Day Fourty-Eight: The Bridge

Around day 40, if we've stuck with our committment to healthy habits, we realize a change. The change is in the dynamic of our family and friendships. It's illustrated best in The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie, paraphrased below...

I felt as if I had walked out onto a bridge. I walked alone. The bridge was leading me to a healthy lifestyle, a different way of living with a different set of priorities. I looked back and realized that my husband, children, many members of my family, and some of my friends were all standing on the side where I once stood among them. It felt as if there were a gravitational pull of some sort pulling me back to where I used to be.

The gravitational pull is called fear.


I looked ahead and saw the life I yearned for on the other side. On that other side of the bridge were many of my friends, fitness instructors, trainers, and a host of people who made health a priority. They smiled at me and encouraged me to continue walking across the bridge.

I yearned to pull my family out onto the bridge with me, but it was a bridge in which everyone had to go in their own time. I couldn't pull them, I couldn't push them. I could only wish for them to step out onto the bridge.

If I had to stand next to them, I could choose to go back. However, I didn't want to be on that side of the bridge. I wanted to cross it, to keep moving forward. I felt a little isolated, a little scared, a little worried about where that would leave me with my family & those I love.

Its okay to be afraid of success because we are afraid that success will separate us from those we love. It's okay to hope that someday others will make the same healthy choices because we care about their health, but also because we don't want to walk alone.

It's okay to expose those we love to good food, and it's imperative that we expose our children to healthy cooking and outdoor playtime. But, in the end, we cannot force anyone to make decisions about themselves. And, we should not be angry at them if they do not make the same choices in their lives.

It hurts to see people we love sink into disease and depression. It's difficult to watch a loved one who suffers from diabetes continue to engage in habits that worsen their condition. It's hard to watch someone continue to smoke, drink, or choose to do drugs instead of seeking out healthy ways to cope with stressors in their life.

It's very hard to recognize that sometimes loving someone means detaching, allowing them to grow and develop through the consequences of their actions while choosing to take care of ourselves. It can leave us feeling a little isolated, a little scared. It doesn't mean that we love them any less. Rather, it means that we love them so much that we are not going to rob them of an opportunity to grow and develop by trying to enable or remove their consequences of poor decisions. And, we love ourselves so much, that we're going to begin taking care of our needs instead of constantly worrying about whether someone else is taking care of theirs.

I challenge you to journal about being on the bridge.