Feeling good, safe and happy in your body is an important goal because we all continue to experience the oppression of a body that is always seen as inadequate. You lived or live periods where you don’t feel safe on your body, so maybe you can decide to hide as much as possible the parts you don’t like.
But when you do, you tell yourself that the way to love yourself is to show it through your body. But this is not the kindest thing you can do for yourself. Because it’s true, to live you need your body, but this cannot confuse you on what it means to love yourself. Body safety and happiness can pass for example in wearing a bathing suit in public or posting a nude photo, but your Body Confidence doesn’t necessarily have to “show itself”.
Self-Love: being worthy regardless of the body
You should be free to worry about loving yourself rather than showing that you love yourself. So you could live avoiding the fear of how you show it to block you. Because as long as you are willing to feel defined by the security that comes with how you look, you will never really understand what it means to you to love yourself.
Self-Love doesn’t mean only feeling good in your body. Self-Love means knowing that you are worthy regardless of how your body looks. For this, love yourself is not enough. Because as much as you love, change and acceptance don’t just depend on you. If a child already in third grade thinks negatively about his/her weight and tries to lose weight, the problem is not to love yourself. If the world shows only thin bodies next to the words “healthy” and “good”, it’s not enough to love yourself. If the word “fat” is used as a negative feeling, it’s not enough to love yourself. If the media doesn’t positively represent fat bodies, it’s not enough love yourself.
We all know we are worthy of love, but it’s time for the world to commit to respecting it too – regardless of whether we decide to show it.