The Weight of the World

—This is not an advertisement for the newest weight loss fad. This is not a post directed at people to feel sorry for me or even to praise me for being “so wise”. This is a post to encourage someone who might be confronting an insecurity I have been confronting all of my life. This is for that girl who hates herself and despises the way she looks—

I am not typically a person who posts about her weight. Because quite frankly it is for me, like it is for several women, a tinder spot. I never wanted people to know that it is something I do not like to talk about, because well I did not want to be “that girl”. Well, allow me to be “that girl” for just a second. Whoever that girl really is, I do not know. I have posted and written about other things concerning my outward appearance, because that was a little easier for me. Weight on the other hand.. was (and well is) a touchy subject for me and in our society for women as a whole. Yes, I believe women have come a long way when it comes to being “body positive” and we have become a lot better at encouraging all women. But it is still rooted in all of us to not be 100% satisfied with our weight, with how we look.

From an early age I was very nit picky with how my body looked and first viewed myself as “fat” when I was 11 years old. I danced for a good portion of my childhood and teen years and if you know anything about dancing you probably know there is a certain body type people associate ballerinas with having: Tall, long limbs, no curves and lumps, under 100 lbs… I was fooled into believing I could never attain that level of “beauty” because I did not look like all of those women. I did not like that every time my feet hit first position (heels pressing together and toes pointed outwards) that my thighs mushed up against each other. I hated the jiggle my stomach made whenever I leapt across the floor in a jumping sequence. And how my tights waistband enhanced my muffin top. To top it all off I had to stare at myself for hours on end in the mirror at the studio in order to make corrections to my technique but all the while instilling a hatred of how I looked deep inside of me. I toyed with the thought of not eating to make me slimmer countless times. I even tried it, but a voice deep inside me told me it was wrong and I was full of shame. So I went on hating the way I looked.

****Disclaimer: this is not me hating on the dance world, I absolutely adored dancing and I still do, but I believe the devil uses things we love against us so we cannot fully operate out of confidence. ****

Years go by and I reach the age of 20. I attend a conference where I am able to receive freedom from all these things. I get prayed over, and I absolutely believe in my heart I was set free that day. The torment of self loathing, the distorted view this world has given me of how women should look to name a few things. But let me tell you, after years of convincing and making myself sick, it was not going to take one moment to free me of it all. My spirit, yes. I am a new creation, no doubt about it. My thoughts, my flesh, my emotions, no. It is a CONSTANT battle I have to undergo and will my whole life. I have the choice of allowing those thoughts to haunt me again or for them not to have any power against me at all.

A year goes on after I had these revelations and I start to become very comfortable with myself. I ate happily and freely, I quit dancing and exercising entirely. I thought I was living my best life, but turns out how I was living started to affect my health. I physically felt awful. In the course of my life, I went from one extreme to the next. I went from being so obsessed to how I looked in every way to now not caring at all. Because I did not care at all, I indeed gained a lot of weight. And no, I was not “fat”, or what this world might deem as overweight because I refuse to refer to that. But me not caring, me not taking care of my physical body really began to show. I condemned myself and more shame came over me because I allowed myself to get to that place. I started to hate how I looked all over again. I was back to where I started. Great.

So here I am at 22… working through all of the hurt I have caused myself over the years concerning weight. Years ago being the smallest I had ever been and now being the heaviest I had ever been. So in 2019, I made myself a promise (sounds cheesy but for me it is absolutely works, so back off)…. I am no longer going to get on the scale. I am no longer going to shame myself into eating right and over-exercising to fit into a certain pants size. I am not even going to make unrealistic goals of how much weight I am going to lose. I am going to start L-O-V-I-N-G myself. Loving myself so much that I choose to eat the right things and I will not freak out when I “cheat”, you best believe I will enjoy the heck out of those cheese fries. WATCH ME. I am going to exercise consistently because it makes me feel so good (shoutout to those endorphins). I am going to eat and exercise for one person only and that is myself. Present me and future me deserves that. I am no longer going to be consumed and distressed over how I look and how much I weigh. I relinquish the weight of the world and I welcome in beautiful me. Because I am just that, beautiful. And you can absolutely choose to feel the same way. I hope this helps my girl.