Once, my friend had been raving about how great Spanx were, and I decided to give them a try. I went to the store and bought a pair….coming home I threw them in my drawer. My thinking was I would wear them at an upcoming event.

Fast forward, The night of the event excitement brewed. The dress I was wearing was a smaller size due to some hard earned weight loss. Pulling out my never before shapewear, (oh my word…it looked like the size of my thigh. How was I getting into this thing) I strategized on what my attempt would be to get these suckers on. I quickly realized that they were not as easy to get into as I had anticipated.

I struggled and tugged and pulled, but the Spanx just wouldn’t budge. After a few minutes of wrestling with them, I started to panic a little bit. I had read reviews online about people getting stuck in their Spanx and I was worried that I was about to become one of them.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I managed to get the Spanx up to my waist. But when I tried to pull them over my hips, I got stuck. I hopped around my hotel room trying to get the Spanx to budge, but it was no use.

Just as I was about to give up and accept my fate as a Spanx prisoner, I repositioned and presto…I was now in my Spanx. Now what…I started thinking about the scheduled time of my event and I just knew that I was going to be in these things for several hours. Could I survive? What about going to the bathroom….Panic…again.

The scenarios in my head caused me to start sweating. What if I got them down…but couldn’t get them back up in a small bathroom stahl. I would be trapped. And don’t even get me started on the slit that was there to supposedly ease and accommodate one’s natural body functions. No way was I entering that thing.

Fortunately, for me I have a sense of humor. The pictures in my head caused me to start laughing. I am a firm believer that a Cheerful Heart is very good medicine. (Proverbs 17:22) It was at that moment…I made the decision not to entertain wearing these things. They may have offered flattery to me in my smaller size dress, but the mental snare this would result in was just not worth it. I was not going to be imprisoned in a garment…invisible bars that were in place to rope in some extra pounds.

Thinking post spanx night…How often do we let our mind, our mental pictures torment us…How often do we drum up things, events, words from others influence us to act nutty….My hope is that as you read this…If you are struggling with issues….stop , pause and perhaps throw those spanx in your mind away.