Learning to Love Me

December 31, 2023

I have gone through a pretty dramatic internal transformation over the past eight years. One I have relentlessly pursued.

I have unraveled old beliefs, fought against cultural conditioning, rediscovered who I am at the core and have started aligning my life accordingly.

And this past year, I committed to focusing on sorting through some body image junk I’ve been carrying.

Without consciously realizing it, I bought into the cultural messaging that a woman’s body has to be a certain way, look a certain way.

And I have held the notion that I had to strive to be a lesser weight.

I knew I could go to boot camp and be disciplined and lose weight. I have done that before and I know I could do it again.

I knew I could work with a doctor to take some drops and follow a perscribed plan and lose weight. I have done that before and I know I could do it again.

But the weight always came back.

I became convinced (and still am) it is related to my traumas. That my body remembers and holds on and tries to protect me.

I thought that once I had faced all my trauma, unpacked it, processed it, healed it, the weight would fall off.

But I’ve done a lot of unpacking and processing and healing. And here we are. It is easy for me to tell myself that I just haven’t unpacked enough, healed enough.

But at some point I realized the weight I am carrying does not have to do with being bad or being unhealed.

My body can be the way it is without me focusing on changing it. Instead, I can actively work to love it and care for it and live in it.

So this year, I have focused on loving my body just the way it is.

I shared a little about that in posts this February where I also wore a bathing suit that was more than one piece for the first time in my life.

And I took another big step this year. See, I have been quietly following boudoir photography for 15 years, taken with the beauty in the photographs. But I never thought it was something I would be able to do. Because I thought it was wrong based on the culture I grew up in. Because I didn’t think someone my size could or should do this.

But as I have been working to love my body, I entertained what could be possible as I try to stop putting limits on my self. I thought again about boudoir and acknowledged that they are just pictures with no moral assignment. And that allowing myself this opportunity would take me waaaay out of my comfort zone but help me in my process of loving my body.

And so, this year, I did the dang thing! I embraced who I am right now and the incredibly talented Rachel Sumner Durik captured it. She is a truly amazing artist and I am grateful to her and her fabulous team.

This experience and these images were not done for anyone else besides me. I am proud of them and proud of myself. The experience was incredibly empowering.

Here’s to finding ways to continue to love ourselves just as we are in the year to come and always.