BODY POSITIVE

Before you read this blog post, please repeat after me.

I LOVE MY BODY, JUST AS IT IS NOW.

I can't hear you...let's try again.

I LOVE MY BODY, JUST AS IT IS NOW.

Oh, what's that? 

You'd love it if your boobs were bigger and your ass was smaller.

You'd love it if just (fill in the blank) was different.

You'll love it when you gain some weight or lose some or when you get a tan or when you get some surgery.

but you simply can't and don't love it JUST AS IT IS NOW?

What's that?  This is the body that got you through skinned knees, playing outside, going to prom, your first time, your last time.

Maybe it got you through a 5K or maybe 26.2, maybe it got you through childbirth or menopause or both.   Maybe your body survived cancer. 

Point being -- it's been there for you, but you can't love it. don't love it, won't love it.  Or maybe you do and good for you...

It took me almost 40 years to love mine and I'll tell you how I did it and why I hope you can too...

Right before my 40th birthday, someone said to me -- now that you are 40, maybe you have an excuse to stop being so nice?

My gut reaction -- wow, being nice has gotten me this far in life, I think I'll stick with it.  It's worked for me so far.

It got me thinking -- what else has worked for me SO FAR?

It took me back to a time when I was going through old pictures and I found one of my sisters and I standing in front of what we called our playhouse growing up. 

We stood happily at the door to the playhouse, decked out in terry cloth tops with matching shorts (mine was red with white stripes down the side of both the top and shorts) smiling widely, crooked teeth and hair a little messy after a day of play.

I am standing sideways so you can see my proflile - me on the right, Elizabeth in the middle and Jennifer on the left like in so many of our childhood pictures.

Looking at the picture, I stared straight at my thighs.  I marvelled at how the shape of them then is the exact shape of them now.  In fact, Mary Margaret and Emma, my neices, have those very same "Goebel"  legs now.

Just  as when I was asked about staying nice or not, I thought to myself -- those thighs have gotten me this far (30 plus years after that picture) I think I will stick with them

It was the first step I made to loving my body, JUST AS IT IS NOW.

What other choice do I have really? I am not going to be given another one.

It is such hard work to love and accept our bodies, but think of it this way.

Would be ever talk about someone elses body the way we negatively talk about our own?

Would we talk to others the way we talk to ourselves?

Think about what your body has gotten you through.....

Think about the minutes, hours, weeks, days of time you could get back if you gathered up all the time you have criticized your body?

What could you have done with that time? 

What could we all do if we stopped using that time to criticize and used it to love instead?

Recently, someone said -- I'm glad to see more pictures of you on FB lately, I was beginning to forget what you looked like. 

True story -- I had been intentionally not posting them because I was not happy with the way I looked.  I did not want any one to see me.  

What a waste of time.  

It's still me: same smile, same short hair, same thighs.

I know I am asking a lot when I ask you to love your body, I know because for a long long time I hated mine. 

I know it won't happen overnight but I want you to know that loving your body is not only possible -- JUST AS IT IS NOW -- it's also important.

Join me and be body positive....take baby steps if you have to.

Repeat after me....

I LOVE MY BODY, JUST AS IT IS NOW.

See, you did it....keep going....your body deserves it, it's gotten you this far.