I have a new favorite song right now.... and I loved it the first time I heard it. It's called "All About that Bass" and it's darling.
It's fun. And sassy. And true. And it has had me thinking a lot about beauty.
I have this amazing job where I get to spend my days surrounded by beautiful girls. Don't be jealous, boys. Not tryin to brag. I'm just lucky. But see, here's the thing:
Not one of them looks like another. They are all a million different shapes and sizes. Some of them are legit good at olys. Some of them can do pull-ups better than the dudes. Some of them wouldn't have known a dumbbell from a barbell a year ago. But they all have one thing in common: They are learning to love their bodies.
THEIR bodies. Not someone else's who's body type they will never have.
We all have aesthetic goals. We all want to look amazing because we all want to feel amazing. But dang it! We all need to learn how to rock our own amazing! I desperately want to feel good. From the core of my being to my pinky finger. And for me, that is one million times more about taking care of my whole self, not just my physical self. I want a strong, lean body. I want to be able to play with my kids after school and not be too tired and grumpy to do so. I want to be friends with food and not freak out when I eat Braums or six Kit Kats. (Yes, those two things are still happenin. On the reg.)
But I also want to be kind. I want to care about the guy on the corner who is asking for money. I want to look in my friends' eyes and make them feel adored and special and precious to me.
It is not my job to tell you how much you should weigh. It's not my job to shame you into only eating salads and protein shakes. If you eat a cupcake because it was somebody's birthday, so EFFING what? It's called life, people. It's just a freaking cupcake.
"Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top."
It is. It is!
Let yourself be seen. And ya know what else? Let's do a better job of "seeing" each other. Let's take off all our judgmental B.S. that includes labels, black and white, and expectations. We are all doing the best we know how to do. And some days, my best really, really sucks. But many days, my best does not suck. My best reminds someone that she is beautiful right where she is. In this moment.
Let's P.R. love this week ya'll. Dump a bucket of water on your head and learn a little more about a disease most of us know next to nothing about. Tell someone you "see" them and that what you see is perfect. Look in the mirror and learn to love what you see. Right now, in all it's perfect imperfectness... begin to adore it.
Love, like hate, is contagious. You can turn someone's really awful day into a really good one, just by reminding them of who they are. Life is hard enough without us being at war with ourselves over the scale. Or the cookie. Or each other. We are all on the same team. The team who's end goal is to rest easy at the end of each day, knowing we did the best we could have done.
It's a good life.