My life has been more stressful than usual for the past couple of months. I was coping well with it for a time, but following Christmas I found that I had slipped into bad old habits. I was eating poorly and staying up late, not going to the gym regularly and sliding into another case of the blues.
I wish that I could say that all my efforts to eat and live in a more healthy way have changed me, but these things run deep. I realized today, though, that my coping mechanisms may fail me in some ways, but they serve their purpose in others.
One of the women I work with each weekend asked me today what my secret is. She said I am always so positive and serene. Was it spirituality, meditation? I told her it was stuffing my feelings down with food. She laughed. It was a great compliment, though. She kept saying how kind she thought I was.
We talked a bit about the fact that I have made an effort toward kindness. I found cynicism creeping in years ago when we started having all our financial troubles and I chased it away with a conscious effort toward kindness. It means so much to me that that my effort has shown through to someone. When you are losing weight and people compliment the effort it feels good - I didn't know that a compliment about an emotional effort would feel even better.
3 comments:
Kindness is way underrated. How nice of your co-worker to say what she did. She is a kind person too!
I love your honest response to her!
That you can appear positive and serene is one step toward feeling positive and serene. Here's hoping that, eventually, you feel it through and through.
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