Change Is Good :)

I feel like I am opening my eyes, for the first time in a long while. It is sometimes almost too bright and the change is a little scary, but I am ready to stop hiding.
If you have been reading along you may have noticed that I am not a huge fan of change. I resist, I make excuses and I hide. I have been aware of this for a while and I have been moving along with this awareness. Often, it seems, at a snails pace :) Sometimes it seems especially hard, and I am sure that at these times I am making the most progress.
I am really amazed at how many different ways I have found to hide over the years. Things I thought I did just for enjoyment, that were really ways to hide out :)
For example, I LOVE to read. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you. Books are great, but I have definitely been using them as a way to hide from or avoid unpleasantness. OK, if I am completely honest, I have to say I have also used them to avoid change in any way! There are other ways that I have hidden, I am after all very creative :)
But I have to say one of the most self-destructive ways I chose to hide was by gaining weight. This probably doesn't make sense to you, or maybe it does, but by gaining weight I have hidden myself very effectively. It is almost like the more weight I gain the less I can see me. The less I AM me! I am inside somewhere, but I am hidden. In many ways this has really been working for me, avoider (yes I know that isn't really a word) that I am :) But now that I am opening my eyes and looking around I see that I don't want to let this go on.
Usually at this point I stop and close my eyes again. Because change is hard and I really don't like it. But lately I have been letting my true self out more and I find that I really like her, A LOT! Way more than I like this other person I have let myself become.
So change will be necessary it seems.
I was looking at a website recently called Secrets Of A Weight Loss Master and it really made a lot of sense to me. Especially when I read that "The secret to permanent weight loss is to remember and recover who you really are." So on my Journey of change today I thought I would work on using a few of the Affirmations I found there. Here they are if you would like to use them yourself:

• Just for today I will practice self-acceptance. The struggle ends with me. I choose to stop struggling. I deserve peace.

• Joy is my natural state. I will begin to act from my center and tap into the joy that is mine.

• I let go easily of the things that no longer serve me. Life is a series of endings and new beginnings. I surrender the old, so that I may receive the new.

Happy thoughts to you :)

Oh, and, how do you hide?

Cleaning Up!

I have been feeling out of sorts lately. I don't usually use that phrase, but I don't know how else to describe it.
I was grumpy, irritable and just feeling altogether dissatisfied. I couldn't figure it out. I have everything I thought I always wanted and life is going great.
The only change is that I have been going deeper while trying to work out some of my personal issues and I have really been trying to figure out who I am. I am reading some amazing books and articles. I am learning a lot of helpful new affirmations and visualization techniques, and I feel like I am really heading in the right direction.
So why am I feeling so junky???
Today while I was having my shower I think I figured it out. It is my perfectionism taking over!
You may be wondering why the shower triggered this revelation but it will all make perfect sense in a minute, trust me;)
OK, so one of my stops on this journey of self-discovery was to the Fly lady. I really love her group and have received a lot of very helpful and informative e-mails since I joined.
Well last week as I was reading my fly lady e-mails I came across one from a woman who had written in about her shower.
Apparently she had a really dirty shower and she kept putting off cleaning it because the thought of doing the whole thing until it was perfect was overwhelming. She finally realized that her perfectionism was taking over and that some scrubbing is better than no scrubbing. If she could just give up trying to be perfect and use baby steps eventually it would be done.
I am sure this is what I have been doing to myself.
I have been so bogged down with trying to be perfect or with being overwhelmed by the amount of things I need to work through. I wanted to fix all of my problems NOW and I wasn't getting anywhere.
So in the shower I clued in. Instead of getting frustrated and overwhelmed at how much work, or self-improving, I have to do I need to start small. I need to take baby steps. I need to do a little at a time and eventually I will get there.
I am on my way and there is no time limit. I plan on enjoying this journey, so I will not ruin it by trying to make it perfect. I am going to enjoy myself every step of the way. I am so grateful for all of my experiences.

Today I am especially grateful because I learned something about myself....and my shower is really clean:)