Sunday, November 2, 2014

What's Your Secret?

Over the past six and a half months, I have had several old friends and many people I don't even know reach out to me and ask me my secret. As I've mentioned in my blog before, I don't have a magic answer. People aren't wanting to know what I eat daily or what I do to exercise. They are wondering how I've found and kept my will power and determination.

I've had a love-hate relationship with my body my entire life, which sadly, has mostly been comprised of hate. I have a wonderful, supportive group of friends and family who have never judged me, even at my largest. I have been called fat behind my back and to my face all throughout my life. I have even been asked "when are you due?" many, many times, the first time being at the tender age of 12. People calling you fat is something you can eventually learn to deal with, but when someone asks you if you are pregnant, and is 100-percent serious about it, you have no other choice but to cry, and I've cried a lot. But now, I'm grateful because I know I will never be there again, and if by chance I am, I won't cry.

I've been told I'm a nice, caring, smart, beautiful, funny person, but even still, at 27-years-old, I still sometimes judge my own self-worth based on my appearance. When you put so much emphasis on what you see in the mirror, you start to doubt all of your other wonderful qualities that have absolutely nothing to do with the way you look.

I love my friends and family for who they are, not what they look like, so why was I never able to feel that way about the most important person in my life...me. Why have I never been able to love myself unconditionally until now? I think it's because I realize now that you can't look in the mirror for answers. There's absolutely no way you can look in a mirror and determine your worth.

I guess my answer to everyone's question is that once you realize you are capable of attaining something you want so badly, you start to love yourself more, and that's what's made me successful. You start to feel that you are worth something, and slowly, you start to realize that every quality you have that's buried deep within your body, is way more important than what you appear to be physically.

The truth is, when you love yourself, what other people think about you matters less and less. The fact that my body is shrinking has not made me love myself. What has made me start loving myself is that every good thing about me that I knew was there but refused to believe, is finally coming out. I always knew I was strong, but allowing myself to gain so much weight and become so unhappy made me forget. You are your greatest enemy when you need to be your greatest fan.

I've heard so many people say that no one can change until they really want to. But, I don't believe that. Everyone wants to change. No one wants to be unhappy. You have to force change. Nothing is going to happen while you sit on the couch telling yourself that you are going to start changing your life on Monday.

Once you finally believe in yourself and remember that your life is in no one's hands but your own, you will succeed. Once you believe that your happiness is so much more important than anything else, you will make yourself happy. And once you start to have that crazy, addictive feeling of loving yourself, you will have no choice but to keep going and make every dream you've ever had come true.


4 comments:

  1. Beautiful words, made me cry. You can see through your blog that you're an amazing person.
    I'm going to start running again. I was running 4 miles/day but gave up after 2 months due to little results and feeling too disgusted with myself to continue. But reading your blog make me want to start back up again and not give up this time !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much! It takes a while to notice progress, but give it time, and I promise you will! Good luck!! :)

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