Baby Steps

One of the hardest parts of making changes in your life, whether mental or physical, is that it takes a while for us to unlearn our old habits and create a new one.  I am trying to make changes both mentally and physically right now, and I'm proud of how much I've grown mentally.  But the physical changes are simply not happening for me.

The frustrating part is that I started working on the physical changes first.  I was exclusively breastfeeding my baby so I had to eliminate dairy, gluten, sugar, soy, and a plethora of other foods from my diet when he developed eczema about 2-3months after he arrived.  It helped my son a lot, but as for me and my eczema, things got worse.  I think a lot of it has to do with my stopping the use of my steroid creams around the same time and going through what is called Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW).   From what I read on the ITSAN website, this is a long, drawn out detox process, and it will take several years for me to be completely better because I've been using steroid creams for decades.  Still, it gets pretty frustrating not seeing much of an improvement after 9 months.

Thankfully, I have three wonderful children who teache me countless invaluable lessons everyday.  Right now, I've got a little one who is showing me, quite literally, that learning a new skill or making changes in your life is all about baby steps.  My son took his first step on Independence Day (of all days!).  It was more of a shuffle or a shifting of foot position than anything else, but it was the beginning.  Three days later, he took three steps.  At that point, we could definitely categorize that as "walking".  He seemed to be stuck on taking 6 to 8 steps then falling on his tush, but after a month, he was walking more than crawling.  Now, he walks most of the time, and he squeals with delight at each step!  If he falls, he doesn't get frustrated or give up and cry.  He just stands right back again and keeps on walking.

And THAT, I think is the most important lesson I'm learning from him.  We forget how difficult it is to learn something new, and get frustrated with ourselves when we fall off the wagon or the changes don't happen as quickly as we would like.  But we just need to keep going.  We need to keep taking small, baby steps and rejoice at every steps that we do take!  We have to learn to walk before we can run, and each step you take brings you closer to your ultimate goal.