For as long as I can remember, I've struggled with negative body image.

I think it started when a boy I liked in elementary school commented on my weight.

It made me feel as though my body wasn't right, as though I wasn't good enough in comparison to other girls. In elementary school, I conditioned my mind to think I needed to change my body in order to be accepted. That is a problem.

Then, when I had boyfriends in high school, I carried my insecurity with me, and they didn't make me feel any better about it. Comments about my gym habits, what I chose to treat my body with and criticism regarding my clothing choices from people I genuinely loved only made my self-love diminish. Believe me, no one preaches self-love and appreciation like I do—but I struggled (and still struggle to this very day) to wholeheartedly believe it in myself.

Coming to college has made it all the more obvious that I don't truly love and value myself the way I deserve to. I see girls around campus, even my greatest of friends here, and I compare the way I look to them when in reality, each of them has their own respective parts of themselves that they wish they could change.

I tell myself that if I just went to the gym, cut out all carbs and fats and sweets and junk food, and drank nothing but water all day every day, I could maybe achieve the body that I want. But the truth of the matter is that no matter how thin I am if I continue to look at others with envious eyes, I won't ever find contentment with who I am.

The problem is not the way that I look. The problem is the way I've allowed myself to feel about the way I look.

I know that the journey to self-love and self-appreciation is an uphill battle, but I can't think of one more worthy of the effort. Besides, my body is the only body I'll ever have. My body allows me to walk to and from campus, to practice yoga when I want to. It allows me to run and swim and dance, however horribly I may. My body is there for me each and every day, no matter how negatively I feel about it. There is nothing more reliable that I have in my life than my own body, the same one I mistreat every day by thinking it isn't good enough.

I am lucky to be able to do anything I want, whenever I want. I could hike or run a marathon if I wanted to.

I was having a discussion with one of my dear friends the other day about my habit of comparing myself, and she said she was taught a phrase when she was 11 that has stuck with her since: I am a divine expression of life. I love and accept myself where I am right now.

From now on, I am going to start showing myself a little more love. I am going to repeat that daily mantra to myself habitually. I am going to change the way I think about myself and realize that the people who reiterate the negative thoughts I have about myself aren't people who truly love and appreciate me anyway.

No, I don't look like everyone else. But they also don't look like me, and that can be said for each and every person. Everyone is unique and special in their own way. My body is special to me because it's mine and there is no other one identical. Size doesn't matter. I'm healthy, I'm able. I'm going to be happy about it from now on.