24 JANUARY
"Every man has his own courage, but is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Other people always seemed better than me -- more confident, more at ease, better able to deal with life's problems. I only knew how I felt and how others looked.

When I came to OA I heard, "Don't compare your inside with someone else's outside" and "God does not make junk." Each time I am aware of the tendency to put myself down, I affirm and follow through on my belief that I deserve the same credit I give to others. I treat myself as I would treat someone I love and respect.

For today: Liking myself, as God does, opens new doors, evokes a new spirit that gives me courage and makes room for true humility.

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Hi my name is Alexis and I am a compulsive overeater.

Last year I was talking trash about myself and my friend said to me "Would you stop talking trash about my best friend, she's a really good person and what you are saying just isn't true". Well that stopped me in my tracks. How often do we do that? And why?

Then a couple of weekends ago I was out with girlfriends and one by one they started criticising their own bodies. One said she had a fat tummy, another said she needed to lose weight, another was talking about all her saggy bits. They looked at me and I said "Well I'm not going to point out my faults and I don't think you should either, because if you don't no one will notice. I think we put ourselves down way too much and as women we should stand tall and be proud of ourselves and all that we do." I mean, why don't we sit around and tell nice things about ourselves instead? Why don't we say that we have nice hair or nails, or shoulders or whatever... because it's un-Australian? Tall poppy syndrome has just gotten way out of hand and now we are cutting ourselves down as well as others! It has to stop! What's that saying... Charity begins at home. Well, charity needs to begin with ourselves.

This is why I am really enjoying the steps so far. That might sound weird, but doing Step 4 was liberating for me. I actually found myself laughing at the end of my 10 pages of resentments!! Laughing because I thought if I had stopped doing ABC or XYZ years ago, how different things might have been!! When I got to doing my fears, I saw the same things popping up over and over and how I was fearful of things that were just so unrealistic, and when I asked myself "What would God want me to be?" I found that I was already doing what was in the answer. I AM a lot of good things, but when things go wrong I act like my own scapegoat because that's the role I was bought up in. Doing the Sex Conduct forms I was so ashamed of my past behaviour but it opened up the way the truth and the light to move FORWARD. I didn't respect myself so how can I respect others? I didn't tell myself the truth, how could I tell others the truth?

Someone turned the light on for me. Is it odd or is it God?

I'm learning that the best way forward is to accept responsibility for my part in things but not soak up all the rest of it as well. Being honest with myself as well as others is the key for me to move forward, give me courage. Being grateful every day for the blessings in my life, holding my head up high and knowing that I CAN do this, one day at a time. As the reading says "God does not make junk". I'm not junk, I just made some mistakes but I don't have to keep making them anymore.

I'm looking forward to Step 6-7, being ready and humbly asking for God to remove my shortcomings/defects of character and removing my shortcomings. I can't be better to others if I'm not better to myself first.

Thanks for reading, hope you all have a wonderful weekend :)