and I missed them both. Remember, how I told you about blog action day? The theme was poverty. Lucky for me things like that don’t depend on me and there were thousands of posts regarding the subject. Even on blogs about marketing craft. Well, I missed it but I have the excuse that I have written about child poverty in the past (If you’re going over there you also should take a look at the comments).
And then I found out that yesterday was also Love Your Body Day. On the one hand I think that we may have just a few too many blogger holidays (Talk Like a Pirate Day, anyone? Towel Day?) on the other hand, of course, every day is a good day to love your body. In fact since this body might be the only one we have we’d better treat it with respect and love. One of the commenters to my last post called her body a “heap of cells” and I felt quite uneasy about this.
I know it took me quite some time to learn to love my body but it was really worth it. Yes, I am overweight (that’s a fact) but I don’t really feel that there is something to hide. From the inside my body feels good, it’s strong, it’s curvy, my husband likes to look at me, and while I see that it’s aging and far from perfect I can tell you that I felt fatter, less fit, and less lovable at the age of twenty than I feel now.
Then all I could see when I looked in the mirror was a heap of “problems”: butt too big, shoulders too narrow, thighs too big, arms too skinny, waist too narrow. When I dressed I thought about things to hide all the time.
I did learn this from my mother. When she speaks of her body she only speaks about the things she doesn’t love about it. She taught me to wear clothes like tents so that people wouldn’t realized that my bottom part is bigger than the rest. Only later did I find out that the tents actually covered everything so that I looked equally big all over. Only later have I learned that there are indeed people who like women to be on the curvy side. And I learned that I prefer real women over coat hangers every time.
I went to the sauna and the pool and looked at other women’s bodies. Look at them in a friendly way, not the “Look at her, if I were looking like that I wouldn’t wear a …”-mindset. Study other women and find something beautiful about each and every one of them. And look at myself in the mirror every day and learn to love me as I am.
I can tell you that your butt doesn’t get smaller if you hate it. And that there is no magic number on the scale that makes you feel beautiful. I have felt fat at every weight between 57 and 84 kilos. And I have felt more beautiful when I was heavier and older than when I was thinner and younger.
I did write about feeling fat back in June so I won’t do it here again, (instead I’m shamelessly pointing you there). So, let’s all step in front of the mirror, take a look at ourselves, smile (genuine smile, please, no faking) and say, “I love my body. I look fabulous!” Repeat until you really mean it.
Holly says
Our brain waves must be connecting? I wrote about missing both of these blogging events earlier today. I’m glad I’m in good company!