Rating Scale

I'll admit, not looking at the scale has been really hard for me.  The scale and I have been one-sided enemies in a dependent, almost psychologically damaging relationship for years.  I hate it.  Yet, I need it.  It tells me if I am good or if I am bad.  It wields unwitting power over me and determines my mood in the morning.  What kind of day will it be?  Like a fortune teller laying out the cards, I hold my breath as the numbers roll.  I feel like a gambler, luck be a lady, betting it all on a hot pair of dice.  And if I don't have the scale to tell me, I have to spend the whole day blindly determining whether or not I'm on the right path or the wrong path.

If that sounds intense, it's because it is for me.  And I'm thinking I'm not the only woman who has faced that scale since Jr. High and let it determine who I was, what I was worth, how I should be treated and how I should treat myself.  I wish I could say that it's no longer a chain about my ankles.  But I fear, just as Scrooge's Marley, I will be doomed to carry it around my entire adult life, always aware of it, never leaving it behind.   I remind myself that my value is in my character, my talents, my accomplishments, not my dress size.  It sounds noble, but this single girl, this chubby mac, has never been able to believe those noble words.


I attended a tele-seminar about being a positive person yesterday.  It's such a good message, such a God message.  I want to be more positive.  And I believe that part of that means not allowing the scale, and my negative self-image to define me.  I believe it, but I'm not sure how to practice it.  


Anyone else struggling with this?  How do you measure your worth?  What are steps you're taking to be a positive person?