Weight Loss & Wellness Wednesdays: Perspective

Photo by Stephanie Himel-Nelson

I obsess over the stupidest things sometimes. If a grocery store clerk is rude, I’ll worry it over in my head for half a day wondering if it was something I said. If I have a difference of opinion with a friend on Facebook, no matter how civil, I’ll play it in my head for days coming up with things I could have said differently. Let’s not even get started on how long I’ll carry something with me for a full fledged argument with someone I love.

I add too much stress to my life by worrying about things I cannot change instead of focusing on just how lucky I am. And today I had a big reminder of that.

Driving home from a meeting today, I was engaging in my usual obsessive behavior, playing over everything I’d said in the meeting and how I could have been clearer, more erudite, more informative, etc… You get the picture. As I was driving, I passed a house with a flag in the window, a flag with one gold star.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with service flags, I’ll give you a little history. During WWI and WWII, people began placing flags in their window to show they had a family member off fighting in the war. Those flags are still used today, with a red border and a blue star on a white background for each service member in the family off at war.

A gold star on the flag means that a service member in the family has died at war.

As I drove past the house with the gold star flag in the window, I started to cry. Suddenly, the tape on replay in my head with all of my shortcomings didn’t seem quite so important. It seemed silly and self-absorbed.

I am incredibly lucky. Despite infertility, I am relatively healthy, I have a family that loves me, friends, a challenging job and I don’t really want for anything. I just needed a little perspective to remind me of that.

Because of my little drive today, the One Thing I’m going to do to make myself healthier this week won’t focus strictly on diet, but on maintaining perspective. No one person’s pain or stress can or should be compared to another’s. But if I’m making myself unhappy, I have the power to change that. This week I’m going to focus on just that. When I get mired in all of the things wrong with my life, I’m going to remind myself of just how many things in my life are right.

Weight loss for the week: 2.4 lbs

Total weight loss: 5.4 lbs

How did you do this week? What One Thing did you do to make your life healthier?

Weight Loss and Wellness Wednesday is Stephanie’s journey to make her life healthier through weight loss and life style changes. To follow Weight Loss and Wellness Wednesday from the beginning, click here.