A.L.I.E.N. LIVING: “Removing the ‘Fat Girl’ Label”
Welcome Welcome A.L.I.E.N.s! Here again, I am exposing my mess to you. Gosh…Anyway… HERE WE GO!!
Most of my life I have lived on a diet. I fasted, I have left bread on the table, I have starved. Some seasons I’m up some seasons I’m down… in weight I mean. When I hit 40, losing weight got harder, more challenging. As a woman our hormones are constantly trying to balance themselves and when a woman becomes a certain age, the way we function is different, but not all of us have the knowledge to know how to maneuver. Anyway… during this time of social distancing and isolation there are a number of the things I am learning are about myself. I have been on keto, low carb, intermittent fasting and more to try and come out of this 20 or more pounds lighter. I have spent hundreds of dollars on vitamins and more trying to make sure I live the healthiest life possible, however none of this has equated into weight loss. I tried meditating the weight away, chile discussing it with my therapist and the fat just seems to love me.
This past week I kept looking in the mirror, going “girl, wtf!!!” and all I kept hearing was “love me anyway”. So, as I look in mirror, “I am thinking hell no, I can’t love you looking like this!”, as I rub my belly. I turn to the side looking at my butt, shaking my head like, “where is the progress? Why aren’t I seeing progress?” Then this past Saturday, a girlfriend called asking me to jump on a Zoom call with other women for a virtual brunch. At first I was like “hell no” because I was being lazy, but then my spirit said “get up and go. Join in”. As I am listening during the brunch I begin to just close my eyes and meditate on what is being said and I hear a voice say “who told you that being this size is wrong?”. I thought about the question and memories began flooding back to me from my childhood. I remembered that my family always called me beautiful and pretty. I always felt emotionally safe with them, but it was kids from school. Growing up playing outside, going to school was the first place I heard the words “fat”. Watching television seeing that all the tall, skinny girls got the man. Seeing that anyone over the size of 10…shit size 8 was made fun of and never happy. Those things planted seeds in me. Being a kid of course I wasn’t taught that I had a choice to believe those things I had heard or saw, but all I knew is that the world around me told me being fat or as we say now “plus sized” was not attractive or cute. Shit, I was amazed every day that my ex would even see me as sexy. If only that man knew the mental warfare going through my mind on a daily basis that we were together. Even now, I get emotional thinking about being intimate with someone, giving them your body and still hating your body at the same time. Damn…*sigh*… To be honest every time that man touched me I was amazed or told me I was beautiful I was blown away, because the struggle of believing it for myself was real. And I don’t think he knew how much I relied on him saying that… and I don’t think I knew how much either. I know now that because I didn’t see myself as beautiful, I relied on others to confirm it for me. Boy oh Boy… this is deep. Jesus Help Me!!
So, I go into this because I realized that I believed the labels put on me. I believed the television and the cruel kids, who really were just being a reflection of what they had been taught. I remember the first boy I liked in elementary school. I went up to him and told him I liked him and wanted him to be my boyfriend. He never said a word, but told all his friends who ended up making fun of me and taunting me walking home from school one day. Can you imagine the scars? Damn it… That planted a seed for me that I would have to be skinny in order to win a man’s affection; that any boy or man that I liked was unobtainable. A few weeks later I stole slim fast from my sister’s house (because I was 10, I couldn’t afford to go to the store). I had begun the war with my body that day. A war that would continue into my 40s. I realize that I had agreed with those lies that I was fat and ugly. So for the past 30 plus years… damn that’s a long time I have hated my body. Even, when I lost weight and was at a healthy size, I was never satisfied. Nothing was good enough. I still felt like “lose 10 or 20 more”.
Now, if we look at this from a spiritual aspect if that’s the kind of energy I have been putting out, we can be assured that is the energy I am receiving back. I realize that I have not been the most patient with or kind to myself. I have been fed up with my body, impatient with my body, so it’s been giving me hell in return. I have been on a journey of self-love for some years now and I am learning that there are layers and levels to this love. It’s not instantaneous, I can only describe it as first I have learned to accept myself flaws and all, internally. Now I am learning to love my physical self. I see myself as a beautiful woman, but my body has always been an issue. The hard part of being made “whole” is facing the parts of yourself that you try to avoid and to be honest I have tried to avoid this subject, but for the past 3 or more years I have been obsessing over reaching this ideal body. I must live in a place of gratitude for what I have and where I am with my body. This is a reflection of life. The journey to getting there is where I am right now.
So, today with you all and God as my witness I am removing the “fat girl label” that was put on me years ago. A label I received and accepted, not educated in the fact that I have the power to refuse any labels being placed on me that should not be.
I do realize that this is a process and will take time. This is where I learn to be patient with myself. This is where I look in the mirror and learn to accept my body the way it is; to accept the woman looking back at me. To work on pulling out all those seeds that were planted and replanting new seeds of love and hope.
The photo above is one of many taken by my stylist/friend, Ashia Lewis of Mode Noir, Inc. I took these photos last year during my self-love process. I didn’t want to publish them at the time, because unbeknownst to me, I still had a layer to remove when it came to the area of body image. At the time this photo was taken, I thought I had conquered it, but now I know that was just the beginning. I still had not come the grips with where I am now. I am realizing more and more the phrase “beauty comes from within” because it really does. I write this blog not only for you, but for me. This what I’ve been mandated to do.
Whew… this one was a hard one to offer up!! This is definitely an offering, so I hope that we can all look back and ask where did this habit start from? Was a seed planted in me for my good or for my destruction?
So, if you like me are working on loving yourself as a whole despite you may not be where you want to be, let us pray together:
Lord, Thank you. Thank you for life. Thank you for strength. Thank you for the body you have created me to walk in. I have not been good to myself Father, forgive me. You give me the grace to live daily and each day I reject myself because of an illusion of perfection. But I choose today to open myself to You, so that I can be the best You have created me to be. I choose to love me today. I reject all seeds that were planted for my destruction and I accept Your seeds of love, hope and faith. Continue to give me the strength to accept and love myself the way you created me and not to give into how the world or others around believe I should be. Amen.
