Its my body and Ill cry if I want to

I don't believe I am unlike most other women who have been bombarded with messages of beauty  and how it is defined in the eyes of society.

I don't believe I am unlike most other women who analyze their body on a pretty regular basis and imagine all they would change if they had the opportunity.

I don't believe I am unlike most other woman who, even if they don't want to admit it, have gone to the extreme to make changes to themselves.

I don't believe that I am unlike most women who have felt body shame in one form or another.

I am not usually a person to generalize. I believe that we are all unique individuals who think differently, make choices, and have our own ideals. However, I have known and observed a lot of women who know the feelings associated with body shame, but since I am of the belief that everyone is an individual I also recognize that there are many women  who have never felt that they were not welcome in their own body.

This has not been my experience. 

Most days I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin. I want to shed my outer layer and find a new home to call my own.  When I wake up in the morning I look in the mirror and feel ugly, worthless, disgusting, and huge. When I flip through magazines, look at photos on Instagram, or peruse on Pintrest I get these awful thoughts about my body and overwhelming feelings that I am not good enough. When my husband and I are together and I see a beautiful woman I will sometimes ask him if he thinks I'm pretty, he always responds with "yes" and I always think to myself "He has to say that because he married me". It bothers him when I ask that question, and he has no idea why I ask.

Isn't that terrible?
What is that even about....really?!

Its easy to blame and point fingers at all the people, or all the reasons I feel this way(entertainment, media, societal views, social media, past boyfriends) but I really think what it boils down to is this inherent feeling that I don't have anything to offer the world, and when I go to that place it instantly manifests in my physical form not being good enough. I go to the place of comparison and judgement. I think I go there because its easy to judge what is right in front of your face. What's even more scary is that even when I think about the times I was REALLY taking good care of my body I still felt this way. The mind is a funny thing.

In my mind, Body Shaming is something that is done to you by other people.  These people might say that one kind of body is more beautiful than the other, rather than sending a message that EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL, however the more I think about this I believe the only person who is doing this to me....is me. I'm the one who's torturing myself with comparison to others. I'm the one who feels unworthy. I'm the one who's judging. I'm the one who just cant quite love myself fully. I believe that when I love myself fully I will stop my body shaming.

So....I'm working on it.



xo