SITTING AND LISTENING

Sandi posted this in the Neighborhood and really I need to sit and listen:
***Disclaimer*** While this may sound like I'm preaching AT YOU, this is mostly to me. Just gotta get my head straight. No finger pointing here, ok?**************************************************************************What does it really take to live successfully after weight loss surgery?If I am lying to myself about working my program, it's just one more level to lie to others. We get on our message boards and we (I) lie about how I'm doing, justify my behaviors, and make up a fictitious world where I am in control and I'm a shining star. Or an abysmal wreck of lost and hopeless victimization. Is there no happy medium ground where I just live?The one character flaw that I hold most responsible for my morbid obesity and my lack of personal fulfillment is a lack of integrity in my personal and most private self. If I'd been honest with myself before I became morbidly obese, I may never have used compulsive overeating as a way to numb myself to my impending physical doom.But that was then. What about now?If I can't be honest with myself about what's going on, I'm doomed again. I may not gain 100 pounds. Stats say I will, but I may be able to fight it off. The real tragedy here though is about how miserable and depressed I will become if I can't own up to myself and others about the real me. I don't need more people to lie to. I don't need more lies to tell.If I say I'm not eating such and such, I need to not be eating it. If I say I'm running X number of minutes/ X number of miles, I need to be honestly doing that. I know what I am supposed to be doing. I need to do it. With honesty and integrity.Sure, I can impress a lot of people with magic words. But I know that I'm kidding myself. And it's only a matter of time before they see the trick behind the words. I can delude myself with all kinds of smoke and mirrors, but deep inside of me, I know it's only a matter of time before I have to come out and face the music.The only way to live after wls, is the only way to live period: with stark honesty and scrupulous integrity in all of my affairs. That is the only way I'll ever know happiness. It is the only way I'll know true freedom and success.