3 kilos of self-love
I’ve always wanted to be thinner.
I have never been a very thin person, but I don’t remember being fat either. I was always — at least I thought I was, 3 kilos overweight. (And naturally, I’ve always thought that I’d be happier when I lost the weight.)
I don’t usually share this fact with people, (although my favorite activity was to badmouth my body with them), but I’ve always focused on all the things I didn’t like. The parts that were too big or too soft, the features that lacked symmetry. I harshly judged each part of my body and made sure I was letting these parts know how much hatred I felt for them.
And one day, as I was using the restrooms of a fancy-schmancy resort, I noticed that my shape looked much better in the mirror here than it appeared in the mirrors of my house and my parents’ house.
I wasn’t exercising or on a diet. My body was still the same (with the 3 kilos). Nothing had changed (except the mirrors). And for the first time in my life I looked at my own reflection and smiled.
The mirrors I am used to are so heavy with the negative self-talk they witnessed, that they couldn’t but mirror that negativity, the self-inflicted pain!
Reflecting on that, I decided to change the narrative and launch loving conversations with my body and its many miraculous parts.
“Thank you, body, for not falling asleep on that night where we partied hard and this guy insisted that I drive him back home under the rain (back in the days where I found it impossible to say no.) You’re amazing!”
“Thank you stomach for surviving those nights where I starved myself to be able to fit in a newly bought XS dress.”
“Thank you skin for being this soft even after all these decades of tanning under the scorching August sun.”
“Thank you hair for beautifully flowing even after all the Brazilian blowouts I put you through.”
Crazy how mean we can be to our own body. How cruel we can be with our human container. But instead of breaking down, it still carries us. It still performs. If we treated employees with the same sort of disdain we so frequently show our body, they would just slam the door and leave. And yet our bodies carry on doing their duties as best they can.
We don’t realize how hard we are being on ourselves at times.
I know for a fact that I would never say such things to a friend. I’d tell her she looks good and that I love her. That’s what I want to start saying to myself.
Rewire your brain to be more body positive. Love yourself, unconditionally, in all shapes and sizes, through thick and thin!
