PrintBy Julia Griggs-Havey
eDiets Contributor
Losing weight often means confronting demons from your past. Just the sound of it sounds spooky and intimidating, doesn’t it? Well, it can be.
Several years ago, I was doing a media tour and signing books in Columbia, Missouri. I had not been there in 18 years, since I finished my college years there at Ol’ Mizzou. It was so weird driving into town. So many memories came flooding back to me — so many reasons why my life went astray.
You see, I allowed the way others viewed me to cloud over and control how I viewed me! That is a serious self-esteem mistake.
Why? Because people only see that moment in time of “you.” They make their judgments and you live with them. You then allow their opinions to shape your next moment in time, and the process continues.
Think back in your own life for a moment. How many painful comments or rejections from people have you experienced in the past? Now, realize, those people aren’t even a part of your present… well, except for any baggage that you may be carrying around as a reminder of the pain you felt.
When I was in college, I was never as thin as the most popular girls. I was never many of the things that I wanted to be in college.
I left those years of my life feeling somehow lesser of a person than others, somehow less deserving of all the great things that life has to offer. After all, everything I thought I wanted eluded me for four years while at college.
I was young, confused and insecure. Man, what a difference 18 years and a little growing up can make!
I drove through Greek town and parked in front of the sorority house that excluded me. It didn’t look quite as awesome and intimidating to my 41-year-old eyes as it did to the 18-year-old, follow-the-crowd girl.
The lesson I learned, which wasn’t taught in the esteemed center of learning but through life itself, is that it matters far more what YOU think of YOU than what anyone else thinks! Confront whatever demons are in your past. Face them head on and don’t let them control you for one more minute of your life!
I promise you: Old ghosts can’t hurt you! That is, unless you let them continue to live in your attic. Which, in the case of us dieters, means that those past hurts and past demons live in our mind, cloud our thoughts and scare us away from the direction of change!
Don’t be scared! It is time to clear your life of old haunts and make room for new, healthy and positive thoughts. Carpe Diet!
You’ve seen Julia on the QVC home shopping network and The Sally Jesse Raphael show. You may have read about her in Women’s World, Successful Slimming and the National Enquirer. She has been called “America’s weight-loss Cinderella, someone with the passion of Tony Robbins, enthusiasm of Richard Simmons and the humor of Jerry Seinfeld.”
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