How do you deal with change? Not the coin version of what you get back when shopping, but when something in your life is different than what it was before.

For years, every time I saw a change coming in my life I did one of three things. I hid, eat or get sick. I don’t know if any of them are intentional or what, but every time that I can remember – this is a fact.

Case in point – both times I started jobs in my early-mid 20′s, I had to leave work early on my first day due to being sick. I think the nerves of starting the new job would culminate and by the time I would actually start working, it would just hit me and I had to go home early. I mean really… talk about embarrassing – I wanted to seem on top of things with my new bosses!

When I mean I hid, I mean that I was “hiding” in plain sight. While I would be at certain events, I tried to stay on the sidelines. I tried to avoid everything around me… especially in the world of getting to know other people (dating, friendships, etc.) Simply put, I was scared of being hurt – much like I was throughout my middle/high school years (in which I ate to make myself feel better). I not only “hid” from friends – and everyone else – I think in some cases I actually pushed people away because I didn’t want them to know me. I didn’t want them to see who I really was. I was afraid that they would like me.

So I’m not sure what changed in me to get me through the doors on that first day I walked into Weight Watchers. I really had no idea what it was really about, other than it was the plan on the market where I didn’t have to buy special food. And I knew that it worked for a friend I used to work with. But it was a huge change for me. If I hadn’t made the choice to walk into that center, I think I would have normally gone out to eat for fast food (because that’s all I really did on those lunch hours.)

But something changed. Something in my psyche had changed. And while that first round at Weight Watchers didn’t last much more than a year for me, something stuck inside me and told me to go back (well, that & my aunt asking me to join with her!) I went back about 2 years after I first joined (essentially taking a year off the plan and gaining almost all the weight back) and have achieved the weight loss. I am still working on conquering the maintenance… but I will get there!

However, I feel change coming again. I’m not entirely sure of the form that it’s coming in now – I feel like I am lost in this – but I feel it. I know that I can do anything… so it’s a matter of finding what this change in my life will be – and getting it accomplished.

But isn’t it always a process…