Stop hating yourself for what you're not and start loving yourself for what you are
So today starts the beginning of my birthday month. For me, birthday's are a time for celebration, reflection and love! in honor of my birthday month I am going to take a few minutes each day and share with you about self love and why it has been vital to my current mindset and happiness.
I struggled with self image from the time I was a little kid. I was a skinny, freckle faced, knobby kneed red head and always felt out of place. I hated my super white skin that would burn the minute the sun would hit it so I was always lathered in sunscreen and jealous of my friends who would run around all summer with their beautiful bronzed skin. My freckles always seemed to jump out in contrast to my pale skin and my fiery red hair was easy to find in a crowd. See when you're a kid all you want is to fit in so I took zero consolation in adults trying to tell me how people would pay to have hair my color and that my skin would be so much healthier when I was older because it was always so lathered in sunscreen. I just knew I hated looking different and I wished away parts of my body that inherently made me, well me.
As a teenager I struggled with my weight and hated the fact that I couldn't shop in the same department as my friends. While the girls around me were shopping in the juniors section I had to shop in the women's section. I hated, that because of my weight, I developed boobs way before the other girls and that made me feel even more out of place. My early development lead to other issues for me but that's a whole other blog. All I wanted was to fit in and look like everybody else so I wasted so much of my energy hating how I looked and wishing to be anybody else!
After having my daughter in 2001 I put on a lot of weight and by the time she was 1 I weighed more than I did when I was 9 months pregnant. I was an exhausted, young mom desperate to change but was having no success with, what I thought was, the right way to lose weight. So I went through a rough period of starving myself, binging and purging, diet pills and working out to the point of exhaustion. I lost a bunch of weight but when I looked in the mirror I still saw the "fat girl". My bones were sticking out but all I could see was the girl who used to tip the scales at over 200 pounds.
In 2015, after the birth of my son, I was back up to 200 pounds and miserable. I did everything I could to avoid looking in the mirror, I hated going out in public and I hid from the camera as much as I could. When I looked in the mirror all I saw was an overweight, scared, desperate woman who had conceded to a life of leggings, sweatpants and baggy sweatshirts. I knew that somewhere deep inside of me there was an incredible badass woman who wanted to rock her life but I didn't think I'd ever get to meet her.
I finally made a decision that I wasn't going to just keep wishing my life away or spend anymore time hating myself. This world has enough haters and I was determined not to be one anymore. So I started taking all of my "imperfections" and turning them into perfections! I started looking at the things I saw as ugly, disgusting or wrong and looking at them for what they really are, part of my story.
Raise your hand if you are rocking some tiger marks. (ordinary people call them stretch marks but us badasses call them tiger marks) I know my hand is waving high in the air. I used to look at my tiger marks and wish they would just go away. I used to think they were ugly and gross. WHAT?! These beautiful tiger marks are the first gifts my babies ever gave me. They are a daily reminder that I was lucky enough to carry two beautiful babies to full term. After struggling through infertility and multiple miscarriages in my life I can't believe that I ever wished I didn't have my tiger marks. They are proof of how incredible my body is to be able to grow another human being for 9 months and that is pretty badass. They are beautiful because they are part of my story. They are part of me. Do you have tiger marks and you've never had children? Think about your story and what role they play. They are part of you, they are part of your story, they are beautiful!
If you've ever seen the movie The Sweetest Thing then you will know what I'm about to refer to. If you haven't seen it.....get on that!! Arms up, 22, Arms down, 28...22...28...22...28. Listen ladies I'm not 22 anymore and neither are my breasts but I used to give them no slack (no pun intended). I exclusively breastfed my son until he was 1 and have gained and lost over 100 pounds in my life and that pays a toll on your body. Especially your boobs. I would look in the mirror and wish I could be rocking a set like the Victoria's Secret models, who are mostly like what 12?! But here's the thing, I'm not them and they aren't me. These boobs I spent so much time wishing were bigger or perkier or just anything but what they are, provided my son his only nourishment for an entire year. They are freaking amazing. They worked HARD for 12 months doing exactly what they were designed to do. So now rather than lament over the fact that they aren't a "perky D cup" I marvel at the incredible job they did at providing my son nourishment. How can I hate a part of me that played such a huge role in my sons life? They are beautiful because they are part of my story. They are a part of me.
I dropped out of high school 6 weeks before graduation and never finished college. I spent a HUGE part of my life feeling like a complete failure because of that. I felt like I would never be able to achieve goals I set for myself because I was always going to be a quitter and a failure. That's a hard thought to stomach and made it hard to look myself in the eye when I looked in the mirror. Rather than focus on the fact that I dropped out of high school and didn't finish college I choose to look at what I did accomplish. I raised a beautiful little girl as a single mom for many years, I worked a full time job and provided for us everything that we needed. I got my GED and moved up in my career. I kept a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and clothes on our backs. I proved everyone wrong who told me I would never be anybody. I had my own family tell me I was a disgrace, that I would raise my daughter in a dump and that I should be ashamed of who I was. I let the thoughts of others define me until I decided that what mattered is what I thought of myself, not what others thought of me.
Who do I see when I look in the mirror now? I see a strong, healthy, loving, goal crushing badass that loves who she is. I have a body that I love because of all that it has done for me. Loving my body means taking care of it, protecting it and making it strong and healthy. It means I eat foods that fuel my body so that it can kick ass every single day. I workout to be strong so I can hold my 30+ pound toddler when he's tired and needs his mama to carry him. I love myself because I am proud of my story. I am proud of what I have overcome, what I have refused to keep me down and what I have done to prove to myself I am worth it!
So ladies are you ready to be brave? I want you to go stand in front of the mirror and find your biggest "imperfection". Now look at it and find the beauty in it. Think about your story and what role that "imperfection" has played. Do you have a scar that is proof that you are a warrior? Do you have tiger marks that prove your body has carried another life? Do you have loose skin from weight loss that is proof of your hard work to get healthy? When you look into the mirror and look for the beauty rather than the flaw your journey begins. When you choose to love yourself for who you are, rather than hate yourself for who you're not, the reflection in the mirror changes. You will begin to see who you truly are, that your story is uniquely yours and that you are amazing. Nobody in this world has the exact same story as you so embrace it. Embrace the struggles and triumphs because they are all part of making you into the amazing badass that's looking back at you in the mirror!
