I didn’t realise we weren’t friends, my body and I, until I properly started loving it. A few years ago, as a new mum, I felt huge gratitude for my body for growing this baby, but I still felt a bit disconnected from it, like I should probably go into battle and try to mould it into a different shape. I’d look in the mirror and suck in my stomach, or pinch my thighs when I’d squeeze them into jeans that were too tight. Not many weeks went by without weighing myself, and thoughts of food – what I “should” and “shouldn’t” be eating – were often at the front of my mind.
I’m not saying I don’t still occasionally have difficult days where I don’t feel amazing in the skin I’m in, but these moments are fleeting now. They pass in a minute or two and don’t sit with me for hours on end informing all my choices that day – what I wear, what I eat, what activity I do. It’s liberating.
Equally, when I don’t feel amazing, I don’t blame myself. In fact, I think it’s a miracle anyone can feel good when you consider the toxic messages constantly put on us all, all the time. Be thinner, be younger, be fitter, be more toned. That health only looks one way and that anyone who doesn’t look that way, or who isn’t “healthy” is somehow worth less in the world.
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