I know what it’s like to be obsessed about my weight. I’ve had a poor image of my body pretty much all my life. In high school, I was in boarding school for 3 years. The food we were offered was disgusting, drowning in oil, colorless and tasteless, so we covered it in ketchup or ate bread to fill us up. I gained weight. A lot of weight! I left boarding school and returned home to complete my last two years of high school and within 6 months I lost all the weight, and more. But it set up a pattern in which I believed I could never be skinny enough. If my bones weren’t sticking out everywhere, I was miserable. I took all kinds of medication to make sure I wouldn’t gain weight. No amount of compliments could make me believe that I looked good. It took my entire adult life for me to let go of the belief that I had to be skinny in order to be happy, and to stop believing that my weight defined me. It’s only been more recently that I’ve made peace with my body, that I started to love and appreciate it completely, that I’ve found true happiness within myself. I know what it needs to thrive. I nurture and diligently take care of it. I accept compliments now, not because my body is perfect, but because I changed the way I think about it. It’s strong, hardy and resilient, despite years of hate and punishment. And I get to experience and love life fully because of this fantastic “vehicle” in which my soul resides. The body follows the mind. What stories have you believed about your body?
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