2018 has come and so have the traditional New Year’s resolutions or goals. This year I will be 43. I made an interesting observation in a group chat today that at age 32, I was the smallest I’d ever been clocking in at a size 2 and very lean yet at age 42, I am the largest I’ve ever been clocking in at a full size 16 on the cusp of a size 18 and well lots of fluff. At 32 there were still lots of mental issues, you know, I’m disgusting I need to lose more, starving because I was eating around 300-500 calories a day, crazy exercising to the point of obsession and burning up my adrenals on a medication I’m not 100% sure I actually needed. I didn’t feel like I had worth. Now at 42, now in addition to the mental issues of oh my gosh, I’m so disgusting, starving myself out of real nutrition from foods that grow on trees and in the ground, I now tack on some physical health issues due to stress, lack of exercise, and quite frankly carrying around 60 pounds that my body would like me to release. Again, feeling as like I have no worth.

I had a successful clothing boutique that I made the decision to close at the end of 2017 because it was wearing on my family and my physical health. I sat there on New Year’s Eve for the first time, not making business, financial, and weight goals. I was trying to figure out how in the world did things come to this? I then sat for a while about my word for 2018 and what I really wanted from myself this year. What did I want from 2018? How do I want my family to look? How do I want my health to look? How do I want my days to look? That is when it hit me like a ton of bricks, I needed to change my conversation. See I’ve been on a diet since I was 12 years old. Those conversations in my early years have set me up for where I am now. My oldest is 12. I think about where she will be 30 years later. Do I want her to be overweight and tired with health problems, always looking for that next external fix to make it better? It doesn’t matter if its a weight loss regimen or business, for me its about fixing what is wrong with me and fixing it quickly.

I had a occupational therapist tell me that my 12 year old is having the same conversation that I’ve been having since I was 12. Okay what do I do with this? I change the conversation and change it now. I didn’t really think about it until over New Years. How are my conversations with myself affecting my 12 year old’s conversations with herself? Not positively, I can tell you that for sure.

So where does that leave my conversations with myself? That was the big question as I closed out 2017. I had a choice, I can do things the way I always did, hop on the diet/fitness crazy train, start a new business, or I can change the conversation, my conversation. I decided to change the conversation with myself. You see I’ve done it all. So many diets, starting at age 12, thats like 30 years of some kind of dieting to fix myself. A business, if I can have a successful business then, I will feel worthy. Not fully successful in any of it because I never changed the conversation. This year at 42 I’m changing the conversation. No longer am I going to be a total jerk to myself. No longer will I strive for perfection thinking only then can I be successful and matter. I matter because I’m me. The good Lord created me and I’m still alive, so I matter. Its time for me to stop looking outside to feel worthy of something, I can look inside and above to see why I am worthy. John 3:16 is why I’m worthy and because of that, its time for me to know that worth.

Hold on to your hats girls, 2018 is gonna be the year, mommy changes the conversation because I want to make sure yours is a conversation of worthiness because worthy is our 2018 word for the year!