Body Image. Self Love.

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you compare yourself to those in magazines or even to your closest friends? Do you feel you are not worthy? 

Before I started my journey I hated looking in the mirror. I didn't like the reflection that I was staring back at me. I hated the stretch marks. I hated to fat on my body. I hated my face. I hated everything. I always compared myself to my friends and wondered how they could be friends with a person like me. I hated being fat but yet I didn't do anything about it. 

How can one go on with life though by avoiding the mirror as much as possible? How do you not compare yourself and feel like a fake with those around you?

As time passed I learned to love that reflection that I hated so much. It wasn't just because there was a fat person staring back at me before, but I soon came to realize it was because I didn't love myself for who I was. I didn't want to look at that person because I didn't know who she was anymore. However, once I began to love myself and embrace the person I was, looking at the reflection wasn't a challenge any longer. I was finally okay with looking in the mirror and smiling at the reflection staring back at me.

As part of my prepping for an upcoming competition, I have to self evaluate myself and to do this it requires a mirror to do so. I need to be able to look hard at the person standing there and be true to myself and what I see. Answering questions like "Am I overweight?", "What are my strong points/body parts?", "What are my weak point/body parts?" and "How is my attitude and confidence level?". I have only written the answers to these questions down once, but I have strategically placed the full length mirror that I purchased in my room right where I get dressed on a daily basis. This way I have to force myself to look and evaluate where my body is at on that given moment. What my body looks like after losing 94 pounds and how I feel about it. I know these questions by heart, so I ask them to myself in my head and answer them. I see the weak parts that need work and are that are making progress and I see the strong parts that make me smile because they show the hard work I have already put in. 

I have come to "embrace" and not "accept" how my body looks. I have stretch marks because I nurtured and grew two amazing boys in my stomach for 9 months but I also have stretch marks due to weight gain. I also have an extra pooch in my stomach area for this same reason. Will I ever have an amazing 6 pack, probably not, but it doesn't matter to me. I embrace my thick legs because my legs allow me to run like the wind. I embrace my hips even though they are wide and crooked, but they are mine and helped me birth 2 boys.

So back to the point, what is self love? How do we learn to love ourselves and not compare ourselves to others? How can we improve our body image?

We have to realize what is important and what isn't. We learn to care less about what others are thinking about us and more about what we think of ourselves. We realize how far we have come from that first step, whatever it might be. Then we can smile because we are truly proud of ourselves and the person that we've fought to become. We realize that WE ARE ENOUGH!!

Some ways to improve body image:

1. Don't focus on what other peoples bodies look like
2. Do focus on what you EMBRACE about your appearance
3. Each day, say ONE thing that you like about yourself
4. Focus on accomplishments that have to do with who you are a person, not what you look like
5. Understand that things we see in print or on TV have been altered to perfection, everything is NOT as it seems
6. You don't need validation from anyone else to feel good about YOU
7. No one is perfect, so EMBRACE the fact that you have flaws and LOVE the things that make you UNIQUE
8. Surround yourself with people who support you and make you feel GOOD about yourself
9. Do what makes you HAPPY
10. LOVE YOURSELF the way you are right now, not what or who you could be

We should be thankful for what our bodies are able to accomplish every day. We need to embrace 100% of our inner and outer beauty. No one else can have the same beauty as you, so embrace it. Take it with the smile every morning when you wake up alive for another day. 

I've heard far too many women belittle themselves, not give themselves enough credit, complain about their flaws, wish for things without the mental mindset to achieve them. I feel like as women we need to rally together and remind each other that WE ARE ENOUGH. You are beautiful, you are a good mother, you are intelligent, you are successful, you are amazing, you are you, and that is ENOUGH. I'm not telling you to stop dreaming or to stop reaching for more, as we should always be doing that, I'm just saying let's change our mindset, and remind ourselves of the good, the beautiful, the amazing women we are, and soon enough, a positive mind will breed a POSITIVE LIFE!

Conquering Mountains Not Shrinking to a Grain of Sand

May 1, 2013.....a day that is forever engraved in my life. The day that I saved me!

This photo is one of the very few photos I have of myself prior to this very important day. This photo is 1 month prior to me deciding it was time to save myself. I never understood what saving your own self really meant. I always thought of people who were addicts being the only ones that needed to save themselves if they wanted to continue to live. I never realized that just needing to find oneself meant that I was also saving me. As I sit here and think of what to write and look at this photo all I remember is how uncomfortable I was at my friend's wedding, but I also look at these boys who love their mommy and needed their mommy to be happy. My boys didn't know what I thought about myself because they wouldn't understand it. They didn't know that I hated looking at myself in the mirror or refused to take photos 90% of the time because I didn't want to see the end result. To them they just saw their mommy. 

