"I won’t say that hating our bodies is a universal experience, because I know that it’s not, but it is a pretty common one. The problem with a lot of the rhetoric around the whole “love and accept yourself unconditionally” ideology — popular and awesome-feeling though the words may sound — is that it doesn’t leave much space for individual realities, complicated as they are. There are many reasons why loving your body may occasionally be impossible. It happens. Allowing yourself to then feel like crap about your apparent lack of perfect loving joyfulness in your every molecule is self-defeating. I prefer to advocate for acceptance, because acceptance doesn’t place a value — positive or negative — on our bodies, or our bodily parts. Love can be fickle, but acceptance is not. Your body, and all its little idiosyncrasies and annoyances, exists. You cannot blink the frustrating parts away, and you cannot wish them into oblivion. If you are able to change them, it will probably take time. So you may as well accept them, as they are, right now. Acceptance doesn’t mean “I will never change,” it means, “I will roll with whatever changes come,” because bodily changes are inevitable, no matter what you do. I’m fat, and most of the time I love my body. When I don’t, I accept it, and I steadfastly refuse to hate it, because there is no point to hating the awesome vehicle that allows me to interact with and participate in the world. It’s the only one I get. Sure, 24-hour self-love may be the ideal, and we can keep striving for it, but first we must forgive our bodies for not being perfect, and forgive ourselves for any anger or despair we may feel in wanting this to be so. We would do well to remember that in some relationships, forgiveness can be far more powerful than unconditional love. This is true for our bodies too." - Lesley Kinzel
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 17:00:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015