Learning To Love Yourself: Part 1

"Your body is a wonderland." Great words spoken by none other than John Mayer, a man with a "normal" or "perfect body", but little did he know my body wasn't a wonderland. My body was ugly, messy, and dysfunctional.

When I looked in the mirror I saw frizzy brown hair, ugly brown eyes, chubby stomach and arms, short legs, and humongous feet. I was never proud of my body or confident about my appearance. I was a little girl standing in front of her mirror thinking about every little thing that was wrong with my body. No little girl should ever have to do that.

There's a stereotype around many different body types. There's skinny, curvy, plus size, dad bod, rock hard abs, and so much more. People have so much to say about every single one of these types of bodies and people will always have an opinion on your body type no matter who you are.

They will complain about anything they can, I would know because I'm guilty of the same thing. I'm a plus size girl and when there first started being plus size models I was ecstatic until I saw them. I remember seeing this "plus size" girl and thought I read the title of the article wrong, she couldn't be plus sized, she had no belly, she was tiny, stick thin even. I was so upset at seeing this it actually made me sad, I had a belly and she didn't, why not choose me?

Growing up it would've been a dream seeing more plus size women, and just knowing that I could be pretty or that boys would want me too. I never knew that boys could like someone like me because I wasn't that perfect weight or fit into a size small. I thought they only liked the supermodels posing in front of cars like the posters on their walls. All I ever wanted to be was one of those girls in the posters.

I always tried losing the chubbiness I had, I played sports, mostly year round, and I tried eating better. When I was in high school it still wasn't that bad but then senior year hit and I started gaining more weight than I ever could imagine.

I never wanted to look in a mirror, I was afraid of the person I've become. An overweight, sad, young woman. I started college and I didn't gain any weight but other things happened which led to me dropping out and gaining the weight again. Dropping out of college opened up my eyes, I needed to stop feeling sad or bad for myself because the only person I could blame this on was myself.

It was completely my fault for gaining the weight and it was my fault for not dropping it. As soon as I realized that, it was time to realize who I was. I was this young girl again with the frizzy brown hair, ugly brown eyes, chubby stomach and arms, short legs, and humongous feet. I looked in the mirror this time though and saw so much more, I looked at myself and I felt good. I wanted to be a girl who loved her self and I'm not completely there but I no longer look at myself and think of the changes I can make. I look at myself and think of how I can better myself and love myself even more.

After all of this happened I realized how much happier I was and that i was actually keeping the weight off. I started cutting out toxic things/people in my life and every little bit was helping. The key to wanting to be happy and loving your body is to help yourself, realize it's your own fault for the way you are and try to fix the mess you've made.

You can blame others or things on why you are the way you are but they are only symptoms of the problem. Being happy made me feel better about myself and after feeling better I feel like I could actually be the person I want to be, whether that be skinny or stay the same weight, that stuff doesn't matter to me anymore. I've realized that you can be loved for who you are no matter the way you look.