You Are More Than Just Your Physical Appearance
As humans, we have developed this awful tendency of longing after the bodies of other people. Simply put, we follow excessive fitness accounts on Instagram, admire celebrities in magazines and become envious of every Victoria’s Secret model after their annual fashion show. We fixate on our “flaws”, strive to transform our bodies to look exactly like the person we wish we were and hate ourselves when we fall short.
Sad, isn’t it? We’ve grown so accustomed to loving the bodies of others that we have inevitably grown to hate our own. Now, I’d be lying if I said I was not guilty of such a thing. For years, I destroyed myself mentally by hating the person I was physically. I’d wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and grab onto my waist in disgust.
Why couldn’t I be skinnier? Why couldn’t I look like ‘so and so’? God, the questions were endless and rather depressing. Then a couple of months ago I realized that throwing a pity party every day was becoming quite mundane and unhealthy. I was longing after this “healthy” body, yet my mental health was taking a backseat.
And I’ve seen the same happen to plenty of people around me over the years. We want to look a certain way, so we take extreme measures to get there—anorexia, bulimia, self-harm, etc. When did being healthy mean we had to self-destruct in the process? Being healthy is not just about having abs, being at an ideal weight and eating salad. Enjoying life, loving the body you are in (regardless of shape/size/color) and having balance is what makes us healthy.
So please, REMEMBER TO LOVE YOURSELF! I cannot stress the importance of that enough. At the end of the day, you are you. You are not the number on the scale. You are not fat or bones or whatever else you may call yourself.
You are a human being with your own likes, dislikes, goals, talents and much more. Maintaining your physical health is important, but keeping your mental health is the key. You need to love every part of yourself—the good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly—unconditionally. No one is perfect, not even the photo shopped celebrities in the magazines you gawk over. If you decide to embark on a health journey or are already on one, understand that it isn’t all about the workouts and the proper nutrition.
Your journey is a chance for you to accept yourself for all that you are, to better yourself in ways that you’ve always wanted and to be doing it for the right reasons. All in all, STOP doing things you don’t like, START living life the way you want to and LOVE yourself along the way. There is too much hatred in this world…the last thing you should be doing is adding more.