This is really hard to realize. And it makes me incredibly sad, and tired, exhausted actually. I'm at a point where I realize that the action needed is NOT to go on a mission to sculpt my body into a certain shape and size, but to learn to love it for what it is, not matter the shape and size. I've been slimmer, more toned but still unhappy with my body. I want to feel fitter, to jog again and get back into weight training- I miss feeling active. But I know that I can't pursue those activities with the goal of achieving the 'perfect body that ill finally love'. I need to pursue the goal of 'learn to love the body I have'. Which is really hard when, when I see myself in pictures, I literally have to hold back tears.
But I've had enough of feeling like this. I used to feel like I would never be happy with my body, so I should just accept that I'll always hate it. Then a couple of friends pointed out that, by doing that, I wasn't leaving a door open to ever love my body, to be happy with every part of myself. Ill be honest, when I've been told this, my immediate reaction is 'well, it's easy for you to say that because your body is fine', to deflect what I was being told because I honestly didn't believe it would ever be possible to love my body.
And over time, with repeated exposure to empowering, body positive articles, and conversations with my supportive, amazing friends, I've come to realize that I don't have to resign myself to always hating the skin I'm in. There IS another option and its totally achievable, but its going to take some work.
Hating my body has negatively impacted my life in so many ways. It's like a cancer that keeps spreading throughout every aspect of my life and sucking the joy out of everything I do.
To give you an idea of how, ill use yesterday's ziplining as an example.
Other people would be nervous about the activity itself- my stomach was in knots over the thought of being the heaviest person in the group, of being too big for the harness or to heavy for the lines, of people seeing me and being disgusted. I had to fight my internals monologue the ENTIRE day, to try and stop these negative thoughts stealing the joy from my day.
When. I was told I had to put my legs down to slow me on the faster lines, because I was heavier, the self loathing reared its head and I had to work really hard to squash it. When I hit the stop ramp butt first and tore a hole in my pants, it reared its head again. I had to work really hard to stop tears forming- in my head I was thinking ' if I wasn't so fat, that wouldn't have happened' which led to other destructive thoughts. When we finished our course and looked at the pictures, I couldn't look at them all.
Later in the night I realized I was kinda angry. Angry that MY LIFE was being tainted by my inability to find peace with my body.
I don't know what to do from here. I feel like I've made some progress. I want to accept my body. It's the physical 'thing' that's carrying the ME around, and I want to love it.
So, I've started hunting down body positive reading and seeking advice from my friends. J suggested looking at myself in the mirror and focusing on just one thing I like about myself- right now I can't do it. I cry. I don't want to feel this way, but I do. So I feel a little lost.
One thing I can do, is post this picture. I saw it and had the usual negative response. I want to hide it. I don't want anyone to see it and see what I do in that picture. But I feel like 'hiding' it is feeding the problem. So here it is. Me, who was feeling excited to be going ziplining through the treetops of ChiangMai's jungle. That's what I'm trying to see when I look at the picture. I'm hoping that this is one of many steps in the right direction!
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