You're beautiful. You're smart. You're good at sports. You're a good student. You're caring. You're feisty. You're calm. You're quiet. You're strong.
Notice that none of these things have anything to do with a number. However, our entire lives revolve around them. When we buy things, we see numbers on the back of packages, on signs, and at the register. We even take the food or items that we buy out of the store after we give the cashier a certain number of dollars. As young women, we all think about our GPA and how that number isn't high enough, how the number of dollars that we bring in monthly isn't big enough, and, the worst one, how the number that we see on the scale is way too big.
You always think that you need to be thinner.
I've been there. I have been worried about the numbers on my scale far too many times. I've been worried that if I ate a lot of grain one day, I'd ruin my whole diet. I've worried that if I ate that piece of chocolate, or a cookie, I'd be too heavy for anyone to ever even think about loving me.
Screw that.
I look back on that time in my life and I feel pride and a little bit of regret. I am so proud of myself for losing the weight that I did because I did it in a healthy way. However, I'm not proud about how much I worried about what I was eating and that I never let myself enjoy my favorite food more. I don't believe that I ever had an eating disorder, but I definitely thought about food a lot.
It took me going to college to realize that all that you need to do is take care of yourself, both mentally and physically. This means that you have to give yourself a break. We live in a world that can be so loving, yet so cruel and, because of that, you have to be your own best friend. You have to believe in yourself and believe that you are enough for the world. Actually, you have to believe that you are more than enough. You have to think as positively as possible, eat healthy, indulge at times, and stay active.
Sure, you will have the days where nothing goes according to plan. You don't have the greatest self-esteem and you will just want to give up, but it's just a bad day, not a bad life. So, maybe you aren't as thin as you think that you should be and maybe that will always be a struggle for you, or maybe you struggle with something else about yourself, but that's OK. After all, loving yourself the way that you are is one of the hardest things to do. Just remember: you are beautiful, strong, witty, full of life, and powerful. You are all things that can't be put on a scale and measured in any capacity. You bring sunshine to at least one person in your life. You calm them down and you make them laugh. You make them see that life isn't too bad after all.
It's hard not to think about our flaws, but you are worth way more to this world than you think that you are. Don't forget that.
