Every once in a while I get to a place where I look at my body and am filled with insecurities. Actually I don't know if that is the correct word. Dissatisfaction? Yah, more that. I work out, I have lost weight and I am proud of that. I love that I am a size 2/4! But it is so hard to feel comfortable in my skin sometimes. I took this picture this morning because I was checking out my abs. At first I thought "yay, they're looking strong" but then I started pulling at my skin on my lower abs. :sigh: I started looking at my belly button, ick. It has stretched and it has a "hood" on it now. Even though I work out my lower abs, I still feel somewhat soft, my skin feels loose and wrinkled. I start wondering "what oils can I use to fix my skin? To tighten it up. To heal my stretch marks?"
I went back to my pregnancy album and I started looking at all of my pictures when I was pregnant with each of my kids. My stomach was definitely stretched to it's limit. But then I kept saying to myself "wow, it's amazing." How amazing is our body and what it is capable of doing? I carried 4 beautiful chunky babies in my womb!!! I was small in structure and I was still able to carry all of my kids to term with zero complications. I began to cry because how guilty I felt for being so vain. That's why I am here, typing up this post. I know I am not the only woman/mom that struggles with body image. I know I am not the only one that looks in the mirror and critics their own body. I pinch, I pull. I stretch out my skin to see what it would look like if it was flat and smooth. Instead, I should be thankful. I workout and lost weight, I do what I can to get my body where I want it. My body works hard and it has done well. I am healthy with 4 amazing and beautiful kids. God created my body, He put me together. Instead of focusing on my flaws, I should focus and how amazing it truly is. It has not failed me.
I know there will be times when I will be in this spot again. Feel the same way. Hopefully this post will help me and remind what is truly important. My family, my husband, my life. Things could always be so much worse. This is such a minor thing. My body is AMAZING!!! Be thankful.
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| 18months after my 4th kid |
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| 39 weeks |
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| The day I had Ben |
1 comment:
I find that it helped me to look at my body through someone else's eyes- or after verbalizing how far I had come. Going from 220 down to 150 was a huge accomplishment for me, but like you, I started to feel like "this isn't good enough". Because, I had loose skin, stretch marks, cellulite, ect. But, through my husbands eyes, or my children's eyes, I had done this amazingly healthy thing. I had made a goal, reached it, and gotten so healthy!! The stretch marks and loose skin were because of all those people/lives that God placed in my body! I may not have gotten as tiny as I wanted, I may have had major flaws (in my own eyes), but the people that mattered saw the reality. That I was beautiful and perfect. :)
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