Love yourself. You deserve it.

Do you believe it?
Pause. How does that statement make you feel? Do you REALLY believe it?

Do you ACT like you believe it? Do you LIVE like you believe it?



What do I deserve?
Heck, what does deserve even mean?

deserve: to be worthy, fit, or suitable for some reward or requital <have become recognized as they deserve — T. S. Eliot>

worthy: having worth or value : estimable <a worthy cause>

worth: usefulness or importance, as to the world, to a person, or for a purpose:

importance: entitled to more than ordinary consideration or notice

ordinary: somewhat inferior or below average



There it is... THERE IT IS.
For so long- I have felt "somewhat inferior or below average" because of my weight. (But heellllloooo....I'm really the average! The average woman is carrying around extra weight.) But I feel like society is telling me that I'm "somewhat inferior" because of my size.

And because of that...I feel like I don't deserve nice things. I don't deserve a nice life. I should struggle. I should suffer. And then I feel guilty for caring. But then I wonder why shouldn't I care? Isn't being fat unhealthy? Is it? Is it not? Aren't there lots of people who are skinny that are unhealthy? Is being skinny right? Shouldn't I just focus on fitness and wellness? What if I do everything right and I still don't fit into the BMI scale? Why is that stupid BMI scale the same for men and women? But don't we skinny shame too? When people start falling below their "goal" we start saying...."Whoooooaaa there....112?! Is that even healthy!?" What is this world coming to....I...

STOP.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if fat is wrong...or right. It doesn't matter if skinny is wrong...or right. Or NEITHER!!

That doesn't change the fact that you DESERVE love. You DESERVE a beautiful life. You DESERVE happiness...EVERY SINGLE DAY. No matter your size.

You are worthy.
You are valuable.
You are important to the world.
You are entitled to more than ordinary consideration.
You are NOT somewhat inferior or below average.

So... Do you live it?

I'm a living creature in this universe. I was given life. I try my best to honor the lives of others and cause no harm to others.
That...right there is what I think entitles me to deserve happiness- and to deserve many things.

As a number of you know, I have been intuitively eating for awhile now. Many of the principles are rooted in honor, respect, and peace. I have now realized that I deserve all of these things in EVERY aspect of my life. If intuitive eating is a diet of love and compassion- my entire life is now on this diet. My house is more clean then it has EVER been. Yesterday I spent hours hanging art that has been in a closet for years (because my finances are a mess...I don't really deserve this home, right? NOT TRUE ANYMORE).

I feel like my whole life is exploding with love, because I realized that I truly truly deserved happiness.



FURTHERMORE, I TRULY TRULY believe that YOU deserve happiness. Your size doesn't matter. Your checkbook doesn't matter. Your religious stance doesn't matter. Your dating profile doesn't matter. Your (you insert insecurity)_______ DOESN'T MATTER.

YOU DESERVE HAPPINESS. YOU DESERVE LIFE.

Here's another for you...

You DESERVE to feel BEAUTIFUL.

Yes, totally. I found radical feminism and the fat positive movement a number of years ago which took my feeling of self-worth to a whole new level. I SO wish I had started learning at 12 that there's no wrong way to have a body - I could have saved myself a world of trouble! I was brought up against poor shaming, so I've rarely felt inferior to others due to my financial assets or lack thereof. I don't act like I love myself 100% of the time, but I also don't act like I love my husband or my Mama or even my sweet dog 100% of the time - I'm only human, after all!

From these posts, I suspect I may have a more stoic view of happiness than you do, but the sentiment is still the same - I don't think I'm less deserving, inherently, than other folks and I make a conscious effort to extend the same kindnesses to myself that I would extend to others.

I never understood how NOT loving youself, hating yourself even, helps anyone, ever? If you're a mom and hate yourself, how can you give the best in life to your kids? if you sacrifice everything in the world for others because you think you don't deserve it, what do you even have left to give?

Self-love is the truest and longest lasting in our lives. Partners come and go, parents die, children grow up and move away. WE are the only ones who are in it til the last breath. If we don't like spending time with us, how will anyone else?

I'm crazy about me

I'm also sad to say, if a person in my life demonstrates time and time again they aren't worthy of love, that they hate themselves, that they have no desire to change that, I tend to think "well, you know you better than i ever will, I'll bow to your judgement on this one" and move them away from my life. No one can want happiness and self-love FOR you, it's all in there inside waiting to come out

Thank you so much for posting. It really gives me pause for thought. I have been dieting my entire life (I'm in my 50's). I have done just about every plan. I've been coming to this site on and off for a long time. I've been up 100 pounds, lost about 40, gained about 20, lost them, gained them, forever.

Why??? Don't I love myself and deserve to be thin? I think I do, I want to believe it.

I let everything get in my way. What friends and family think; stress, etc. Mainly I let myself get in the way. Help!!!

Thanks for posting.

We show what our priorities are by where they rank in the order of our day. I think most women are very good at trying to keep everyone else happy...whether it be a boss, or kids, or husband, whatever. But I think it's important to look at your "list" for the day and see where YOU fall on it, whether it's through movement or eating right or whatever it is that makes you feel good. We are too used to putting everyone else ahead of ourselves.

