Do you love your body?

“Do I Look Fat in This?” The Title of this book written by Rhonda Britten jumped out at me because growing up I asked that very question of friends and family members EVERY DAY!!! It was an actual daily ritual for me. So I picked up the book and decided to buy it to see what it was all about. Well I didn’t know what I was getting myself into but apparently I still have some insecurity issues with my body image. As I began to read I found out that Rhonda Britten is a famous life coach who is the founder of Fearless Living Institute as well as the star of the daytime reality series “Starting Over” also with Iyanla Vanzant. The show has since been canceled but as I continued to read I was completely amazed at how a woman I had never met or even heard of could be telling my story….LOL! I mean it was as if she grew up with me or she was my life coach and she was using my story to write this book. Hmmmm, yep more proof that we go through similar issues all the time and we are never by ourselves; it just feels that way sometimes.

Well I am on a mission to be happier in life and to learn to love myself first so that the decisions I make are not made out of fear. So when I found that I still have some unresolved issues with my body image I figured what a good place to start! Yes, there is work involved! You have to reach down deep to find out what the real issues are. It’s all apart of rebuilding/regaining our self-esteem, our since of self worth. We have to love ourselves first and part of that is loving YOU inside and out. You may not realize this but hating or not liking your body really does hold you back from many things. It’s almost like a prison because there are certain things you don’t allow yourself to do based on how you feel about your body image. Isn’t it time to let all of that go and be free? It is for me and I’m determined to stop comparing myself to others, to stop thinking that it is possible to have a perfect body when we all have imperfections.

I am learning to not worry so much about the size but be more concerned with how comfortable it fits. I don’t have anxiety attacks anymore when the scale doesn’t reflect the number I think it should. These are things that I have learned over time but the one issue I still have after reading this book is that I’m still not very comfortable with looking at myself naked. I find the need to point out every imperfection and flaw that I see instead of embracing and loving the body I’m in. So really any progress that I have made by no longer comparing myself to others or not fixating on clothing sizes and scale numbers is over shadowed by my inability to look in a mirror and say positive things about what I see. One of the steps that I have begun to do is saying something positive about my body everyday. That’s right, everyday when I look in the mirror whether in the morning while dressing or at night I find something good to say about what I see even if it’s small. This is actually helping me build my inner confidence level. Of course there will always be something we want to change or work on and there’s nothing wrong with that but we need to make sure that we are not setting unrealistic expectations for ourselves.

I have always exercised so that’s not a step that I need to add to my routine but I do have to work on eating healthier, taking vitamins, and getting rest. It’s really about taking care of self and I can’t say it enough, loving ourselves first!! With some hard work and dedication we are able to change our mindset and our perspective, but it does take work and it isn’t always easy! I’ll never have a body like Beyonce but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn to love the body that I do have!

Stiletto

Real Life, Real Talk, Real Women