The Self Love Project

One of the things I admire about men is their ability to just not give a crap. I’m not saying that ALL men don’t care about their appearance, because I’ve seen ALOT of them who are way more put together than I am. But for most of the ones I know, thinking about their “figure” is very low on the thought list. Mike will throw on a pair of swim trunks, beer in hand, and let all that shit hang out (and I love you just the way you are, handsome!). Women on the other hand, feel the need to CONSTANTLY pick themselves apart. It’s like nothing we do is ever good enough, and I’m trying to get to the bottom of why.

From what I see and hear from the women I am around daily, we are all our own biggest critic. Day after day, we point out everything we hate about ourselves and rarely come up with traits that we like. It doesn’t seem to matter what we look like, either. I have listened to ladies that would be described by society to have “the perfect body” and they STILL continually put themselves down. And it’s not only about what we are thinking, it’s also about our actions. Every time we wear a loose shirt to cover our less than flat bellies, double up on tank tops to help hide those back rolls caused by our (totally uncomfortable) bras, or refuse to wear shorts in public because of those dimples on our legs, we are shaming our own bodies. What the heck gives? Would you want to be around a person that constantly pointed out your “flaws”? If you had a friend that every time you hung out with her told you what you were wearing made you look fat, your hair is too frizzy, or you just weren’t really that “good” at anything you did, would you continue to socialize with her? I think for most of us the answer would be a big ol’ HELL NO! Then why do we think it’s okay to treat ourselves that way? We are with ourselves literally 24 hours a day, for the rest of our lives. How exhausting it is to constantly be degrading every move we make.

Now I am no exception to the “lets hate everything about yourself” club. For as long as I can remember I have been insanely hard on myself. In my mind, I can honestly do nothing right. When I was younger (say middle and high school), I thought I was over weight. I know now that I wasn’t, but that’s how I saw myself. What I wouldn’t do today for that healthy body! Once the PCOS started to kick in during my early twenties, the self esteem really started to plummet. With all the changes happening, it seemed pretty easy to get down on myself. I was gaining weight, which lead to stretch marks, and hair was starting to grown in less than desirable places. I was in a relationship with a physically and mentally abusive man (Satan) that I knew I shouldn’t be with (and I stayed with for FAR too long). After finally leaving Satan himself, I moved into what we’ll call the party-house, for lack of a better word. In no time at all I started drinking at least every other night. Just enough time to recover from a hangover and start all over again the next day. I had dropped out of college and was working dead end job, after dead end job. It’s not like I had any talent anyway, so why bother? I was drowning myself in my own self inflicted, self hatred pool of crap. Without gloating on Mike enough that his head would explode, he swooped in and saved me like a knight in shining armor. I honestly can say I don’t know where I would be today, had I not met him. It wasn’t until he came along, that I really started to get my life back on track.

While a lot of my self hate issues have been improved, I still have my fair share of esteem problems. For the sake of this blog, I gave myself an assignment. For an entire day I would make a line on a piece of paper every time I had a negative thought about myself. By the end of that day I had 23 lines on my paper. TWENTY THREE FLIPPIN’ LINES. I am seriously a negativity bully towards myself! Almost half of those lines were early in the morning while getting ready for work. What a horrible mood setter for the rest of my day. I am so blessed to even see another day! The sad part is, I would NEVER even think about saying half of those things to people I know, or a stranger for that matter. So why on earth do I think it’s okay to say them to myself?

So here is my project for all of you ladies (and men) out there who are reading this post. Get yourself a piece of paper, and keep track of every time you have something negative to say about yourself for an entire day. If any of you are like me, you will be pretty disgusted with the outcome. From this, we need to all learn how to change our way of thinking, and learn how to show ourselves some SELF LOVE. I have come up with a pretty simple rule-of-thumb to use. If you (or I) wouldn’t say it to your Mother, Daughter, or sister, then for the love of God, DON’T say it to yourself. Every time I find myself starting to think negatively, I make myself instead, say something kind. After a while, you almost start believing it. 🙂

Cyster Love,

Heather

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***To anyone in an abusive or unhealthy relationship, please, help yourself. It may seem impossible to get out, but I promise you, it’s not. You are too important!*** http://www.thehotline.org/

Me with my handsome knight in shining armor ❤