Self Love

It's okay if you're in love with me.

I am.

This pic was taken today. My hair is up as it reached 116 degrees today!

Here's what I wrote recently:

June 9, 2007

There are days I love and respect body and days I hate it. Today I love it. I feel strong, sexy, and confident today. Days like this I want to walk around naked all day – but alas, I don’t live alone. As cool as my roommates are I still don’t think they’d appreciate it.

Everywhere we look, we're faced with some form of plastic surgery. Whether it's the obviously fake noses and breasts on tv and in magazines, or the programs showing it, selling it, and glorifying it. I sat behind a girl in church with an obvious nose job. I truly hope that it came about out of some medical necessity and not because she really hated a part of herself so much.

While watching the tragedy of self hate going on all over the TV recently, I asked myself whether or not there were any parts of my body or face that I would surgically alter. I did an inventory. I can honestly say that I wouldn't change a thing. There isn't any way that any feature could be improved upon. I believe everything to be well-suited to me.

I've had some great conversations with little girls in the shelter lately. They asked me whether I was in a relationship or not and it led to a conversation where-in I was able to talk to them about the importance of setting their own goals and making themselves happy because they will never be happy with anyone else if they can't be happy alone. Let me say that again, because it's important: If you aren't happy with yourself, by yourself, you cannot be truly happy with someone else. Your unhappiness with yourself will not go away just because someone cares about you. If you are miserable when you are single, you will carry that misery in some form into your relationships. To quote J-Lo, "Get Right." I found a really great new website recently and this lady makes some good points and asks legit questions about this very problem.

I also noticed that people frequently disassociate from their bodies. I caught myself doing it while hiking one morning. When I was having difficulty at very steep places I found myself saying things like, "My body doesn't want to do this." My body and my Self are not separate. And I did want to do it! The fact of the matter was that I was trying not to accept responsibility for being less strong than I wanted to be. Instead of disassociating from and blaming my body as if were something I cannot control, I merely needed to hike more to gain strength. Self love is a process and just when I'm sure I've gotten it down, I discover another way that I've been oppressing my Self.

I find that I feel the most beautiful, strong, and confident when I am speaking in front of other women. Encouraging them and supporting them. Empowering other women and helping them understand who they really are and what their true potential is has become my passion.

This post seems kind of disjointed to me, but I'm leaving it here because I really want to post it. I'll come back and do some more edits later.

This is a picture of my kissy-spot.