Daily Inspiration - Empathize with others who suffer, but take care of yourself

Empathize with others who suffer, but take care of yourself. 

People may envy you now. They see you shrinking "effortlessly" while they struggle. Before, you were targeted for being oversized, now you are targeted for doing something about it.  

When others look at you with envy, be sympathetic to their suffering, because you have been there. But don't entertain guilt or discount your effort with regard to WLS. Some people sabotage themselves when they feel their success is painful for others, but hurting yourself will not fix someone else. Learn to tolerate your success. 

Action for the day: Do you feel guilty or embarrassed about your success? In your journal, explore how it feels to be smaller when some of those around you are not. 

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What about the other side of that coin....? "I lost all this weight and now I OWE it to other people (esp. those who assisted me to get to the point where I was losing weight) to do as much as I can to help them out." I find myself in THIS situation more often than not...I feel like because I'm so much smaller and have so much more energy that I HAVE to do everything myself, and I HAVE to help everyone I see, but at this point, it's on the brink of making me crazy.... Good post, though. As far as feeling guilty that I lost it more "easily" than others... nah! I do feel sad every time I pass someone on the street that is MO or SMO though... but I know people would find it offensive for me to go and "show them the way".... I'd love to find a way to tell a stranger about it, without feeling preachy or feeling like I'm shoving something down someone's throat.

You know Julie I feel like that too - I wait for my husband every night at the VRE and I see all of these overweight men and women struggling to get up the hill huffing and puffing and I so want to tell them that it does not have to be that way - but I say nothing because I know how much I would have appreciated their help pre-surgery - NOT!! Jackie

I hear ya on that one.  I constantly feel like I "owe" the bariatric community.  And while many times, I do not mind, there are some days where I'm just too tired to keep up (make sense?). Often times I want to run up to a MO person and tell them about the surgery.  I never would, mind you, but I just feel the need to share.  So, we are in the same boat!