We all have those days of feeling like our all isn't good enough. Trust me in January I was barely able to afford McDonalds and every single brand I worked with started to communicate to me in a way that just didn't sit right with me, like I wasn't a person, like I was no one. I was constantly feeling like my all just wasn't good enough for anyone. I almost felt like a dark cloud just followed me around when I was alone and all I wanted to do was sit in a corner and cry my eyes out wishing for something more. It's one thing when you're a grown a$$ adult and could barely afford to live and it's another to just keep digging yourself into the ground talking negatively to yourself in hopes something will just come out of the ground and swallow you whole. There's days i'm in such a creative rut and others where I have too many ideas my brain is screaming at me to make them come to life. Oh the life of a creative.....It's a wild journey and through the good and awfully bad days....I wouldn't change it for anything.
So here's to keep going even when people swear your all is a piece of trash. Don't hate on them just prove them wrong in silence and hard work. People only talk trash about things their insecure about so remember that.
I wanted to share a chapter of one of my favorite books because this chapter really helped me put everything into perspective. It made me feel 1000% better and really got my mind off of negative things that consumed me. It made me so damn thankful for every single soul in my life. Heck even the ones that walked out of my life without a simple goodbye. Life is too darn short to think so negatively about yourself and others so here's 101 things to think about other than what your body looks like....because let's be real how we talk to ourselves about our bodies and other people's bodies aren't nice so let's change that. I bolded some of them because those are the ones i've personally highlighted in my book, those ones really made me feel something. I mean all of them did but those ones really helped me.
From Brianna Wiest 101 essays that will change the way you think
1) How kind you are to the people who can't do anything for you.
2) That you are aware of the fact that the last thing someone will remember after you are dead is what pant size you wore.
3) The understanding that what we are beneath our skin is more real than whats on it or how many layers of cells lie between.
4) The knowing that someone else's judgment of what your body is or isn't does not make it any more or less of that thing.
5) How gracefully you can accept the things that aren't for you.
6) How hard you are willing to fight for the things that are.
7) That you accept other people's bodies for what they are.
8) That you accept other people for who they are.
9) That the greatest thing we can do with our bodies is let them facilitate us lending ourselves to the people who need what we can give.
10) That you can taste your favorite food and treat yourself to it as often as you want to.
11) The knowing that nothing is permanent here, especially our physicality. This is a ride. The car needs to work to get you through it. People will judge you as much as they want, but their judgement will be theirs to reconcile, not yours.
12) The knowing that what we really need, on a core level, is the love and acceptance of other people, unconditionally. Maybe not everybody. Maybe not many people. But in principle, by someone. Our ability to give that far outweighs how we look while giving it.
13) THAT YOU CAN TASTE PIZZA
14) That you cannon only be okay with your body when it looks and feels the way you want it to. That you find comfort in sometimes being very uncomfortable, and that you know it is not your responsibility to defer to anyone else's level of comfort (or lack thereof).
15) That you have a mind to comprehend whom a person is and a body to show them that you understand them.
16) That you can cuddle with your pets.
17) That you pay your own bills
18) The fact that we do indeed have these internal atlases, and that when we feel an unexplainable pull, we follow them, for they know much more than our minds can conceive.
19) That (some) people can create another human life if so they choose. (That in itself is a freaking miracle.)
20) That you can swim and run and cry and scream and dance and float on water and feel weightless and free.
21) That your mouth can tell the people you love that you love them.
22)....and kiss some of em, too.
23) That you are able to evolve and change.
24) That you can make conscious decisions for yourself.
25) That you are conscious as a principle.
26) That you know how to let go and have a goddamn great time.
27) That you have the ability to let go of your attachment to how you believe things should look and embrace them as they are.
28) That beauty is not quantifiable.
29) That you realize food is not the enemy.
30) That you understand how contrived our idea of beauty is, how it has been engraved in our minds silently, in photos and side comments and expectations we learned from peers and mentors, unintentionally or not.
31) That you never have to accept a narrow definition of what's beautiful.
32) That you understand that people will love you more for loving yourself.
33) That you know to love yourself means to be okay with not being totally okay with some parts of you all the time.
34) That you can cultivate your beliefs through your own experiences, learnings, and to whatever rings true.
35) That you can, and do, make decisions for yourself.
36) That you can stand up for yourself when passivity is no longer a choice.
37) That you can stand up for others when passivity is no longer a choice.
38) That it is only very small people who feel the need to make comments about other people's appearance. That such an act comes from a very deep, very insecure place, and is not someone you should get angry at, but show love to, because they need it.
39) The fact that you can use your body to read your favorite books and read this right now.
