​Loving the skin you are in.. my thoughts

The topic of self love or self esteem can sometimes be daunting, you are always seeing meme’s or quotes about loving yourself or how you deserve to be loved. I see these things all over and I do find it a bit irritating because posting a quote on your social media doesn’t make it happen. Sure you may feel inspired for about the two seconds after you see the picture buy can you honestly say by the end of the day you remember?

Here is my view on this topic, and by no means am I an expert, this is just my story. Working on loving the body you are in is a daily task and to me this will not happen with seeing a picture but by actually doing something to change the way you think about you. We all have body image issues, no matter your size or age, this is just a common fact. Everyone has something they don’t like! So what do I do to help myself overcome these obstacles? Well I will let you know when I get through them all…. But what I am doing is defining what my obstacles are. That has what started me on the journey to learn to love the skin I am in, then the weight loss or healthy lifestyle will follow.
 
First thing I am doing is accepting that my life is great, appreciating all that I have and that I do not have time to spend running on a treadmill for hours (did that), I want to spend my time doing the things that full fill me and exercise is important but it does not have to define your time. Finding the balance is what I am working on first, the balance between life and work, between friends and myself. This is hard but I set boundaries for myself, when I go for a walk I leave the phone behind and enjoy the moment and time with my dogs and nature. I take days off to disconnect and sometimes just be lazy and to be OK with that, sure sometimes I end up pacing and thinking I am wasting time just sitting around but deep down I know I need to. I know my mind is my worst enemy, so I work on this by meditation and I started doing Yoga. Both these things help me to see what I am truly capable of and that I can achieve more than I give myself credit for.
 
The other thing I changed was deciding to eliminate meat from my life. No this is not going to be a rant about becoming vegan and why everyone should. The choice to do this was due to my overwhelming guilt for eating animals. If anyone knows me knows how truly deep my love of animals goes, I got tired of crying every time I see a cattle or pig truck hauling them (ok I still cry, but it comes from my only heart not from my guilt). The guilt I feel in the pit of my stomach knowing that I contributed to that life for them was bigger than I realized. So if you are an emotional eater like me, well can you guess what happens when I have this guilt?? Up…. I eat. So by taking the guilt of eating animals out, that has helped in many ways for me, food is looked at differently. I am not 100% vegan so there are still some issues I am working on but I have a goal and I know that it won’t happen overnight BUT knowing the effort is being made helps me to release yet another obstacle.
 
So do you see why I do not feel posting quotes or memes about loving yourself can fix it? I can post pics all day about it but unless you are actually taking the steps then what’s the point? Figure out your obstacles and not punishing yourself for not exercising or for eating that cake. Instead ask yourself why and take the baby steps to change your obstacles, whether this be through therapy or meditations or whatever works for you, but remember that only YOU can make the change, not your friends, not your family… only you. I love myself for taking the steps to changing my own way of thinking, that’s one “tick” off my to do list in the journey to love the skin I am in :)

Author

Santana - owner The Soul Center