I was speaking with a client recently who had shared with me that she’d been fad dieting since she was 10. I was reflecting about my own journey as well (my first SlimFast drink at age 11), and I sat down after her photo shoot and wrote this.
**
I see you.
Wanting to love yourself but can’t let go of what you should look like.
Going on another diet hoping this time it’s the one that will work.
Trying a new exercise program thinking this is the secret.
You are convinced this time will be – must be – different but the doubt always creeps in.
Wondering if you’ll ever succeed, you’ll ever be happy, you’ll ever “get there.”
But where is “there?”
The finish line never seems to approach, so you let the shame, hurt and disappointment in yourself take over once again.
It’s a simple wish – to be comfortable in your own skin.
Depriving yourself of life’s joy by not participating in the things you want, by focusing on something insignificant.
Restricting yourself constantly, worried about what you ate, calories burned.
Do this, don’t do that.
Eat this, don’t eat that.
Constantly consumed with thoughts of food.
Constantly consumed with negative thoughts aimed at the failure you see in yourself.
Because you fail.
Every time.
And, it’s always your fault.
Desperately wanting to “get it together” or “this time with be different”
“Why can’t you do this?”
You keep trying – one more diet, one more exercise routine, this procedure, that food – it might be the one thing.
But one thought prevails – when does it end?
Could, just for once, you look like the girls in the magazines.
Could you just have the body of your friends.
Seeing the success of others, only increasing the disgust you feel because you can’t do it.
The comparison never ends, neither does your failure.
So, you look to the past, trying to find answers and resolution.
Now looking at yourself with kinder eyes.
Wishing you could go back in time and love yourself just the way you were.
Wondering if it would have been possible to stop this madness that you hope doesn’t last your whole life.
Wondering, when or if, it will ever be enough.
Whether you will ever be enough.
You miss the you that didn’t care about this stuff.
The you that could peacefully exist.
The you that lived life without worry about what others think.
The you that danced in the rain, the you that ran around the yard, the you that wore whatever she wanted, the you that happily jumped in the water any time she could.
The you that lived freely.
Is that person still within?
But what if the only way to feel good about yourself, your body, the way you look is to change how you think.
Loving yourself and accepting your body, doesn’t mean you always need to change your body or the way you look.
You have a choice to say that right here and now it ends.
There is a more peaceful way to exist.
Your feelings about yourself should never be tied to the way you look.
This is what society wants us to believe, they want us to feel badly so they can sell us fixes to all our problems
Stop beating yourself up because you gained weight.
Stop beating yourself up when a new wrinkle appears.
Stop berating your body when your clothes don’t fit anymore.
Stop
Just stop.
Just stop.
BREATHE.
Your body is not wrong
It never was.
**
PS – I always have to preface these kind of posts by saying that I don’t care what you do with your body. You have body autonomy to do what you wish. Your body is insignificant to me, it’s the least interesting thing about you – I like to focus on what makes you YOU, and that has nothing to do with how your body looks. <3
**
