As we get deeper in to this journey of mine, I begin to doubt myself and if I can finish it. I have a daily doubt that stays in my head that I will not be able to finish, and I am ultimately a failure. I keep waiting for the first hiccup and how I will actually handle it. You know that first week that I gain weight and that week ultimately then becomes a second or a third. I am afraid that I will not be able to take it and I will fully revert back to the pre-surgery Chris. And this journey that we have taken together will have been for naught and I will go back to my unhealthy self. I feel I will ultimately destroy myself and all the hard work that I have done. That doubt is a nagging albatross hanging around my neck and I am unable to get rid of it.
I had lunch with a friend of mine last week and ordered fries with my lunch. Now I did not eat many of the fries, but my friend (as good friends do) called me on it. He was questioning my decision as to why I decided to order fries with my lunch and not another choice. Especially since I had just talked about my food issues last week in the blog and my friend wondered why I choose such an unhealthy option. I told him that I was not eating much of them and not to worry about it. But it stuck in my head. Why did I choose that? There were many more options that I could have chosen. I did not eat much of the fries, but it was still not the best choice and I did still eat them. What happens to me when I am all the way healed and my stomach can and will grow again? I fear I am still the same man I was, but with a very expensive way of preventing me to eat a lot. When it comes to food, even though I know I am doing leaps and bounds better than I did a year ago, there is still a lot of doubt. The doubt continues to still be here, no matter how badly I want it to leave.
My lack of confidence is not just with my food, it is also with my workout regimen. Francesca will tell or show me an exercise that I have never done and I begin to doubt almost immediately. Can I do that? Am I healthy enough to do that? Is it smart for a man my size to do something so difficult? What if I embarrass myself in front of her and the others in the gym? The thing is my doctor has given me full clearance to workout. My cardiologist has told me that I can do anything I am able to. They have looked me in the face and told me I am healthy enough to work hard. My confidence is just not there. Doubt is there.
I will say that some of the doubt does go away, once I am able to accomplish something. Once I do the activity, I then am able to show myself that I was not too heavy, or too big, I was able to do it. But trying to get over that fear to try something new is very difficult. The old Marine quote is “pain is fear leaving the body”. My statement right after that is, “well, I must have a lot of fear”. And I do have a lot of fear! I fear pain just as much as anything else. Pain after a long walk, or a hard workout, or if I step wrong, Pain to me is scary and that fear of pain helps me lose confidence in myself.
Will I continue to make the same bad decisions and hurt myself? Will I go back to 450 pound Chris? Will I gain all this weight back again? Am I fraud? Will I not be the inspiration that everyone says I am? My confidence in myself seems to continue to stay low as I keep getting further with this. I was hoping it would go away, but it has not. That is the doubt that hurts the most, and that is the doubt that is the scariest to me. The doubt that I will let all of you that call me “inspiration” or “inspiring” down is the worst. Not because I am letting you down, but because I am more concerned about LETTING you all down THAN letting me down. The one thing I work hard on every day is that I need to come first in this process and everything else has to come second. I have my good days and my bad days, but I cannot focus on letting others down, because that loses focus on the most important thing on this journey. Me.
I do not have an answer for this topic. I do not have a hint or a tip to help you tackle doubt and a lack of self-confidence. I really wish I did, that way I would have it too. All I can say is that I fight every day on it, and I have my good days and my bad days. I hope that as I get farther in this journey it will get easier. It has not yet, but maybe it will. One day. And that one day might just be my best day.
Sincerely, Chris
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