It was the fifth article for that night on my tablet which said that we should all love our body. It was another article talking about how loving our body can benefit us and why should one love their body. I knew it all ever since I had hit my teen years. But now being 24 still didn’t made any difference. I still had no idea how to love my body. Sure I fed it with all kinds of food it craved. I sure spent a good thirty minutes every day performing cardio. I adorned it with pretty dresses but love was something I still couldn’t feel for my body.
I despised my broad hips and my heavy chest. I felt uncomfortable wearing tight sleeves because my arms looked so muscular. I was annoyed of my short height. I was embarrassed at times of my own body. Sometimes standing in front of the mirror looking at myself and standing beside three of my slim and tall friends made me irritable and I started suffering through low self-esteem.
But I knew there had to be a breaking point and I was determined to break this cycle of loathing my body. I really wanted to love my body but how to do it was the big question. Eventually I came to a conclusion; no matter what, my body is a gift from God so how can I hate something that is given to me by my Creator. Though obviously loving my body wasn’t easy after several years of looking at it with disguise. I decided to begin with not hating my body. I chose to not despise my body because loving something with flaws isn’t easy but learning not to hate something doesn’t specifically requires love but only the absence of hate. This was my stepping stone towards unconditionally loving my body.
Of course it didn’t happen immediately but rather took a few weeks during which I continuously had to remind myself to not hate my body. Each time I noticed a flaw while looking in the mirror I motivated myself to look at those aspects of my body that my friends and family often complimented and felt grateful. My perfectly pointed nose, my pretty eye lashes, my chubby pink cheeks, my thin and long fingers, my toned up legs and thighs. They too were all a part of me which went unnoticed because of my focus on the parts that I didn’t like about my body.
After almost a month I was able to find a difference in my action towards my body. When I wore a pretty dress I looked at myself with admiration. The food that I ate now was not one to satisfy my cravings but rather those that were best for my body. I exercised regularly but not so I can give pain to my body in order to lose weight but because it helped my body function properly. My short height wasn’t bothering me anymore since I started looking at its brighter side, like I was able to get out of weird situations without being noticed. The absence of hate had made me respect my body.
Eventually I started being grateful to my body. For all those years when I treated it harshly, it kept supporting me, functioning well, helped me wake up every morning, go to university, and even when I was back home and tired, it still let me get done with all my chores no matter how much pain I was in. Then as time passed I was able to see my body without all its negative aspects, in fact I had come to a belief that my body has nothing negative about it, it was just the way it was meant to be. It was my own body, and now if anyone asked me if I wanted to switch it with someone else I would certainly have refused.
When it came to discussing my body with my friends I asked what they liked about it instead of complaining of my body. I wasn’t comparing my body with anyone. I wasn’t looking at photos of my younger self to ridicule my current self. I was finally feeling love for my body and it felt amazing.
Now I am at a point when I have accepted my figure for all the right reasons. The love, care and respect has helped my body to enhance and transform beautifully. You know the kind of love you have for your children, that is what I have for my body now. Those flaws in my body that once made me feel incomplete are now the reason behind my self-satisfaction.
As for how much weight I lost, is not what I feel is the important aspect of this story. Since I had started eating healthily and exercised according to my body’s requirement, my body went through a beautiful transformation and that simply made me love my body all the very more. That is all that mattered to me now.
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Self respect and self love is definitely so important. the shift in your perspective from hate to acceptance to love also reflected in the change in your physical habits of healthy eating/exercise etc,
Maybe IT IS more about perspective, no?
🙂