Being Yourself: Your Body

Being Yourself: Your Body and You

 

            Have you ever looked into the mirror and thought, wow, not my best day? Or perhaps you have seen pictures of yourself and genuinely not been happy with how you look? Perhaps you have seen all the things that you think are horrible about yourself, and gotten so down on yourself that your self-esteem turned to practically nothing? Believe me I’ve been there. Not nearly as bad as some teenagers who have it pretty rough, but nonetheless, I’ve definitely looked down on myself in some sort of way.

            In all my years of being fairly chubby in elementary and middle school, I’ve never really known what it’s like to feel good about my skin and the way I look. I guess I’ve just never really cared at all. I had hair that went down to almost my shoulders, I was chubby, had really rosy cheeks, been good at sports, but never fit, and most of all, I had horrible buck teeth and a gap in between to fit. I was not the best thing to look at during the day. The only reason people probably stood to be around me was because of my personality. I’ve been told a lot that many people like the way I am, not so much the way I look. Let’s face it I just was never on a girl’s attractive radar gun they always carried around in their backpacks. All the way up until freshman year of high school I never cared, but then high school changed me. I began to compare myself to others, look to harshly at my figure, want to do something about it but never drove myself to, I cared and cared and cared. I cared what people thought of me, I thought I had to be everyone’s friend and I had to accommodate myself to what they like just so I could fit in. I never thought about what I really wanted. Practically all throughout freshman year I thought I was doing a decent job of being everyone’s friend and I had also lost the skater boy long haircut by then too. By the end of the year however I got the biggest wakeup call in my life. I heard that someone hated me, and that they found me REALLY annoying. That hurt me, this had been a person that I wanted to be super good friends with and tried really hard too. What’s worse is that I actually thought they liked me.

            Beginning of sophomore year I decided mentally that I wasn’t going to care what anyone thought of me anymore. I still cared about how I looked but mostly because I wanted to get in shape. This motive made me join a class that changed my life, and it was one you wouldn’t really expect. I joined a Performance P.E. class. It taught me ways to get healthy through eating, simple workouts and repetition that helped me get into the best shape of my life. I felt good. I even thought I looked good. I had confidence in myself that will last me a long time. My life changed tremendously because of how I thought about myself, rather than about what others thought of me. I even had a friend tell me they liked me better because I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I was just staying true to myself. So my message to y’all is, don’t listen to others if you don’t agree. Just stick to what you think is best for you and stand by it. I believe in you guys. As always, love all of you. Peace! J