Body Love

Let's talk about body love. If you guys are anything like me, dramatic body shape changes have happened since this dang pandemic began. For some of us, this has been extrememly frustrating because nothing fits the way it is supposed to. 

It sucks that nothing fits the way it did this time last year but I still have a really healthy body that works properly and life is honestly better now than it was then! I have had many more home-cooked meals since returning to the mainland and later getting married which could be the coulprit for my body shape changes but I still feel comfortable in my skin...just not my clothes. In fact, my body is probably more healthy now than it has been for years due to the stability and structure my life has gained by being surrounded by family instead of being on "my own"! And I am glad my body is the way it is! It is a symbol of the changes I have gone through, the progress I have made, and the love I have.

My body is healthy and beautiful!

I want to take you on a journey that I have been living since first learning about self love.

1. I first started feeling pretty when my parents would call me cute for wearing a Sunday dress my mom sewed or when my dad saw me in cowgirl boots. But I knew this was different from love because of something my dad said once in my primary years. We were sitting down for breakfast, it was a special day because we had french toast sticks or something...and for some reason the only thing I remember being said was when Dad said "You can't love someone else till you love yourself." That has always stuck with me.
   
   
   
2. 
   Over a decade later, one specific moment was life changing in high school. I went to high school with a new attitude from previous schooling years, I decided to just be me and work on discovering what made me who I am instead of trying to be someone that others wanted me to be. My best friend, Henda in the school cafeteria around all our lunch friends said "Alyssa is the only person I know who is as beautiful on the outside as she in on the inside. And that's saying something because she's beautiful!" I blushed. This seemed like the most important opinion other than those in my family at the time. Henda is literally a model, and the summer prior she had been to New York for a junior modeling program. She is straight up, drop dead gorgeous. Henda of all people called me beautiful. AND she recognized my efforts to be a beautiful person on the inside too. It was around this time that I realized if I feel beautiful on the inside then I am likely to feel confident and happy on the outside too. My body love became centered on the heart instead of the outward appearance, largely because of Henda noticing what was on the inside instead of judging me for the outside. (We are still best friends, she was my Maid of Honor at the wedding and will be called aunty by all my kids.)
   
3. 
   Before I served a mission for my church, I got really muscular because I was working at my uncle's warehouse. I was lifting heavy items often and my arms showed. I was proud of those muscles! Then, the MTC (Mission Training Center) was a full 9 weeks of sitting most the day for studying Mandarin and the Gospel....and eating like I was still working at the warehouse. Most people gain SO MUCH WEIGHT at the MTC because we get fed so well! None of my clothes really fit, and none of them really matched either, so I made due with what I had and generally didn't care how tight my clothes got because I was so happy to be on a mission. There are a lot of really pretty girls a the MTC though, and being young, I thought about how it would be if I had more money to get different clothes or more time to dedicate to exercise instead of studying.
   
4. 
   I headed to the mission field and almost instantly lost 15 pounds from just walking all over the place. I felt healthy! (Picture to the right) Then, I got soooooo sick (picture below) and lost so much weight that doctors had no idea (and still don't) what happened to my body. Every doctor brushed it off saying that it was mental. So I went to a therapist, my weight gain happened slowly...but not really steadily either to the point that when I returned home my doctor thought I had thyroid cancer! Fortunately, I did not. Despite all the body changes, I was still pretty comfortable in my own skin and loved who I was but I wanted to be strong again.
   
   
   
5. 
   Eventually, while in Hawaii I found myself in a lowkey exercise course called TwerkFit that my friend Jackie was heading. She and our friend Reni coached us to love our bodies through using them! We were taught to love our bodies by moving in ways that a woman's body can do so uniquely. At the end of each dance practice, we participated in a body appreciation meditation. These two actions helped me fall in love with who I was as a woman, my body, mind, and spirit all included instead of just a sex toy that I felt before in the eyes of society. I felt SO CONFIDENT and IN LOVE.
   
   
   
   
6. 
   Then. I got married. Justin has made loving myself even more easy. Justin is a personal trainer, he knows what is in style and how to make your body "attractive" but he always makes me feel more beautiful today than yesterday. The amount of love from him makes me feel so beaufitul! He has defintely helped me remember on days that I feel particularly down that I am all about preaching body love and self care, that I should take some of my own advice.
   
   
   
   

What have I actually learned from this? This lifetime of experiences of being taught about body love all goes back to what I feel in my heart.

I don't know how my parents did it, but they taught all of us kids to feel confident in our own skin. All of us are completely different shapes, sizes and heighths, but we are all loved equally and they taught us all that in order to love someone else you have to love yourself first. 

If there is anything my parents know anything about, it is how to love. I've learned that body love is definitely a piece of loving yourself, a huge piece. So even though my clothes all fit dramatically differently now, my love is growing (with my thighs, we now say that thick thighs save lives in my house!). I am taking my parents advice and choosing to love myself so I can love others. 

Hopefully, you can go through your own life journey and see the moments that helped you feel confident and loved. Maybe apply those precepts into your life so you can feel love for yourself more than you do now.