fueled by diet coke

For some reason, I was born without a thing called a “filter.” What that means for me is that if a thought comes to my mind, there isn’t anything between it and my mouth. A filter is manned by something called “restraint,” and nothing about that word sounds good to me. (I equate the word “restraint” with the words “Oreos are a sometimes food” and I just don’t believe that.) As a communicator, I don’t mind this all that much. I don’t like to be left alone with my own thoughts. Merely thinking is too solitary. Too lonely. I don’t like to be alone. I want to be around people all the time. Speaking is one half of communicating, and communicating is inclusive.

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you’re probably aware that my anti-filter is especially evident. Even if I’m pissed off. Or sad. Or frustrated. If I’m thinking it, you’re reading it.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that on my blog, I can create a filter. The backspace key allows for that. You are absolutely right. But here’s my question to you: why?

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Heads up: this is one of those blog posts that is more for me than it is for you. If it helps you, great. But honestly, I just need to blog because, like I’ve said a thousand times, I blog because I can’t afford therapy.

Three weeks ago I tore my ACL at my dance class. I landed wrong after a jump and, well, my knee decided to rip in half or something. I’m going to see an orthopedist on Thursday and I’ll most likely have to undergo surgery at some point in the coming weeks. Ha. Wow. I just typed that, flippantly, as if it’s something that people just do. Just like that.

“Oh hey, what’d you do today?” — “Nothing really, just had some knee surgery and then swung by Starbucks, whatevs.”

At any rate, the past three weeks have been challenging for several legitimate reasons (I can’t move my knee certain ways, I have to wear a brace every waking hour, I have to let people wait on me, etc.) But, they’ve also been challenging for a big, stupid, dumb, not-legitimate-at-all reason: I can’t exercise and it’s giving me anxiety.

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“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
John Keating, Dead Poets Society

Fewer statements have been made that are truer than this for me. Words and ideas have constructed and reconstructed the paradigms on which I base my entire life. Words like “diet” and “thin” and ideas like “eating disorders” and “perfection” and “never good enough” were so powerful to me that they quite literally  changed my world. Over the span of the 10 years I had a destructive relationship with food, I wasn’t the only one affected. My friends’ and family’s lives had changed, too. We were all in this crappy world together, drowning in self-loathing and despair. Relationships were broken. Tears were shed. Fights were had. All because I was convinced that with this body in this world, I would never be good enough to be loved.

But the good news is that wasn’t the end of the story. As backwards and scary as these ideas made the world for me, I made a conscious decision that I didn’t want it to stay that way. I was determined to create a whole new existence for myself — one that was governed by love instead of hate and joy instead of sorrow and hope instead of failure. Without much direction or know-how, I turned to the only tool I could fathom utilizing in a battle against self-hate — the weapon that changed my world in the first place: words.

At first, knowing full well that the only ideas in my head were dangerous and unhealthy, I sought out other people’s words — the bible, books on inner beauty, self-love blogs. Then, I took those words and actually wrote them down in my journal with my own hand as if they were pouring out of my own consciousness. I won’t lie to you — at first, it felt really awkward. It felt wrong. It felt stupid, pointless, and borderline pathetic. But I persisted, knowing that the alternative wasn’t an option anymore.

After several (I’m talking several, people) months of this, I started following a different pattern. Instead of reading these encouraging words about my body and feeling uncomfortable and doubtful, I started to believe them. I even found myself thinking them while I was looking in the mirror without even trying. Instead of looking at my body as “fat” and “unlovable” and “disgusting,” I found myself referring to it as “lovely” and “curvy” and “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

So. All that to say…

TODAY’S SELF-LOVE TIP: SEEK OUT, SAY, THINK, AND WRITE DOWN ENCOURAGING WORDS.

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Last Wednesday, I twisted my knee something fierce at my contemporary dance class. At the time, it seemed like nothing, but when I woke up in the night screaming in a fit of pain because I’d moved my leg, I realized it was more serious than I’d originally thought. The next morning my sweet husband drove me to a walk-in clinic and we got some x-rays done on my knee. No broken bones (yay!) which means it’s either a torn or sprained ligament (boo!).

I have to go in on Friday to have my knee re-evaluated, and if it hasn’t gotten any better, I’ll get an MRI to see what’s wrong and if (God forbid) I need surgery. But here’s the deal: I’m rocking that stylish knee immobilizer and some sexy crutches for an indefinite amount of time.

This makes me sad because that means that for GOD KNOWS how long, I can’t practice this week’s self-love tip. So, for all you able-bodied folks who can, here’s today’s tip!

TODAY’S SELF-LOVE TIP: MOVE!

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I can’t tell you how many emails/Facebook messages I’ve received from people saying things like, “I just don’t know how to be happy with my weight” or “I don’t know how to look in the mirror and not hate my reflection,” etc. They think that because they’ll never lose “enough” weight or have clear “enough” skin or rock toned “enough” thighs that they can’t possibly ever be in love with themselves and their bodies. That’s so sad to me, but it’s a fact. In our airbrushed, photoshopped, perfection-obsessed, objectifying world, most of us are in that boat; we literally do not know how to accept ourselves, let alone love ourselves.

So, the most frequent question I get is, “How can I love myself?”

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