It's not easy being green

One of the things that I struggle with is my self body image and the way I feel and talk about my body and self. I enjoyed my body when I was a child. I don't know if I consciously loved it because it just was what it was...I didn't have a concept of judgement against my body. Throughout the years and a slew of factors I've come to a place where I am often disgusted with parts of my body.  I've often used negative self talk thinking that if I was hard enough on myself I could change the way I looked. I've learned some interesting things over the last year though. I've realized that I've been looking at things from the complete wrong direction.

When people have told me that I have to love my body my thought (with sarcasm) has often been "everybody who ever tells me that is beautiful with a rockin' body." When I would think this I would think it in an "easy for you to say" way. What I'm beginning to see though, is the awesome obvious. Yes, all the people who have told me to love my body have had, in my opinion, great bodies. But oh my goodness, if they are right, shouldn't they be the ones with the "great bodies?" My dietitian once told me that she had never met an overweight person who got that way by loving themselves. The flaw in my thinking was that beautiful people loved their bodies because they had fabulous bodies, but in reality, it's the other way around. Beautiful people are beautiful because they have a healthy, beautiful love and view of themselves. The way we think about ourselves manifests itself in our bodies. Beauty is relative. If we see ourselves as beautiful and believe and act like we are, then we are beautiful!

Thus comes the hard part, loving my body before I feel it's 100% lovable. Loving my body in spite of the fact that it is not fabulously perfect. I'm learning that this takes time and patience. There's no magic switch or pill that makes us love our bodies. That is what the diet industry is trying to sell us. The first step is to stop any negative talk or comments about ourselves and/or body. Then we can begin to notice a part of our body that we like, enhance it in our minds, and then slowly move to the rest of our body. Focus on what you love and give zero attention to any negative thoughts. It feels really difficult but, unless everyone else is lying in the same exact manor, we'll gradually change and really loving our bodies won't be a struggle.

I was recently watching one of the first episodes of the Muppet's Show and a lot of the things that I've been learning about my view of myself and my body came together as I listed to Kermit's famous "It's not easy being green" song. I'll admit it's pretty silly saying this, but this song is awesomely profound and admirable.

"When green is all there is to be it could make you wonder why, but why wonder? why wonder? I'm green, it'll do fine...it's beautiful! and I think it's what I want to be."