The other day a friend was talking with me about my decision to have weight loss surgery. She said that she found it disempowering that I opted to surgically change my body to be acceptable. I wasn’t offended at all. I sat with it for a while. We quietly sipped our drinks and I thought. I am aware that a LOT of people share that view and I don’t just dismiss it with no thought. However, here is the flip side of it and what I shared with her.

My disempowerment came from living inside a body that I had not learned how to master. My disempowerment came from unhealthy habits that had a firm grip on my mind and on my self esteem. I told my friend “Others are allowed to have their own thoughts about our lives and our journey and our choices. I am not responsible for those. I am responsible for my “why!”

There is nothing disempowering about choosing to live, rather than to die in an obese tomb of my own making – One that was unhealthy and failing me years and years prematurely!! I don’t justify my why to people in person anymore – mostly because I respectfully do not care what others think of my life choices. I love my friends and family, I value their care for me and their kindness but at the end of my days, when all is said and done, I am the one that will have to look myself in the eye and know I lived my life making the right choice for me. I am the person that I am responsible for and I am the only person whose responses I am able to control.

I don’t presume to know enough about someone else’s circumstances to think that it is a good idea to set myself up as someone that has a right to be their moral compass or their judge and jury. If we want to give our opinion on the life choices of others then perhaps that’s a control issue that we have? I know for me, when I lived my life thinking it was okay to just say things to others – that is exactly what it was.

I am accountable for the choices that I have made and gosh I am glad that I have made them. My life is simple now from that point of view. When your sense of self worth and value isn’t based on what anyone else thinks it makes so many things much easier 💕

We all need people in our lives who will tell us what they think – I have those treasured souls and I love it when they open up and we talk. I love and appreciate them but ultimately I’m responsible for me 🙂