Shape of You; We Are All Beautiful

I would only lose or add weight if it affected my health or sex life, which it doesn't and I'm not going to sacrifice my mental health to have the perfect body.
Sometimes, I tend to wonder if this is about self-esteem or this is one of the addiction that has been inflicted upon us by our society and media, or if this is just nature via nurture or nurture via nature.

This, I believe, is what all women (and men) are searching for; We think that we want to be thinner, fatter, with smaller or bigger boobs (or tall, muscular with abs) — the list goes on — and we waste so much time and money in pursuit of these things when actually all we are looking for is the feeling of being happy with ourselves and our bodies.

Why are we not taught to love our own uniqueness?

Probably because if we loved ourselves no matter what our faces and bodies looked like, then billions of pounds worth of industries would go bust!

Imagine if we all love our body like Gabourey Sidibe loves hers, without the thought of changing herself to a body like that of Beyonce, what will happen to the slim tea, make up industries and gyms.

What do you focus on when you look at your reflection? Your so-called best bits, or the bits you’ve deemed worst? Do you think about which parts you’d like to be different? How this dress would look so much better on someone who’s a size 6? Can you even believe they sell women’s size 4 and 6? When I was growing up, my Mum was a size 8, and that was considered tiny.

Where is this belief coming from that to be someone, we have to more or less physically disappear?

How ignorant of us to not look in the mirror and see how amazing we are. How perfect our bodies, that move and feel and experience, are. How wonderful that what you stare at in the mirror is something made up of billions of cells, each one separate and yet all working together to make up your perfect body.

Your body is miraculous, it holds the potential of creating new — new life, new thoughts, and new creations— constantly. You have a potential, all wrapped up in one beautiful package. We should be looking into the mirror in awe of the miracle we are.

We also need to remember that this body that we put so much importance on is just a vessel. A vessel that carries our souls, our consciousness, for a while.

This content we hold inside is all that matters eventually, seeing the attractive package of an edible item makes you go for it at first, but eventually, it is the taste of the edible item that is used to judge its worth.

Just imagine for a moment if we all drove the same car. Same product, same model, same color. Imagine never having the excitement of deciding what your next car will be. Never feeling the excitement of not being able to wait till you get to finally sit in the driver’s seat for the first time. That is what our souls must feel like when they decide what body they want to incarnate into.

Everyone tries to look a cookie-cutter kind of way, and actually the people who look different are the ones who get picked up

If we all looked the same, I think it’s safe to assume there wouldn’t be quite so many of us here on earth right now.

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.

You see, we have felt disempowered for so long that it feels normal to us. We think that this is how life is, forever striving to be physically better in some way and feeling that we are not good enough because our stomachs aren’t flat.

You get excited over new eye-shadow palettes and whatever color the lipstick of the season is — that’s just how you are, and despite loving your ever changing made-up face, you also love your bare face just as much. If you didn’t, then you wouldn’t consider your love of makeup fun, it would be you trying to be someone you’re not.

It’s the same with everything — exercise, our diets — we shouldn’t be making changes or doing things we don’t want in a bid to make ourselves into what society tells us we should be, we should do them for our love and enjoyment of them.

If you enjoy pounding the pavements or treadmill, you go for it. Me, I’m more of a leisurely walk with the dog type of a person, so yes that might mean I’m a dress size or two thinner than a gym bunny, but I’m okay with that. I’m enjoying every second of my life.

When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, feel. Decisions are agonizing because if you, the person who makes the decision, is damaged, then how can you trust what you decide? You doubt your own impulses so you become masterful at looking outside yourself for comfort. You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself -- that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control

So, let’s strive for something other than the perfect face or body — there is no such thing. Make your goal more personal, become obsessed with loving yourself, who you are right now, and who you are on your way to becoming.

That is where happiness lies.