31 Days of Self Love - Day 8

What is a compliment that you have trouble accepting about yourself? This series of questions must have known that I have more than one answer for this, if it's sending me the same question a few days later, huh?

It kind of goes along with what I talked about the other day - my appearance. Lately, I've lost a fairly significant amount of weight (about eighty pounds total). Sixty of those pounds have been in the last eleven months, since I moved back to my home area, got a position at work that was much more physical than my previous one, and started a program called Thrive (which has 100% changed my life and been a blessing!). Now, I get a good number of compliments from people about how much weight I've lost, and how good I look (I am still very overweight, but am wearing a size 20 - or 18 depending on the fit - in pants, whereas I was a 24-26 before this). I don't know why I find it so hard to accept people telling me this.

Sometimes, I look in the mirror, and I see the progress. I can physically see the difference in my face, my stomach, my legs. Other times, I look in the mirror, and I still see the girl who was eighty pounds heavier than I am now. I'm sure that this goes along with my depression, my anxiety, and the fact that for a few years I had an eating disorder - that admittedly still, despite how much better my life is right now, likes to rear her ugly head and come around.

I wish that I could step outside of my body, my mind, my insecurities, and see me as the person that other people see me as. I've recently had a setback, and haven't been taking my Thrive (which in addition to helping me manage my weight, helps improve my mood, energy, and just my overall well-being). I couldn't afford it this past month, so I've only been taking one of the three steps, and boy can I feel it! I'm tired, I'm achy, I'm eating everything in sight. I know I haven't completely backtracked and gone back to where I was before, but I sure do feel like its sometimes. It just makes it even hard to accept it when someone says something kind about how much better I'm looking.

I need to find a way to believe people, to believe there's not some ulterior motive, to believe that people are being kind because they're actually kind, and because I actually HAVE made progress.