For Today: April 6th

For Today: April 6^th

Our entire life, with our fine moral code and our precious freedom, consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.

Jean Anouilh

What is self-acceptance? Does it mean accepting my good qualities and rejecting others? No. 

Self-acceptance means taking myself just as I am and liking all of me, with no conditions. I may not like being fat, but that has nothing to do with liking the person that is me. I am not my fat. Nor am I my shyness, or my physical awkwardness, or my straight hair. There is far more to me than any of these characteristics. Even if I were to list every one of my known attributes, it would still not reveal all there is to know about me.

For Today: It is not a sign of pride, but humility to know that I am unique and beautiful.

The funny thing about obesity is that, after awhile, a person BECOMES their fat…..their whole identity is taken up with what’s on their outsides instead of their insides.

We are a society that judges one another based on our appearance….it’s that first impression that leaves an indelible mark on the brain. How can others reach inside of us to see that we ARE more than our fat? More than our physical awkwardness or our large sized clothing?

If I were to see a toothless & homeless man walking toward me, I’d probably cringe back….make assumptions that he may rob me or harm me. That’s human nature, isn’t it?

Yet, we are told to love ourselves as we are; to accept our good qualities as well as our bad qualities, with no conditions.  Meanwhile, we’ve been told all of our lives that we are NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Whether we were poked fun at verbally, or just felt the negative vibes coming from others….we were told we were NOT acceptable for a very long time. We grew to believe that lie & turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I overate to stuff down my feelings of inadequacy, my feelings of unworthiness.  The more I ate, the MORE unworthy & inadequate I felt.

And so the disease of compulsive overeating took over my life.  A disease of progression that got worse & worse, every time I tried a new diet or another technique to temporarily lose weight, only to regain it, lose my self esteem yet AGAIN, and perpetuate the vicious cycle for 40 years.

Only through OA was I able to BELIEVE I am worthy, adequate, acceptable just as I am, with no conditions. It took a lot of hard work to dispel the myth that permeated my very being for such a long, long time.

For today,  I pray to realize my value comes from my heart & my soul, and NOT from my physical appearance.