Fight the War

Loving my body is an every day war. 

Not just with myself but with the people on the street that I compare myself to, the celebrity bodies everywhere, and the society that is enabling all of the negative imagery, advertising, and thinking to happen in and around my life. 

This amazing thing we call a body, that carries me through my daily activities, that enables me to do everything I want and hope to do, and that continues to give to me even when I beat it down... When was it decided that I should look at it with disgust? Feel uncomfortable in it? Feel like it's not good enough - that it could be better? 

And who was the idiot who decided this? 

I didn't like this picture when I first took it last night. I thought my hips were too wide and my stomach stuck out a little too much in that shirt. 

Like, really. 

This insecurity came from the girl who reads fat positive and body positive blogs every freaking day of her life. The girl who enforces body love during every freaking day of her life. 

Yes, I am still insecure even with all the work I've done! 

And THANK GOD for all the work I've done, because this time last year I would have never seen the beauty beneath the learned embarrassment and, instead, would have deleted the picture out of shame. 

We are trained so well to hate our bodies. Just like dogs learning to sit. Whether we are little or large, we are trained with specifics! 

Are you going to the gym enough? Good girl! 

Oh, still in bed? You're awfully lazy lately. What happened to your running kick? 

I've grown up with the knowledge that unless you're stomach is flat and your arms are chiseled, you can't be happy. 

I remember walking the hallways of high school and staring wistfully at the skinny, athletic girls and thinking how much happier than me they must be. 

I remember tracking my weight with weight watchers, standing on the scale every week, and believing that if I just got to 145 I'd be totally confident in myself. Then if I could just get to 140...  

Anything close to fat was not an option if I wanted to feel good about myself. 

Now, seriously. Who the heck came up with this? 

How am I trained so well that - still - I find myself retreating to the "anything close to fat is shameful" mindset? That I don't like a picture when I first see it because, yes, my shirt hugs my stomach that is not ab-flat? 

I must always stay vigilant to not get sucked down to society ideals. I must always remember to look to my role models - some fat, some skinny, and some in-between - when I need a reminder. I must always love my body no matter it's shape, and I must treat it as well as it treats me. 

I must remember that I have been trained to think that a belly that sticks slightly or largely out from the rest of me is not worthy, that everyone can reach the "ideal" body, and that I cannot be happy until I have abs without flab but remain curvy. 

I must remember that that all bodies are different, and they are ALWAYS beautiful, and that the ones who say otherwise are either liars or brainwashed. 

I must always fight the war.