As a woman in the world, body image has always been a fierce battle within. There is an unspoken expectation of the standard of beauty a woman should hold. I have gained and lost weight. I have enjoyed living in this body and hated it on both sides of the spectrum of how my body has looked. I have experienced hopelessness in health and gained freedom in it as well. Throughout it all, I aspired to gain a sense of self-love. At the beginning of last year, I was consumed with the overwhelming thoughts that I hated my physical appearance. I wrote on a piece of paper “Love yo’ self” as a goal for the year and prayed to God. I wanted to love the body I was in or be able to not think about it. I did not want my negative thoughts on my body image to dictate my life anymore. I was fixated on the body I had and wanted to change it. As I worked through this journey of learning to love myself, my body did shift and change. It became smaller than it once was. I started to become confident in the way I looked. I think I always viewed change happening in my body as the end goal of success. I thought that it would be easier to walk through life without being consumed by negative self-thoughts towards my body. It was easier but it was not quite as dreamy as I had imagined. As I started noticing changes, I became fixated on how I looked. I was no longer consumed with negative thoughts about my body; but, I still found myself consumed by thoughts about my body. Maybe self-love towards my body was never the goal at all.
There is beauty in being a human body. I believe that there is art in being a woman. Art in having a body. Beauty in learning to care for it and to treat it with respect. I also believe as women we are often taught by the world to be hyper-focused on our bodies. As if no matter what there is always going to be something that you do not like about your own physical being. That at the end of the day, our bodies are going to always play a defining role in our lives. We are preached at by magazines and social media to self-accept and to change ourselves all at the same time. You can change your body to match the expectation you have for yourself. You can start to be confident about how you look on the outside, but it will never be truly fulfilling. At the end of the day, the body is just a vessel to carry the things that matter. The passions, faith, and ideas brewing inside a human is truly what defines us. Yet, so often as women it is easy to silence the things inside in order to fixate on what is only surface level. Wanting to love your body is a good thing, but it cannot be viewed as the ultimate goal. The soul of a person must be nurtured in the same way. You are not just your body. I think that statement is relieving in the body image struggle women deal with. There is so much more to you. People must learn to cultivate every part of themselves through growth, not just their bodies. Strive for self-love but for self-love in every aspect of your life.