Loveliness.. To loath or just smile and go Okay!

Okay. Time to get real here. Reading some more articles tonight and the statistics that they stated kind of just bothered me. It was refereeing to body images in teen girls and so on. How something like 78% by the age of 17 try to alter their image or dislike their bodies. WHAT IN THE WORLD!!!! Now is that statistic accurate I have no clue. If it is man, that is just awful. 17 years old. All they should worry about is school and college, and yes I guess even boys. Looking back at me at age 17 I have to honestly say I didn’t like my body as much as I should of. I was a size 2. 2! I might be able to get my arm into a size 2 pair of pants now but that is about it. GOOD grief what was I thinking. I had no physical issues other than the cursed acne which I still have at 30. Thanks Mom love the genetics on that one! I had a tiny waist a cute little rear end and figure. I didn’t have to work hard at it and could eat whatever and it didn’t matter. Now was I the most popular of girls. HA Nope. Did guys line up at my door to date me, NOPE on that as well. But in the grand scheme of things I can’t for the life of me figure out why at 17 I didn’t like my body image. Fast forward. 30! Gasp! This is where I will get real and well completely embarrass myself but hey what the heck. 2014 is a new year and a year of change so here we go. I love the saying beauty is on the inside not the outside but loving the saying and believing in it is not the same thing. Would I like to be blessed to be a slender and honestly natural beauty at 30 of course I would. But wait a minute maybe my idea of that very statement is what is wrong with me. So let’s break this down. Do I still have the acne, well of course I do thanks to lovely genetics. Hair lots of so that is a blessing itself even though I tend to leave strands of it anywhere I go. Eyes I’ve always liked my eyes I thought they were different even though they are blue and blue is not an uncommon color at all. So here we go the big one my body! GASP! Yes I am going there. I will say at 30 I have a whole lot more loveliness than I did at 17. My size 2 former teen self has morphed into this Mommy body that shows it. I have lost weight and inches and so on over the past couple of years and kept them off so Yay for me on that but I haven’t lost the self-loathing. I can honestly say when I wake up and look in the mirror at my God given loveliness right now I don’t like it. I have not liked my body image well since my first baby was born. My beautiful and unquie baby girl. All whooping 9 almost 10 pounds of her. Does my body show the price I paid to carry her and keep her safe for those 8ish months? Absolutely it does. Well over 65 plus pound gained with her. As I stand there in the mirror I need to be better at reminding myself to look at the stretch marks that were left behind and remember that those were given to me by grace and are beautiful because of what reward I got from them. Do I do that, NOPE. I see them as ugly and annoying and unattractive. When my daughter sees my stomach and goes oh that is from me and smiles and walks off, why can’t I do that? She doesn’t see it as ugly or horrible. She sees it as a reminder of her and smiles. If I truly want to be a beauty on the outside I need to start on the inside. I don’t mean I’m going to start doing strenuous exercises and all of that. Ha!  I mean I need to remind myself every day I look in the mirror to remember about my baby girl and go “Okay” shrug my shoulders and walk off with a smile. Do I wear a size 2, HA not even an 8. I still am in a size 12/14. Granted the size 14 I love when I first put on because they are relaxed fit but by lunch I have to hold them up because they keep falling down. So yeah maybe I need to buy a smaller size but the mind just won’t let me. If I buy a 12 possibly even an 11 I’d be excited when I leave the store. BUT once I got home and put them on and they would be tight and I would see that lovely pooch over the top and I’d stop loving them as much. So I need to focus more on the mind instead of the numbers. Now granted I do have some pants that are not jeans that say M 8/10 and BOY DO I LOVE THOSE Pants!!!!  If I could get away with it I would wear them every day if I could. So…. Change my mind change my heart and change my body. If I want true beauty and I don’t mean the world’s version of true beauty then I need to make it start from my heart and love myself first. My husband and my kids all love me even with all the extra loveliness so why can’t I? ??????? So my new hope for this year is just to remember to smile and be okay with me.