Believe In Yourself Melissa!

I'm going to deviate a little bit this morning from my normal reflections about the Optifast program and my struggles with various "obsessions" and what not. I had a difficult encounter with a colleague at work yesterday, and that always gets me rattled because I like things to run smoothly in the workplace, with no conflicts and criticisms and micro-managing -- basically, I want everyone to "get along" and as we all know, that's pretty much impossible when you throw a bunch of different personalities together and expect them to "play nice." In my case, I want everyone to like me, and as my therapist says, that's just not possible. And this person doesn't like me. So I need to accept that and move on.

What's interesting -- maybe hurtful? -- to me is this person has not said one nice thing to me, not one nice thing to me, about my weight loss. No "You look great" or "Congrats on getting the weight off!" or "I'm proud of you." Sure, maybe it's awkward for her, or she thinks I'm a nutcase for doing Optifast (probably the real reason), or maybe she's jealous. Oh, I don't know, and in the big picture, I shouldn't give a damn what she thinks. But folks, I work in an office with only five people and I've lost 80 lbs. -- 80 lbs.! -- and it's pretty hard to not notice. I'm showered with compliments everywhere I go. Oh, but not from this person. And that hurts.

My therapist is helping me with my self esteem problem, and we've spent a lot of time working on things I can do to be "respectfully assertive" when people start to upset me, instead of just stuffing my feelings and internalizing all my frustration. It's been a very slow-going process. He constantly reinforces that I'm a very kind, caring, compassionate person, highly intelligent and skilled, a "jewel" for any workplace. I want to believe him, it's just hard to think of myself that way. I'm my own worst critic, and it's been that way for most of my life. This is hard to unravel. But I'm working on it.

I am going to try to tell myself today, "Melissa, you are awesome!" and people love you. I am going to go in to the office with a smile on my face, knowing today is Friday and the weekend is almost here. I can rest a little more and my husband and I didn't go out to dinner on Wednesday, so we are stepping out tomorrow night. The sun is out today and that always puts me in a good mood. I can handle anything thrown my way. Seize the day, I will. A special thanks to my friends on the Facebook Optifast Chat Support board who really gave me great encouragement last night. I feel very loved today. Which is wonderful. Thanks!