P Abigail Sadhana Rao
“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.” – Louise Hay
Your pernicious thoughts
Permeates through my mind
Vitiating everything
Good and cherish able
Every time I turn
I look into the mirror
I see you
The reflection that afflicts me
Enough –
You look pale
gaunt and haggard
still burning to strike
Not anymore
You can’t have my life
You can’t take my life
Your time to rest has come
You will be silenced
For now, I burn with
An insatiable fire
To live
To rise
To fly
I wrote this when I hit my lowest. After having recovered from my anorexia, I began to relapse, when all hell was set loose, I wanted to feel in charge. I began to want to control my weight again and hated the way I looked.
I could not see myself as beautiful. Nevertheless, there was this one voice that kept me from falling. That one voice was louder than the rest of the chaos and the voices that told me I am not beautiful. It was this one person who looked at me differently, this helped me love myself again.
Seeing yourself through the eyes of those who love you will help change the way you see yourself. Stephen Covey once said, “THE WAY WE SEE THE PROBLEM IS THE PROBLEM” The way I saw myself was the problem, in fact, there was no problem at all.
It was hard to accept the way I look, not that I don’t struggle now. I still sometimes feel like I am “fat” or “way too chubby.” I recently listened to this song “I’m not pretty” by JESSIA, ACCEPT AND LOVE ONESELF – the message was so loud that it beat up all the demons in my head. It made me cry and laugh at my thoughts.
“I know that I should love myself
But it’s getting kinda hard
When you’re constantly feeling like garbage
Know I shouldn’t hurt myself
But I can’t find way to lose weight
Without literally starvin’….
…Maybe I’m not pretty
Maybe I’m just fun
Cause I got a belly
And I got a bum
But I can’t be jelly of all the other ones
So I’m fallin’ in love with my
Rum bum bum bum”
Every day feels like a battle that needs to be waged against my head, to learn to accept myself, no matter what. IT IS IMPERATIVE TO LEARN TO ACCEPT AND LOVE THEIR BODIES because how we look is not who we are and we deserve to respect our bodies. PRACTICE TO REMIND YOURSELF THAT YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL INSIDE-OUT.
It is perfectly normal to grow and change. Who set the norms for beauty? Like would you believe a drunk on the street who yells at you and calls you, “Fat-ass” or “Moti,”… Obviously not!!
The power is vested in you to believe what you want to believe. How you choose to perceive the way your body looks is your choice. When I was anorexic, I was so damn skinny, and yet I saw the fat-chubby kid I once was, how tainted are our lenses through which we see ourselves and the world? MAKE SURE YOU DO A REALITY CHECK BEFORE YOU BELIEVE WHAT YOUR IRRATIONAL MIND SAYS TO YOU.
Really be careful what you feed your mind, “What you think is who you are” I wrote this a long.. long.. looooong time ago, before I overcame my anorexia. It was when I was on the verge of dying only because my perception of my body was flawed. It took me a death bed and mind you, I did not have a death wish but it so happened that it was then, I learned to love myself.
I really learned to appreciate being healthy and eating whatever I wanted to. No one warned me about eating disorders and I was so ignorant that I concerned myself with wanting to look “Skinny.” In the end, what began to matter was my happiness and living a healthy life. My pessimistic side still has a grip over my mind, beliefs, and thought processes but I choose not to let them get the best of me.
I really wanted to live and slowly, as I understood, it began to not matter as to how I looked but rather what began to matter is what kind of person I am on the inside.
I shifted paradigms with time. My perspective on loving my body changed over time and not over-night. From living in constant shame and doubt, I began to unlearn the way I saw myself and re-learned to see things differently. REDEFINE WHAT BEAUTIFUL MEANS TO YOU.
My journey continues. It’s still there somewhere at the back of my head, but as of today, I AM HAPPILY HEALTHY, EATING ALL THAT I WANT. When I stopped looking at my weight and size and stopped comparing. I began to enjoy, live and appreciate life to the fullest.
Sometimes if you are unable to see yourself as BEAUTIFUL, borrow lenses of the ones who love you. I am sure, they accept and love you for who you are and the way you look. I have this one amazing person who sees me as Bruno Mars sings about,
“When I see your face
There’s not a thing that I would change
‘Cause you’re amazing
Just the way you are”
SURROUND YOURSELF WITH LOVE AND THE RIGHT PEOPLE, you will begin to love yourself again. Even if you have one person or yourself, it is enough to heal yourself and love yourself. You are your greatest asset. Learn to see yourself for who you are and not the way you look. Keep fighting the good fight.
I would like to conclude with Louise Hay’s positive affirmations that changed my outlook, “Love is never outside ourselves; love is within us. Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the main keys to positive changes in every area of our lives.If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed.”
