Self-Esteem

Oh dreaded self-esteem- one of my absolute least favorite topics, and that's exactly why I chose to write about it. Today I had the absolute worst body image day I have experienced in a long time, and I caught myself saying "I feel so fat." Woah, wait a second. I "FEEL" fat? What does that even mean. Fat isn't a feeling. So, what was I actually feeling? Rationally knowing I am the exact opposite of overweight, I stopped myself. Now I dwelled on this for quite some time and realized I was actually just extremely anxious. When I get anxious my natural instinct is to turn it on my body. Again this is my eating disorder and it's way of trying to gain control over my emotions through food and appearance. It's quite twisted actually. Ever since I started puberty I always correlated my self worth to my appearance, which is a very dangerous thing to do. Although, I couldn't help it. Growing up in southern california (specifically LA county), I always felt a ridiculous amount of pressure on me to be perfect. There was a point in time where I didn't like a single thing about my body or my features. This is a bit different now and have come to terms with my appearance a bit more, but clearly I still severely struggle with body image and with a negative attitude about myself. So this morning when I looked in the mirror and thought that I felt fat, it was all drawn from the fact that I was worried about something and I immediately blamed it on my body by habit. How cruel and unfair is that. We are our own worst critics, I'm sure you've all heard that before, and it's true. We bully ourselves more than almost anybody, because we all feel like we aren't good enough, or are failing to reach some imaginary standard that no one is actually at. So when are we ever "good enough"- better yet good enough for what? Somehow along the road my brain told me that if I wasn't up to a certain standard that I would not be liked or loved. This is down right revolting and embarrassing. My weight and my looks are so temporary and have nothing to do with who I really am as a person, or how much my family loves me, my success in life, or my failures even. I've always struggled with relating my failures to my looks as well. Example A- "She didn't invite me to her party because I'm probably not pretty or cool enough." Now obviously this example is ridiculous and sounds so junior high cliche, but hey it was an example. This habit of mine though, has ruined too many good things for me and I'm determined to put an end to it. It's so important to turn our focus not on our bodies- but on our character, actions, souls etc. All our body is, is a shell that we live in. It isn't truly us and it fades away so quickly and is constantly changing. So stop comparing yourself, even if it's the hardest thing you do. Stop comparing your body because it will never be "good enough" because truly that doesn't exist. When we expect perfection out of ourselves we will never be happy.