40) That your body facilitates the things you love most in your life. Your legs let you travel and your arms hug the people you love.
41) That you will never really know what great things lie ahead, and though the unknown may seem scary, that you aren't supposed to. It's elusiveness that makes things feel incredible when they arrive.
42) How honest you can be with yourself about yourself.
43) How honest you can be about yourself to other people.
44) That you can use your body to play with the little kids in your life and to tell them (and show them) that you love them.
45) That through your body, you can feel happiness and joy.
46) That through your body, you can feel sadness and pain and grow and learn from that.
47) Being able to experience the unprecedented high that comes from realizing the million things that seemingly didn't work out in the past was some universal conspiracy to bring you to exactly the right place, somewhere far beyond where you could have imagined for yourself. (It will happen if it hasn't yet. Just wait)
48) The ability to process the kind of unprecedented compassion that is displayed in the world daily but is sometimes overshadowed by the alternative.
49) Having eyes to see the love of your life, hands to hold them, and a mouth to speak to them, a gut instinct to know they are your soul mate, and a mind to understand they agree.
50) How well you perform at your job.
51) How adamantly you stick to what you believe.
52) How fiercely you pursue that which you feel most called to.
53) How earnestly you can laugh at yourself.
54) How honest you are willing to be in regards to your shortcomings, and what you do in light of them, not in spite of them.
55) The tiny acts of kindness and courage that we perform daily, because at the end, that may be our only purpose here.
56) How often you make time to do the things you want, not the things that are expected of you.
57) That you stop judging and berating people for their own imperfections.
58) That you have the ability to hear the music you love.
59) That alternatively, you have the ability to feel the vibrations of music if you can't hear it.
60) The knowing that the lack of one sense, one talent, one ability, does not lessen you; it defines you as someone cut out for a challenge above others.
61) The understanding that the pursuit of physical beauty will eventually be futile--we all sag, wrinkle, and age the same in the end.
62) The genuine understanding that most of the time, you cannot equate your health to your appearance.
63) The genuine understanding that you have no right to judge someone else's health by their appearance.
64) That you can use your body to perform the things you most truly love to do (write, dance, sing, what the hell ever).
65) That you use your body for sex: for good, consensual, wild sex when you want, where you want, and never for any other reason but that.
66) That your body is not for the consumption of others, and that there is never a reason to do something to it that doesn't make you happy but will appease others.
67) That you are not at fault for how society views physical appearances, but you do have a responsibility to yourself to defy it consciously.
68) That you know what to say when the people you love are most hurting and need those words of comfort.
69) That you know when to shut the hell up and just be present for them.
70) That you know how to grieve and mourn the things that will inevitably pass.
71) That you know how to embrace and enjoy the things that will invariably pass.
72) That you donate the things you don't need to the people who do need them.
73) That you don't adopt other people's confining, cruel words as your own.
74) That you make your own money to spend as you see fit.
75) How often you tell the people who you love that you love them while you have them, every day, in every way you can. Because you never know.
76) That you sacrifice when a sacrifice meeds to be given.
77) That you have the ability to feel warmth and smell your childhood home and have your senses act as a transmitters back to the things and people you would have otherwise forgotten about.
78) That you embrace love, no matter how scary it is.
79) That you are an honest person in word, promise, work, and heart.
80) How able you are to put your ego aside and apologize when an apology is due.
81) How genuinely you apologize -- it says a lot about a person.
82) How well you take care of yourself when you most need to be taken care of.
83) That you make gifts and mix CDs and write notes and send letters to people just for the sake of making them smile.
84) How genuinely you see all people as equals.
85) That you can stop apologizing for doing what you want with your body.
86) That you realize your mind's capacity is limitless if you choose to pursue it.
87) That you embrace releasing your mind from having an input on the things that inherently require your instinctual feelings.
88) That you have little things in your life that genuinely make you happy.
89) That you have the courage to go back and reconcile when you are at a standstill and someone needs to cave.
90) That you can rejoice in other people's successes.
91) And not in other people's failures.
92) That your body is capable of understanding then someone is giving you that very specific "I love you" look, and that you are so lucky to ever have had it in the first place.
93) That you spend your life doing something greater than just making yourself happy in the moment.
94) That you realize that to help others, you must first help yourself.
95) That you understand how the last two points both contradict and necessitate one another.
96) That you give yourself enough sleep.
97) And enough vegetables (sorry to nag you but that shit is important)
98) How you feel about your body
99) That you forgive the people who are cruel to you over your body and realize that they are hurting somewhere too, and that people only ever lash out at what strikes a chord within them.
100) That you forgive yourself for being cruel to yourself over your body.
101) That you use it to write things like this and send the message on.
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