Why?

 

 

Is loving ourselves so hard?

Why is the path to finding health and happiness so excruciatingly difficult and the escape from obesity seem more like an impossibility than a possibility? More often than not I still can’t look at myself in the mirror and come up with 3 things I like about the way I look.

Overly Critical.

Overly Judgemental.

Overly Harsh.

Down right mean at times.

Yesterday I was looking at my feet and before I could blink I had begun the negative berating of how ugly I felt they were. I thought my toes looked long and lanky. I thought the veins were popping out too much. The blisters healing on the sides of my feet  added to the berating and by the time I was done I never wanted to look at my feet again. I knew that if I didn’t like the way they looked neither would anyone else that had to look at them. What was the point of losing a shit ton of weight only to end up with ugly looking feet???

Seriously, this is my train of thought.

I went from thinking “my feet are ugly” to “she’s not going to want to see my body” (and if you’ve been paying attention on twitter you know who she is. More importantly she knows who she is). It’s so easy to go from one tiny little thing I don’t like about myself to full blown body hatred and while most times it’s easy to go through the steps of Dialectical Behavior Therapy and bring myself back, I sometimes find myself treating this body hatred with things that are self sabotaging instead of self loving.

Mindlessly eating.

Not going to the gym for days

Convincing myself I’m not good enough.

Wanting to stay in bed instead of getting up and moving forward.

Saying negative things in my head.

Refusing to be nice to myself.

Wanting to give up.

Why is this? I’ve been on this journey for close to 19 months. I’ve been in those dark places so often and every time I pull myself out of them I think “Okay, that’s it. That has to be the last time I’m going to think bad things about myself. This has to be the last time I shove (insert food here) into my mouth looking for comfort. Look where I’ve come from. Look where I’m going…” And yet I find myself in those dark places again and more frustrated than the last time.

If I’m doing this.

So are you.

This journey is for a lifetime. A lifetime of learning how to soften the self critical voice and strengthen the voice of self love, self worth and believing that above all we deserve to love who we are and who we want to become. The critical voice is rooted deep in the fibers of our being. It doesn’t want to give up it’s place in our lives.  The more successful we are in losing weight, becoming happy and congruent with what we deserve the louder and more determined that self critical voice becomes. It will use any excuse to dig it’s nasty little claws into us and shake us to the core of our being in hopes that we will surrender to its desires rather than follow our own…

Yesterday I thought I had ugly feet.

Today I know that those feet are the very ones that carried my body when it was too heavy. I know that those feet walked my dogs everyday while I tried to break a sweat. I know those feet took a few thousand steps on and off the wii board as I punched the funny looking boxing bag on my tv screen. I know those feet ran when I didn’t think they could and then proved to me they could actually run pretty freakin fast. I know those feet are the first thing to start working in the morning when my alarm goes off at 330a most mornings and the last thing to finish when I’m exhausted and fall into bed. I know these feet won’t fail me even when I feel like I’ve failed myself…

I’m sorry I hated you feet.

You deserve nothing but  love!

Thank you.

(Your turn)