Learning to Love Myself

I've always had something about my body to change. It's always been if i could just lose those 10 pounds, or firm this one area, or build this muscle. While I say this I'm only being negative to my body. I never really stopped to thank my body for all the good it does for me. It keeps me going. It protects me. It keeps me nourished. Why are we always so quick to build other people up, all at the same time we bring ourselves down over our body? And not just our physical appearances but also our minds. I also can be so hard on myself over small mistakes or embarrassing moments.

Just in the past year my body has been through a pandemic, a car accident, a wisdom tooth surgery, a job that keeps me on my feet and standing in sometimes not the best positions to do hair. My body keeps me going. Even when I am having struggles with my Endometriosis my body keeps going. So why are we so quick to only point out the flaws in our body?

I, like most people, can remember hearing comments about my body at a fairly young age. Classmates, and even adults can be quick to judge even a child's appearance. They judge how you look, what you wear, and sometimes even things we can’t control such as eye color, ears, nose etc. It makes me sad the way society will judge you for every little thing. You can get judged for being too big, too skinny, what you eat, and even what you don’t eat. Even how you have your hair. We also as a society are judged harshly on our views and opinions now. Social media causes a very huge platform to be criticized. Many people no longer can agree to disagree. Sometimes we live in fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. It is time we start to break away from that though.

I have been working on loving myself. Loving myself even though I may not have a flat tummy. I also know I can be healthy even if I am not a size zero. So many factors go into our body size. My endometriosis and birth controls make it hard to lose weight. So I have been more focused on staying healthy and active and loving my body. It is ok to celebrate those scale victories. It is more important though to listen to our bodies. To eat when we are hungry. To rest when we feel tired. There is no shame in giving your body what it is asking you for.

Loving ourselves doesn’t just relate to our bodies though. We have to remind ourselves we are enough. I struggle with this a lot. My anxiety causes me to constantly overthink and constantly feel I am not enough and need to be better. There is nothing wrong with wanting to better ourselves and strive to be the best versions of us, however still remember we are only human. That is where I tend to struggle. I make one tiny mistake that doesn’t really matter and no one but me probably remembers, and I beat myself over it for a long time.

It is ok to have flaws, but it is ok to set goals to improve. The balance of self love can be challenging. Everyone should love themselves for who they are and how they look, but we also should love ourselves enough to want to better ourselves. Whether it be mentally or physically it is also healthy to recognize the flaws we could improve on or set goals based on. You should always do what makes you happy as long as it doesn’t cause harm or harsh judgement towards other people. It is ok though to change your opinion on something later on or realize you said or did something wrong. Part of being a better version of you doesn’t mean you make less mistakes. Bettering yourself means growing as a person and owning your past mistakes and apologizing for them when necessary.

We need to free ourselves of the burdens we put into our minds. We can’t expect to be fully loved and accepted by others if we can’t love ourselves. How can we ask society to love us as we come if we can’t do the same? It’s ok to want to better ourselves and strive for improvements and goals. It isn’t ok to keep being negative and down on ourselves though. We also should keep that in mind before we judge others. Who knows what their body has gotten them through or what they are dealing with. We can’t judge someone based on the few seconds we see them if we don’t know their story.