors. This is something I haven’t had to do for almost 5 years ! You really appreciate the back up camera when you don’t have it !

My next Nutrisystem order is being delivered tomorrow so I’ll be playing freezer tetris when I get home from work and picking up the car. Going with mostly frozen makes for a pretty full freezer ! I haven’t officially weighed myself this week and I’ve decided to take my mom’s advice and just wait until the weekend. I do get on the scale here and there at different times of the day during the week and it amazes me how different the readings are. I’m not too worried about what the scale says because I’m sticking to the program and exercising as much as possible. My new jeans are already looser than the day I bought them so that tells me I’m on the right track, but I’m not buying any more clothes until it is absolutely necessary. I may have to invest in a new bathing suit but with the current state of our weather there is no hurry on that !

I’m a good kind of tired tonight. I got my workout in and it didn’t seem quite so hard, despite not having worked out last night. Maybe that night off did me some good ! Today was a beautiful sunny day and tomorrow is supposed to be nice too. Friday we might see 70+ again but I think the stormy weather is going to catch us too ! Ugh. I can’t wait for HOT and DRY ! Next up is a hot shower and a comfy bed !