Thoughts are contagious, especially when they are spoken constantly. Just like attitudes and energies; you can easily be thrown from one extreme to the next all just depending on the people around you and their moods. My freshman year of college, I was in the middle of Manhattan, surrounded by fashion and people who thought very highly of societal standards. Because of that, I remember always looking at my closet and thinking about how I was completely different in sizing and my taste. At that time, it wasn’t a good thing but now of course, I adore standing out.
The kind of environment that you have around you majorly contributes to your own mind and thoughts. If you constantly hear your roommate talking about how she’s been eating too much, she needs to watch what she eats or go to the gym because she’s “gained a few” even though she’s incredibly thin already, you may be susceptible to catching that kind of bug. Just like most, I’ve had loads of people who were very caught up in weight and looking skinny around me at various times in my life and it’s created a hard habit to break.
Having and keeping good thoughts are daily struggles for a lot of people, maybe even all of us. We are human and our minds are crazy, intricate places that aren’t made of steel. It’s okay to have bad thoughts, it’s natural and quite honestly it’s inevitable. We’re our own biggest critic and our own reflection is what we see the most; therefore, of course we’re going to nit pick ourselves about every damn little thing. I’ve always struggled with my weight. No matter what size clothing I’m in, the little voice in my head still shouts that it’s not good enough. “Keep going, keep going, keep going”; it’s haunting and tiring. It seems never ending.
But the harsh reality is, is it worth it? Allowing in that constant negative voice to tear you down, piece by piece? Allowing it to eat you up and cause you to think about every damn little thing that you go to do? Allowing you to focus on minimal things like the amount of calories you’re consuming a day or feeling guilty because you didn’t work off your lunch? Is it worth it? What does “enough” even mean? Is there anything to actually define it? Maybe by the time that you figure out what “enough” means, you won’t recognize who that person in the mirror is anymore because you’ve completely lost yourself to it. In early December, I wrote an article titled, “You’re More Than a Stomach”, where the question of what “enough” really means came up again.
Truth is, there will never not be a day where I don’t think about a specific part of my body and how I may look in that moment. The self-consciousness comes out in random moments just like the confidence does, too. There may never be a day where before I eat something, I don’t think about the potential “damage” that food may have on me. There may never be a day where I don’t stand in front of my mirror with my shirt lifted, turning side to side to see how I look every morning and night. There may never be a day where I will grab my waist and not feel love handles on my hips.
But then again…there will never be a day where I don’t wake up as myself. There will never be a day where I won’t cherish my body for every amazing aspect of it; flaws and all. There will never be a day where I’m not amazed at how my hips and waist are proportioned. There will never be a day where I don’t wake up happy as hell that I am the person that I am.