What Brave Looks Like Right Now

Discipline. It's something that I've prayed for over the past year. Out of those prayers, came a realization. A realization that to be disciplined, I recognized I needed brave to look different in my life right now. I needed more of it, so here's what brave looks like right now.

Bravery looks like believing in myself. It looks like doing the right thing even when it hurts. Bravery looks like making those small steps toward something bigger. In the words of Mia Thermopolis, a.k.a. Princess of Genovia (with a bunch of other names in there!) in the Princess Diaries, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. From now on, you'll be traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to make the journey."

This is the journey that I'm on now. There's a lot of things on my 30 Things for Year 30 list that have the potential to not come to fruition. Yet, when I was creating it, I only really wavered on putting one thing on that list. That thing is my desire to lose 30 pounds.

See, I don't have that belief in myself that I can actually lose that weight. I don't have the bravery to get up and go on a run, because... running stinks and I'm not very good at it. Yes, yes, yes... there's so many other exercises out there. There's so much to give up (time, pain, sleep, my current schedule, etc.) to do any of them. That's where the discipline part comes in.

We've started implementing some small steps in our home to work toward losing the weight. This has included calorie counting using the app MyFitnessPal, making healthier meals at home and slowly adding in working out (My hatred of calorie counting is an entirely different discussion).

What about losing weight makes it so brave to me?

I've heard lies surrounding my weight inside of my head for a long time. After finding out that I have an autoimmune disease called Chron's Disease, these lies became more abundant and larger than anything that I felt like I could face. Here's what I've heard:

+ I'm not young enough to be able to effectively lose weight well anymore, let alone keep it off. I missed my chance.
+ A lot of the things that people say to do to lose weight are things that I tend to do a good portion of the time. I'm not a huge snacker. I don't seek out candy or chips. We try to eat in, but our favorite restaurants do lure us away sometimes. These are things that I tend to do a good portion of the time. Obviously not enough of the time. But on the days I do, what then?
+ I had to give up so many delicious foods from fried chicken to mashed potatoes to hamburgers at the beginning of my journey to discover that I found out I have Chron's Disease. Now that I can eat those foods again, I don't want to give that up. However, my body actually processing food correctly feels like it fights against me. Properly processing food means that I've gained weight regardless of what I've consumed.
+ The medication I'm on to help with my Chron's Disease is going to counteract whatever progress on losing weight I could ever make. Since being on the medication, I've gained 20 pounds with zero lifestyle change just going on the medicine itself.

I've had enough.

I've had enough of these lies dictating my life and controlling how I feel about myself. It's time to be brave and fight against them. That may look different from day to day, but it's a fight to be brave no matter what is going on. Right now, brave looks like the 15 minute bike ride I went on earlier today. Brave looks like daily walks with Scout. It looks like not eating the entire bag of Oreos, because it's at my house. It looks like eating more proteins and vegetables and less tortilla chips (which is soooo not easy because Mexican food is my favorite!).

Maybe the thing you are battling against your own fears isn't weight related. Maybe it's about never being good enough to advance in your career. Maybe it's about feeling inadequate for a friendship or a relationship. Maybe it's longing for a dream but feeling like no matter how hard you work, you're not going to succeed. Maybe it's (insert the thing you don't want to admit is on your mind right now here).

Let's fight to be brave against our fears together. I'd love to hear about (and pray for!) what you're fighting and how you're currently trying to tackle those fears in the comments below.