I Love ME

In January of this year, a young woman that I know only by first name came up to me and said a surprising thing to me. She said, "I feel like I’m supposed to tell you that you’re beautiful.”

To be completely transparent, when she said this to me I did not really explore the emotions in the moment. I brushed it off as a compliment. It wasn’t until I got into my car that I compared what she had said and how it made me feel.

I mentioned her comment to my husband who said, "Of course babe, you know you’re beautiful”, but as soon as I said it aloud to him, I realized how heavy those words made me feel. I should know that I was beautiful. I should feel beautiful and wow in that moment, I really did not.

"Wait a second", I thought, "not me". I know I'm beautiful, don't I? I would be the first to cheer on any other woman and find something positive and beautiful about her. I even purposefully never said anything negative about myself aloud. I never wanted to be a woman who projected negativity about my body for anyone or my child to hear. I was confident in myself, but in that moment I realized I had been bullying myself in private for the past year.

I used to be very skinny and boney. I had an athletic build and I was always teased about how thin I was. When someone would hug me, they would make comments like, “I can feel your ribs girl!” It drove me crazy, but I could eat whatever I wanted and didn’t have to work out unless I just wanted to so there were pros to that situation. Around age 23, I had a baby boy (I call him my cub), my hips widened (2 inches people!), and other parts of my body were now more “soft”. My body was completely different. I went from a size 2 to a size 6. To be honest, I loved my new woman body. SO MUCH. Sure it was harder to find clothes that laid right, but I loved my curviness. The problem I really had was my face. My face had changed and didn’t look as angular and slim as it used to. Every morning when I looked at myself, I did not like my face and I daily criticized it. I never stopped thinking that I was beautiful, but there was just something about it that was different. Man I could love my body, but my face was different. My face was my definition of beauty. It was what I looked at the most. 

In this selfie-centered world, I hated selfies. My face was not as beautiful as it used to be. It was not angled just right. It was a little bit bigger. My skin could be perfectly clear, my eyes could be big and bright, my eyebrows could be arched perfectly, but my face looked wider to me. Most of you who are reading this are probably rolling your eyes and thinking something like, "Duh, this is what happens as we age." Our bodies are always changing, but I was so caught up in it that I was not thinking logically. 

I was so surprised when I sat there in the car that night and realized that deep down inside I had been feeling like I was not beautiful. It was so hidden inside of me, it took me sitting there and unpacking my feelings to figure out what had actually been happening. What's worse is that no one else had to say or do anything to make me not feel beautiful. I had been doing it to myself! My negative thoughts were the silent killer of my happiness. 

In one moment, the words "you're beautiful" began a process of unpacking for me. A process of cleansing my thoughts. A self realization that over time my appearance would always be changing, but my belief in who I am and how beautiful I am should never change. I had to stop allowing how great I thought I looked like in the past to poison my present appearance. I couldn’t let who I used to be prevent me from accepting myself now. It hit me that I was choosing to dislike myself. It was my choice and it was time to choose to like everything that I saw. I would no longer allow myself to pick and choose what parts I would accept and which ones I would not.

So if you're reading this and somehow relate to struggling with a part of your appearance, here is what I did. I took action. Immediately. 

I began writing a list of self affirmations to read over every day to remind myself of what makes me so beautiful. Not only my inner beauty, but my outer beauty. How I perceived my body was just as important.

When you begin writing your list, it won’t be very long. As your belief in yourself begins to grow, your list will grow longer and you will start to become extremely confident in what you are writing and saying about yourself. It is amazing what happens when you start purposefully loving yourself.

I am telling you from experience that it will not be easy and it could take months to unpack all of the wrong thoughts that you have had. Your job is to work through those thoughts and replace them with the right ones.

You deserve it.

I am so grateful for that woman that made herself uncomfortable in order to make me face myself. Well, face my face.

Dang, I am one sexy momma.