Yes I was their mommy and always will be, but how could I be a mom who would always be there for them if I couldn't take care of myself. Not just in the sense of needing to be healthy but just to be happy. I didn't believe I could accomplish anything and that I was going to be a failure to the 2 absolute most important people in my life.  

I spent a good 6ish years hiding from the world as the weight kept piling on. Being uncomfortable with what the world was witnessing. I lacked confidence. I lacked the love for myself and my body. I lacked the mentality to believe that I mattered to people. My smiles were fake and my smiles were uncomfortable. Worrying about what others thought about me and my appearance was more than what I thought about myself. You could have told me I was beautiful but I didn't believe it. How could a person like me feel beautiful? How could I be beautiful? If I didn't believe I was beautiful then how could anyone else see it. 

Today I am here, 3 years later, and I wouldn't change a single moment of this journey. This morning the sun was shining and I knew I needed to get out and just reflect. I went to the M trail and went up the mountain. I have gone up this mountain enough times to know now that I could do it, but today I needed to prove to myself that I not only am I strong but also I just needed place where I could truly reflect on me and be alone. Running two switchbacks and walking one switchback to catch my breathe. Refusing to stop at the M and keep going up that mountain to really think. Remembering when the M was a struggle for me. I took in the beauty around me and recited a quote to myself over and over again. "I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply all my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy." ~ OG MANDINO I didn't know this quote until a very important person shared it with us on a regular basis at Title and I immediately loved it. I know that I strain my potential everyday because I refuse to give up on the person I have become. I have part of this quote tattooed on my foot so I can look down and remind myself why am I doing this. Why do I push myself every day to my max? I have conquered mountains every day since that terrifying day that I stepped foot in a gym and made a commitment to myself to do it. I wasn't going to let the fears of the world watching me allow me to shrink to a grain of sand that wasn't important.

On the way down the M today, "Fight Song" by Rachel Platten came on and this song as truly become my theme song. When I hear it I just want to sing it at the top of my lungs because I have fought. When I got to my car I played the song on repeat while on my way to Title for my routine 12 round class. The song played and I turned it way up and I sang. I used every ounce of energy I could to keep the tears back while I sang the lyrics. Not because I was sad but because I was happy. Because I have saved me.

I probably sound like a broken record but this journey isn't always about those numbers on the scale (yes I have to remind myself this on a regular basis). This journey isn't just a diet so that I can wear smaller clothes. This journey isn't just to prove to myself that I can do it. This journey is just as much of a physical one as it is a mental and emotional one. I have completely changed my lifestyle while saving my life. I cherish every minute of my life now and I don't ever want to take it for granted. I have been able to get back to my roots of reading inspirational things and truly believing in them regardless of what they are about. I am going back to things I use to love to do one by one. I can smile knowing that I am comfortable with me and that I don't care what others think as much. The people I meet now don't know who I was then. They didn't know the unhappy me or the obese me. 

The woman you see now is confident. I am in love with ME. The woman that gets introduced to someone new doesn't want to just hide and shy away. They don't need to know my story but if it comes up I will share. I am not ashamed of my story and I want it to be public if it will help another person save themselves. I wouldn't change a single moment of the last 3 years. If you catch me not smiling now it isn't because I don't like what I am today, it just means something else is going on. I can allow the sparkle in my eyes and my smile to reflect my confidence. 

I didn't realize something until just recently either, I wanted to have a career in something that would allow me to have an impact on people's lives. I had so many important people in my life growing up that made such an impact on me that I wanted to be that somebody for someone. However my career in accounting isn't exactly that, but I was recently reminded that I am still having an impact on people, just in a different way. I am able to show people that anything is possible if you have the right reason for it. That all people can be loved and all people deserve the absolutely best our of their lives. That their lives are worth saving and the fight is hard but so worth it in the end. The fight doesn't have to be about weight or about beauty, the fight is your fight and one that is worth fighting for. The person I was in the past wouldn't have believed inspiring people was something I was capable of, but now I know that anything can be used for inspiration. Just showing someone that taking that first scary step towards a goal that might seem unachievable is well worth it. Not giving up after putting in work and not getting the results you want. 

So on this day, May 1, I will always remember that I conquered my fears to become who I am meant to be. Who people believed I was but I couldn't believe it. I did the work and I screamed for mercy when I refused to fail. My life is forever changed.