How Brave are You?

This morning I went down to my weekly weigh in at Weight Watchers; yes you hear it right late last year I committed to do this thing that has swept the world trying to get people to loose tonnes and tonnes of fat, to live a healthy lifestyle and look a little more like the people that we see on screens and magazines. Beautiful people who by their very appearance and the accoutrements that are around them to be living the perfect life, finances all sorted, relationships all perfect, emotions all under control etc etc.

Over a number of years I have had doctors tell me that I need to lose weight so that my BMI is in the correct range. I have lost count of the doctors, who have told me to stop smoking and to cut down my alcohol intake, but never having smoked, and a virtual lifetime teetotaller should give me some credit but I have no doubt that the next time I see a new doctor the mantra will be the same.

And so off I go to the ‘weekly weigh in’ and see if I have to celebrate or feel guilty again because of some unattainable magic number that I am sure will only be achieved after amputation of a leg. I am not alone and there are many people around me who take all this far more seriously than I do.

Over recent years I have been aware that everyone has a story and so many are more related to a novel than they are to real life. We as Formers (and of course ‘Actives’) all have our story and so many times I have just wanted to reach out and just be a support for them in what I perceive as their pain. It may be that it is nothing to do with being or becoming a Former but the recent narrative, although I struggle with the practicalities of it, that revolved around Sabbaticals and the like is something that indicates that we have yet to address so many issues that we have not even thought about yet.

I am very positive about the ability that we all have to create the future that we want and we all know what it is but fail to access it and understand what it is for us. I talk a lot about those ‘Golden Moments’ that we have had and why were they like that. They are all different for each of us but I am convinced that they can be replicated long into the future. At a recent seminar that I conducted I was trying to help people access their Golden Moments and there were the usual ‘sitting on the beach with my husband and kids and watching the sun go down’ sort of stuff; but one mature woman who was a retired palliative care nurse wanted to tell us her Golden Moment. It was when she ‘Sang a woman to Death’. The family were gathered around the bed and she wanted someone to sing for her ‘you are the sunshine of my life’. So as the family held her hand the nurse sang the song and as she sang the lady peacefully passed away. Yes we were all in tears and I sort of lost control of what we were all there for.

I guess that I am guilty of sometimes thinking that all problems can have an answer that is in my frame of reference. On the rare occasions when I have told my story of leaving Officership and family, and passion for all that was Army, etc etc, some people have said that was a very brave thing to do, but it is something that for me will never have a resolution so each day almost I have to battle the ‘what if’s’. I know emotionally where it is coming from and I can support people to get through it; but when it is personal it is a different matter.

On my way to weight watchers this morning I was thinking of all the people there and I already have a store of funny stories to have a chuckle; but there is an unseen bravery that keeps these people going back again and again even though very little, in the majority of cases, is being lost. So whether it is just Weight Watchers or Formers I believe that we express a great courage in just saying we are Formers or as in my case a Weight Watching Former.

So how brave are you?

The first quote I put in my latest Journal was one I did not even get an author for but for me and possibly many others it can be a very supportive mantra.

Courage does not always roar like a lion. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says, “I will try again tomorrow”








Fletch
Peter Fletcher
Former
Australia