And I said to my body, softly, “I want to be your friend.” It took a long breath and replied, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”
Nayyirah Waheed
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Most people look at their image in the mirror each day. We live in our bodies and experience life through our own unique perspectives. Yet oftentimes, we do not acknowledge and appreciate our bodies simply for what they are.
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We look to outside validation to affirm our views of what beauty and desirable appearance should be. We feel as if our bodies are only worthy of love if we did the “right workout” or strictly regulated our food consumption for the day.
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Why did this start? When did we stop loving ourselves?
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Some of my early memories as a young woman involve me being ashamed of my body. I felt like I did something wrong to look the way that I did. My friends were always smaller than me and I remember thinking, why am I the only one that looks like this? Sometimes I still feel this way…
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I hated my stomach more than anything. I remember standing in front of the mirror, pinching and pulling my skin around to make myself look smaller.
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Ten years old is too young to be worried about your body.
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From such a young age, I had learned to feel that my body wasn’t good enough. I remember thinking to myself, why were my siblings not facing comments from family members about the food they were eating for a snack. Why was I the one being chastised about having “a little too many chips” since I was bigger?
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I didn’t like existing in my body. I didn’t love myself. I wished that I could go back to a time before I started thinking about my body at all.
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As I’ve gotten older my issues with my body haven’t gotten easier, they have just changed.
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Now I am faced with constant comparison. I see other women posting about their workout routines and what they eat in a day. I listen to conversations every day about being “healthy” and weight loss. These types of things, though I might not notice in the moment, have quite a negative impact on myself and the way that I view my own body.
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I’ve come to learn that I have struggled with disordered eating in the past. I still have a complicated relationship with food and I need to be very mindful of the way I view it.
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Food is fuel. It is also something that you can enjoy. You deserve to enjoy food no matter what your body happens to look like.
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I have to work with myself each day to shift my mindset. When I begin to feel bad about my body or the way that I look, I have to step back and honor my body. My body can do amazing things. This is the vessel I live in and I owe it to myself to feel at home.
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I now try to spend most of my energy focusing on making meals and eating food that I enjoy. I am learning to pay attention to my body and what it needs, not what other people tell me it needs. I am focusing on moving my body in ways that I enjoy and when I feel like doing it.
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Remember: your body is not an item for people to critique.
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Body positivity is not just sentimentality to me. It also isn’t glorifying an “unhealthy lifestyle” as many people on the internet seem to claim. This is about real people learning to love and honor themselves. What could possibly be wrong with that?
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I am working each day to restore my relationship with my body. This is why body positivity is important to me.
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