heart

for the first time in my life, i am deciding to use my heart for myself.

i have always taken pride in being loving, and seeing the world and everyone in it with my heart and not my eyes. however i have never applied that same thinking to the way i see myself. i have always viewed myself through my eyes, with big tinted, jaded glasses on.

the fact is- if i keep looking at myself without my heart, i will never be satisfied with myself. i will always see this image i have decided is what i am.

i lost a significant amount of weight 4 1/2 years ago- and yet when i look in the mirror or at photos of myself i still see that same girl before the weight loss. That is how i came to realize i had an eating disorder.

i have never been able to see what everyone else sees when they look at me, and i think i probably never will. But i am ok with that. i just want to see myself with my heart now. and even if i don't see what i think i should or what everyone else does, i want to be ok with that.

i want to love myself.

i have always thought that loving yourself meant you were conceded. But now i know that it means you are confident. i want to love the things about myself that i have always hated.  it is gonna be hard, i know that. it is going to be harder than i can even imagine at this point, but at the end i will be ok, and will be happy with myself.

the first thing i want to work on loving about myself is the thing i hate the most.
my stomach.
i can't remember ever being ok with my stomach. i have always had an issue with it. when i was overweight it was that it was too big, when i was at my lowest weight, it was the stretch marks and loose skin from the weight loss. there has never been a time when i was totally ok with it.

Now i know this is not a goal i can achieve overnight. In fact i wouldn't be surprised if it took me a year or more to get to a place of acceptance of my stomach. But i vow today- that everytime i think something negative about my stomach - i will pay attention, and replace that thought with something positive.