“I know what I have been harping on LOVING YOURSELF…but our bodies are mere shells for our souls, our spirits, our inner workings. Remember that YES we need to love our bodies…but I challenge you to REALLY love your body from within. Don’t just give it lip-service, believe what you’re saying.”For a long time, I think that was my true problem with my body image.
I couldn’t have loved my body because I didn’t love – or let alone even know! – my inner core, those inner workings, those idiosyncratic pieces that make up my personality.
I wasn’t sure what I liked, disliked or more importantly, what I believed. Or maybe, more accurately, I was insecure about those idiosyncrasies.
Maybe it was that I knew what I liked and what I didn’t, and I knew what made me feel comfortable and passionate – but I didn’t trust myself enough to go there or to stick up for those things.
I’ve talked before about my shaky sense of self, and I think that contributed to my negative body image – in fact, without a doubt, it did.
It was one big ball of insecurity, anxiety and not-good-enoughness.
I thought the pathway to loving my body – and myself – was a miserable diet or a grueling workout because it would lead to my losing weight. (That was my golden ticket, after all.)
It wasn’t worth it for me to nourish myself with good foods, self-care or physical activity that I actually enjoyed, because if it didn’t result in weight loss, then I didn’t really want any part of it.
But if I lost weight, the skies would open up, sun shining, and I’d fall in love with myself.
And I’d be worthy of attention and validation, both from myself and from others.
I love Mish’s description of our bodies as mere shells of our souls. Don’t get me wrong, I love dressing up and feeling pretty. (I’m what anyone would call a clotheshorse!)
However, what’s really true, meaningful and incredible is what lurks, dances and sings on the inside. The passion. The quirks. The weird stuff. (I took the pleasing everyone route and being what I thought I should be instead.)
And when you don’t love or respect the deep down you, how can you love the outside?
If you can’t make peace with your inner core, how can you make peace with your outer shell?
I love the idea of working inside out. That’s why I absolutely – 100 percent – believe in self-acceptance at any size. Truly, it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Our bodies will change many times throughout our lives. We’ll be smaller, shorter, leaner, larger, more muscular, less muscular.
But why should our body image or our self-acceptance shift as our outside does?
It’s like our sense of self. What would happen if outside factors, even the smallest things, had the ability to shatter our self-esteem? Just shred it to unrecognizable pieces?
I relied heavily on outside factors for my sense of self. And it amounted to a whole lot of negativity – a damaged body image and a damaged self-image.
So I pick up my pieces every day, as best as I can. (And it feels good.)
This is a profound lesson I’m now starting to learn, one shard at a time.
Maybe that can be your first and second step, too: learning more about yourself. Looking at your layers, and falling in love with them.
Letting yourself love you, from the inside out.
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