Loving Yourself Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Want Change

Collaborative post.

I love the self love movement that’s taking the world by storm at the moment. All the bodiposi instagram accounts, the self love tips magazines and blogs are coming out with, even the songs that are hitting the charts – I’m looking at you, Lizzo!

But I think there’s a really important message that’s not being spread.

Loving yourself is absolutely crucial to your own happiness. Accepting things like your figure, your personality, your imperfections – that’s all incredibly important. If you are at that stage where you love yourself unconditionally, then that’s fantastic news! However, it doesn’t mean you can’t love yourself for who you are, even if you want to change certain things about yourself too.

As a woman who’s on the chunkier side, I look in the mirror often and hate what I see. I see rolls, jiggles, stretch marks, bingo wings and excess skin everywhere. My thighs don’t just touch, they clap together! But other times I look in the mirror and think, “damn girl, look at that booty!” or something else ridiculously sassy along those lines. 

Wanting to change is okay!

On the day that I look at myself with hatred, I want to change. I want to be fitter, healthier, stronger, and have a more proportioned body. 

On the days where I look in the mirror and love myself, I also want to be fitter, healthier, stronger and have a body that’s more proportioned. 

Whether I am self loathing, or self loving, I still want to change things about myself. And that’s okay!

It’s not just about your weight or figure.

It’s not just about your weight or figure, it’s everything in life. Maybe you’re experiencing hair loss – something I have dealt with to a degree thanks to crazy postpartum hormones. You can look in the mirror and feel completely at peace with who’s staring back at you, but you can also decide that you’d prefer to wear a wig when going out to work or to meet with friends. At no point does deciding to wear a wig mean you aren’t comfortable with who you are. It simply means you’d prefer to change yourself up a bit now and then. Just like deciding to dye your hair a different colour or experiment with virgin hair and remy hair wigs.

Loving yourself is fundamental to your happiness, but change is inevitable.

I see so many Instagram accounts preaching that you need to accept who you are, which is absolutely true. It’s fundamental to your happiness that you accept yourself. But if you want to lose weight, try out wearing a different style of clothes, get a tattoo/piercing, gain weight, wear wigs or have make up tattooed – that all contributes to your happiness too. 

Loving yourself, even while you’re working hard to reach your goal is the true meaning of body positivity.

For me, my main goal is to lose weight and become fitter. I don’t want to stay the same and just accept my body the way it is. I know that I am overweight, unhealthy and that clothes cling in all the wrong places. But as I mentioned earlier, that doesn’t mean that I don’t spend a lot of time looking in the mirror also appreciating my curves. It means that I want to change certain things about myself and do things that will help me to reach my overall goal. Wanting to exercise to lose weight, or wanting to take dietary supplements (I have been reading the Bio Complete 3 reviews and they are looking promising) doesn’t mean that I loath the way I look, it just means that I have accepted that there are changes I want to make.

It’s okay to love yourself but also want to change certain parts.

I love myself, but I do want to be fitter. I will continue to love myself throughout the whole process of losing weight and exercising. I love the satisfaction you get when you’ve been working hard and you start to notice your clothes are fitting a bit better or people start complimenting your weight loss. It’s nice and those little confidence boosts go a long way to helping me to be at peace with my body. But just because I want to lose weight doesn’t mean that I can’t stand myself at the moment either!

The body positive movement is amazing and I’m so glad that people everywhere are celebrating who they are! But let’s all try to remember that change — growth — is inevitable and we can still love ourselves throughout the process.