Your body is the story of your life, in tactile form.

I'm 5'3½" and my heaviest weight was 381 pounds back in November of 2014.

The other day, I weighed in at 194 pounds.

It's the first time I've seen the 100s since the beginning of 2003, when I was pregnant with my daughter.

After all these years, I'm in ONEderland!!!

--- and I absolutely HATE it.

Boy, I didn't see THIS coming.

Let me explain...

I had no self-worth for most of my life.

I've also been on a weight loss journey for most of my life.

All that changed only a few years ago, when I gained true self-love.

It's so difficult to even jokingly hate on myself now, because it goes so hard against the grain of my phyche.

Watching other people self-deprecate has a similar effect on me, and I just want to cry and scream at the same time.

I want to cry because I understand where it comes from, and I wouldn't wish that feeling of no self-worth on anyone.

I simultaneously want to scream at the catalyst that made them believe it in the first place.

Sometimes I'll say something, but most of the time it's not appropriate for me to do so, and I just keep my mouth shut.

...But I shouldn't, should I?

Keep my mouth shut, I mean.

Because I wish there was someone there, verbally beating my self-worth into my brain from every angle until I finally genuinely believed it.

Instead of waiting for a massive personal life-altering event to happen in my mid-30s that had me re-evaluate how I genuinely saw myself. Not to mention, also having received decades of therapy & mental health classes leading up to it.

...That's a topic for another day, I suppose.

So my genuine self-love began for the first time ever in 2020. My self-worth came a few years before that.

By the way, self-worth and self-love are two very different things. And knowing & practicing their distinction is vital.

Having self-worth is knowing and genuinely believing that you're not worthless; that you matter.

It's spoken of so often that the message is almost within the bounds of superficial chit chat at this point. "You Matter." But you really do.

Having self-love is almost taboo.

To genuinely love yourself?

That scares a lot of people.

Because if you truly love yourself, you act accordingly.

That means that you not only stop allowing toxicity in & around you in all forms

--- be that toxic relationships with family or friends, or toxic foods, or a plethora of other possible toxic things in your life ---

It also means that you LOVE yourself.

Love is a verb in that last sentence.

You see yourself naked in the mirror with all the lights on, seeing every square inch of yourself, and you call yourself sexy out loud, because you believe it with every fiber of your being.

You proudly touch every square inch of your skin and it makes you smile because it's yours.

Every scar is a beautiful story of something that tried to kill you, and failed;

because you are a powerful warrior.

Every wrinkle, every stretch mark, every spot of acne, every hair or lack there of, everything you used to consider a flaw...

is now genuinely beautiful to you.

Because it's part of you.

You understand where these things come from, and you're grateful for the stories that they tell.

I used to say that your body is just your shell.

Yes, your body is your shell.

But it's also your work of art.

It's the story of your life, in tactile form.

And while it's a part of you, your body also deserves all of your genuine love & care.

And you look at it with a love that you reserve for no one else's body, except for maybe your significant other's.

But even the love you have for their body doesn't surpass that love you have for your own; it sure can equal it, though.

Now look at your heart.

Look at your mind.

Loving & caring for your body, your heart, and your mind with the same FIERCE PASSION that you would love & care for your significant other. Or your children, if you have them.

Actively and consistently building yourself up, because you believe that you are deserving of the greatest love & care that possibly exists.

Now, I'm not saying that this love doesn't have bad days. I'm not saying that there will never be moments of doubt...

But those moments & bad days are circumstantial, and they're not genuine, they're fleeting.

At the end of the day, when you truly love every part of your being?

Nothing and no one can take that from you.

And THAT is my wish for EVERYONE.

Genuine self-worth and self-love.

So why do I hate that after all of these years I'm in ONEderland?

Because this "milestone" was never a milestone for me.

It was a, "Hey, I'm finally at a weight where maybe the world can tolerate me", and the entirety of my self-worth revolved around that.

So this, being in ONEderland, is not something that I feel like celebrating.

I actually feel like vomiting.

Because it's a reminder of the lack of self-love that I had my entire life up until a few short years ago, and it makes me so incredibly sad & sick to my stomach that I ever abused myself by looking at myself with self-loathing & acting as such.

Not to mention, the weight that I happened to be at once I loved myself so completely, was around the 285 to 300 pound mark.

The rest of the weight loss I've experienced since then has been during a time I've been trying to maintain my weight 

(even by doctor's orders, because I was undergoing Radiation & Chemotherapy at the time, and maintaining my weight was crucial for my treatment).

So I've watched the body that I love so dearly wither away; and as much as I still love it, it's illness just makes me very sad, and I want to care for it and plump it back up to life, so to speak.

All that being said, my new goal isn't to leave ONEderland, either.

Because the scale is just a number.

My new goal for my body?

Ever since gaining self-love?

My goal for my body is strength, range of motion, agility, and stamina. That's it.

My vitals have been perfect, even through the latest surgeries for my cancer

(I even died for 5 minutes in my last surgery, so they had to abort- which is another post for another time)!

Also, my diabetes is finally 100% controlled without the need for any medicine!

I have plenty of other health issues, but they're chronic and there's nothing I can do about them that I'm not already doing, so...

Strength, range of motion, agility, and stamina are my physical goals.

Nothing more.

And I love myself through it all the same.