Most of us, especially girls and women, are assaulted with negative messages about our bodies on a regular basis by magazines and newspapers, advertisements, "well meaning" family members, peers, and even friends. We're shown computer-manipulated images of the "perfect" body—a body that is not natural for the vast majority of us, and can only be obtained through self-abuse and starvation. We are all so worried about what other people think, and that we need to be more like this or more like that, that we lose site of who we really are. And what I have come to find out over a long long time of not doing this myself is we need to love ourselves, in order to BE loved. We need to be happy with who we are now, or we will never be happy with ourselves or we will never truly be happy any other way. My uncle Mike was talking to me several years ago when I was still a teenager, and I think he gave me some incredible advice. He told me to love myself how I am right now, how I am today. I needed to love ME, not the me I could be, or want to be, but the ME that I am right this very minute. He said his wife always would say, "if I could be this much skinnier, then I will be happy, and then I will love myself." Now years later, not only is she not any skinnier but she is actually a lot bigger than she ever was. And now she finds herself wishing she could get back to where she started. Her original weight, the one she wasn't happy with in the first place. He said she didn't learn to love herself the way she was, and when things changed she wanted nothing more than the old self, the one she thought she didn't love. The problem was never him not loving her, that was something he has always done, she just had a hard time loving herself. How often do we find ourselves wishing part or parts of us could be different than they are..."if only I had this, then I would truly be happy"? I fall victim to this as much as if not more than anyone else. But how can we really and truly allow someone to love us, if we do not in fact love ourselves? I find many times that I cannot accept compliments from people, because I myself do not believe them to be true about myself. I find it hard to believe that someone sees positive things in me, because most of the time all I can see are my faults. There is nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself, but if wanting a better you does not allow you to love who you are now, then you are doing a great disservice to yourself. You really could be missing out on getting to know someone truly great, and that someone is YOU. Total self acceptance is something that rarely comes easily. Oh sure, we might easily fool ourselves into thinking that we love ourselves completely until something happens that tests our ideal thinking (divorce, weight gain, job loss, etc.). Do you love yourself without question? Or do you rely on other people to assure you of your physical desirability and worthiness of love? Some of us just don't realize that there is someone great staring right back at them in the mirror, all we have to do is look. We often treat our friends better than we treat ourselves. We greet them with happiness and affection. We listen to them with compassion and understanding, and we don't try to silence them when they need to grumble or complain. And we are always unequivocally, unalterably on their side. How much of this do we do for ourselves? Bottom line, in order to be loved we have to love ourselves, we are good people and gosh darn it we need to know that and love and accept ourselves for who we are.
Now that doesn't mean that we can't want to change, but only if we are doing it for the right reasons. If we first love ourselves, but merely want to improve upon the greatness that we have already achieved. Looks can only get u so far in life, but then do you no good if there is no substance beneath the surface. This is something I must strive for every day, and its not something I am always very good at. Every day I must make a conscious effort to love me for me. I am a child of God, if that doesn't make me great, what does?
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