I was walking across my college campus the other day, and I had a mini epiphany.
I said to myself: “I don’t look like all these girls. I will never look like all these girls. But I will love myself anyway.”
Then I smiled to myself and my brilliant note of self-love and carried on my way.
But then, hours later, I began to reflect on that moment. I realized that the “anyway” at the end of my thought completely contrasted any positivity present in that statement. I shouldn’t love myself despite my short legs and small boobs and less-than-perfect skin. Those things shouldn’t even be a part of the equation. It’s not x+y-z=love. It’s just love.
Our society gets so carried away with promoting a healthy “body image.” There are commercials and ads and articles and interviews all promoting loving your body and being confident in your own skin. Which of course is great. But I challenge our world to move away from “body image” and instead focus on a “self image.”
Why should our hair or weight or height even be a conversation? Why don’t we instead talk about our accomplishments and the things that make us happy and our dreams for the future.
If we do that, we will be able to hold a greater appreciation for the individuals around us. If we search our souls and love ourselves for who we are at our core, then we can find a way to search other people’s souls and love them for who they are at their core. We can’t continue to live life on the surface, forming opinions based only on what we see. We have to push ourselves deeper so as to find what is really important–both in our lives and the lives around us.
If we judge ourselves on our “body image” rather than our “self image,” we are only focused on what we want to fix physically. Instead, we should want to improve mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. We should open our minds to new ideas, cultures, and peoples rather than new trends, styles, and expectations.
I could honestly write about this forever! There shouldn’t even be physical expectations! I hate that I even included that in the last paragraph. There should be expectations of love and acceptance but not of flawless appearance.
Love yourSELF everyone!!
tomakeyoufeel 