In which a love-seeker daringly takes her own good advice.

Whenever a family member or friend is feeling all beleaguered, stressed and overwhelmed—particularly by difficult people—I always like to send him or her off with this direction: “Remember who loves you!” These are the words I call it out to family members as they leave for work. I say them as counsel to friends who’ve been confiding their troubles. I even jot them on notes of encouragement that I pop in the mail.

I’m thinking about this now as I try, once again, to come to terms with the slow progress of my current personal reinvention. It seems to me that it is taking a very, very long time to emerge from my chrysalis. I am ready to flap my wings. That I’m still in transition to finding my next job, well, let’s just say I am not pleased. I want to know what my next right work is going to look like. I want a job. A clear job with a mission and a purpose and a fair income. Impatient? That’s my middle name.

Here’s the thing: I have this book manuscript—The Hungry Ghost: How I Ditched 100 Pounds and Came Fully Alive. And though I’ve been a professional writer and editor for decades, this work is so close to my heart that I’m having trouble putting it out there in the world. To do that, well, it feels kind of like sending a two-year-old off to kindergarten. “I’m not ready,” says the little girl. “You can’t make me!”

The crux of the matter isn’t that I don’t believe in the book. I do. It’s good. And it  feels like it was given to me to give to people like me who every day battle all the indignities of food addiction, compulsive overeating and obesity.

I’m not sure what the problem is. Maybe it’s that I hate criticism. Not so much for my writing. I’ve faced that before. It’s criticism of me and what I believe that I fear. I’m also scared of living large—inviting the whole world to know my story.

I don’t know what’s going on. I do know that the difficult person I’m dealing with at the moment is, you got it, myself!

Because the fact of the matter is, maybe the timing just isn’t right. You know, in God’s time not mine and all that.

So why give myself a hard time? Maybe I should remember who loves me. Lean into the love. Remember a love-saturated moment and recall the feeling I had and summon it up. Absorb. Slow down. Feel it. Take it in.

What do you think? Couldn’t hurt, right? Okay. Right now. Let’s all take a slow, deep breath and remember who loves us!