AnnMarie, this was the hardest thing in the world for me to do, but I realized that I had to worry about me first or else I wasn't going to be around for anyone to worry about. Since my sister's passing, I've taken on the role of the elder female in the family. Giving to others has always given me enormous pleasure and is just part of who I am. But I was at the bottom of the list when it came to making sure that I was ok. I'm still trying to give to others, but now I do it in a much more balanced way so that there's time in the day to focus on me. Not in a selfish way, but just to make sure that I think about what I'm doing and eating so that I can enjoy many more years with my friends and family.

I agree this is a complicated issue. Many people motivate themselves to lose weight with the thought that their current self is completely unacceptable.

They try to create a mental image of themselves that is so negative that the only natural response is to try to starve it into submission.

One very surprising outcome when I lost a lot of weight the first time around, and got to try out life as a normal weight person, was that I started looking at my fat pictures with a lot more compassion. Before, I had used the fat pictures as EVIDENCE of how awful and disgusting I looked. But once I was at a normal weight, I thought to myself, "why did you hate yourself so much????" I thought, as a normal weight person, that if I met my obese self at a party, I wouldn't think twice about it. I wouldn't think of that woman as being disgusting or inherently inferior, I would just think she looked nice.

When I lost over 100 lbs it gave me a huge amount of self-confidence, but interestingly, gaining a chunk back did not make me lose that self-confidence. I feel okay about myself now. I think of myself as a normal-weight person with some weight to shed, rather than as a morbidly obese person trapped in a hateful body that she can never escape.

Wow, what an awesome thread. You ladies are all SO inspiring. Thank you all so much for sharing your passions, fears, and experience.

Since getting together with my boyfriend and getting to know his young daughters (Aubrey and Ryleigh who are 8 & 6 yrs old respectively), it has opened my eyes to loving myself. At 8 years old Aubrey has demonstrated that she is already thinking about her body. Some of this I attribute to her mother, but let's not even go down that road. We were at the baseball game the other day and we were having some popcorn. She picked up some popcorn, looked at it, and then looked up at me and asked, "Are you sure this won't make me fat?"

Oh my gosh, I almost cried. I picked her up and put her on my lap, and I told her what I wish someone would have told me, "No sweetie. One handful of popcorn won't make you fat. But you know what? Even if some day you are overweight, you will still be beautiful. There is nothing in the world that could stop your beauty from shinning through."

How can I sit here and hate myself if I expect/want her and her sister to be able to love themselves no matter what? So you know what? When Josh (my boyfriend) turns up the music in the living room for dancing with his daughters, I go out there and shake my curves with them! The first time I did it their eyes lit up! Haha, I could tell they had never seen someone like me feeling comfortable and having fun.

Do I want to be a healthier weight? Absolutely! Will I ever be petite? Absolutely NOT!

Those little girls not only inspire me to treat others the way I want to be treated, but also to treat myself the way I treat others! With unconditional love and support and FORGIVENESS!

Okay, gotta stop, I'm tearing up at work

You are all BeaYOUtiful!

I live it and I believe it. Honestly I've never believed I didn't deserve good things. I never really hated myself. I was just to afraid of failing. I'm still afraid but I realised it's only failing when you stop trying. I have my "issues" but I know they truely make me more "normal" we are humans issues make us normal. I've never been made to feel any less deserving because of my size.

So true! Taking care of yourself is unselfish.

I grew up associating weight loss with shame and self-hatred - with the idea that weight loss had to be done in a spirit of sel-hatred and shame. I never could sustain those feelings long enough to get or keep the weight off, and I didn't know that weight loss could be done any other way - so when I inevitably started liking myself, even a little bit, I would chuck the diet to pamper myself until I garnered enough shame to find the motivation to punish myself again with dieting.

I've learned - no that's not entirely true - I am learning to see weight management as a way to pamper my glorious self, not as a way to punish the "bad" me. It's a difficult concept to grasp, because there are so many ways our culture imbues the message that overweight people need to be scorned and punished just for existing. Sometimes it seems that murderers get more compassion than fat people (at least if they're good-looking murderers).

This is just one of the sweetest things I've ever read and I applaud you for being so smart and sensitive, and about going out and shaking your booty with the girls. You are so right about all of your observations here. I absolutely wish somebody had told me that when I was eight years old.

I remember my horseback riding instructor, whom I loved very much, was on the obese side, but obviously not so obese that she couldn't ride a horse, and very well at that. Really looking back, she wasn't even HUGE, but back in the seventies overweight and obesity was much less common in general, so she was probably the fattest person I knew personally. Anyway, my mom told me that my dad didn't want me to take riding lessons from her because she was fat and might set a bad example for me. I was so horrified and heartbroken at the same time. I was worried that I might be fat (I wasn't) and I also got the message that being fat was not just horribly shameful but also possibly catching!!! I wish somebody had been around to tell me just what you told those girls, and from now on, if the subject ever comes up, I'll say the exact same thing.

Thank you Ubergirl. Wow, I can imagine how that incident would stick with you. It is shocking to think about really.

I remember when I was a freshmen in high school I lost a lot of weight, and actually got very ill. When I got back to school one of my teacher's said, "wow, you aren't FAT anymore!" That stuck with me for a long time, and I promptly gained back all the weight.

But, that is enough of dwelling on the past. I'm glad that we are here, changing our lives for the better, and at the same time showing others that they are loved and beautiful AS THEY ARE!