"Pursuing a life of meaning and purpose ignites our internal fire and makes us the most attractive version of ourselves."
- Rebecca Shern
I was reading this article by Rebecca Shern the other day, and it could not have come at a better time. (http://minimalwellness.com/lookinggood/)
After a rather insignificant day at work, I felt extremely down when I got home. My fiancé asked me what was wrong, even though he had a bad day himself. I told him that I hadn’t had a particularly bad day, but I just felt sad.
The reason? My body.
At work in my downtime, I read articles about health & wellness, and I love learning about people’s fitness journeys and how they lost the weight. About a year ago, I successfully lost 20 lbs. and have kind of gone up and down on the scale for my whole life.
However, these days, I have just seemed to be going up on the scale. I have grown obsessive and started weighing myself every night, and my mood was often determined by that number on the scale. Cliché right? I went up 1-2 lbs. from the day before and I was self-conscious. This determined my mood about my body for the next day as well.
Why do we let ourselves be defined by numbers? Weight, age, whatever it may be. But this article actually had a positive message, instead of the constant bombardment to better your body. I knew I should be grateful that my body took me through life, and more recently, that it can jump rope for almost 5 minutes straight (which is no easy feat, by the way!) I was always putting myself down, and wasn’t appreciative of all my body could and has done for me.
However, if I look below the surface, I have accomplished so much in my life (or more than I ever thought) and it’s still not over! Pursuing a life of meaning and using our body as a way to get there is so much better than just focusing on the way our bodies look. No one is perfect, and in my journey towards my “best” body, I lost myself along the way.
So I have resolved to not look at the scale and have not done so for a week, and it is so freeing! I will not let my self-worth be defined by a number on the scale. I will continue eating healthily, but also eating what I want too (in moderation). I will continue living life in a way that makes me happy.
We are the only ones in control of our lives, so it is comforting to know that we can change how we think about our own selves. And we are so much more than just our body weight!
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