Day 30: Reluctant Thanks

Today, I need to be grateful. Because if I don’t force myself to do it, I will soon be continue feeling very sorry for myself. There’s a difference between self-compassion and self-pity. I don’t have any arguments to back that up, right now, but I’m pretty sure that self-pity is a place I could get stuck, pretty easily, and that nothing productive would come of it. So here goes the attempt at gratitude.

I am grateful that my studying went a little better today.

I am grateful that my headache is gone.

I am grateful that I enjoyed the meals ate today. They were delicious, and they were enough.

Those are important things. I need to study to pass my exams, and I was able to make some progress today, which helps me feel less anxious. And not having a headache also helped in that effort. I have a very difficult time focusing when I have a headache, and I seem to have had a near-constant one for the last few weeks. It’s finally gone, and for that, I am truly grateful.

I also know how important it is that I am content with my food. It could be so much worse. I could be battling cravings and hunger – I know others have experienced this, for weeks or months after beginning BLE. I seem to have gotten off pretty easy on that front, this time. I need to remember that.

On the other hand, I am still cold and tired. As much as I know better than to think this situation will change any time in the near future, I can’t help the daily disappointment I feel when I realize that these maladies are still with me. My constant, unwanted companions.

I need to be grateful for them, too.

I don’t know why. From where I sit, these conditions are more than uncomfortable; they’re miserable. My natural inclination is to complain about them. To fight against them. Definitely not to accept them. And certainly, for goodness’ sake, not to be grateful for them. That idea borders on insanity.

But I claim to believe everything happens for a reason. That my life is in the hands of someone greater than myself. Who knows better than I do. If he wanted, he could warm me up. For all that Susan Peirce Thompson talks about bunny slippers, I keep reading stories of other people on Bright Line Eating who began waking up feeling clear-headed and full of life, almost from the start. He could give me that kind of energy. But he doesn’t. That is a choice. It’s deliberate.

I am cold, and I am tired. So there must be a reason for it. One that I don’t understand. Maybe I will, some day. But for now, I have to trust that somehow, this is all for my own good.

So I will be grateful that I am tired. That I wake up feeling like death, and have to drag my carcass out of bed. That a brisk walk winds me. That my eyelids are drooping even as I write.

I will be grateful that I start the day cold, and become progressively colder. Grateful for the ache in my bones. The stiffness of my frozen hands. The enormous, heavy blankets that I have to drape myself with.

I will be grateful when I don’t want to be. When it doesn’t make sense. I will ignore the rational arguments, the voices that tell me it’s ok to be miserable, just for a little while. That say yes, I do have it hard, and I have a right to complain about it. Those voices are not helpful. They are tempting, but they’re wrong. I am not at the mercy of chance, of the universe’s whims. There are things in this life that I can’t control, but that doesn’t mean they’re not controlled. So I will give thanks, even if it is reluctant, at first. And we will see what becomes of it.