Radical self acceptance.

Today I was researching the self-love movement, and one of the things that kept coming up was the notion of "radical self acceptance." I think the name of this movement in itself speaks a lot toward the state of women's affairs in the world today: how is it that we have gotten to a point at which accepting yourself and learning to love your own body is somehow "radical"?

I'll tell you how.  By openly loving your body, you're telling the rest of the world that you're happy with it.  And the rest of the world is thinking, "how can she be happy with her body when it's so far from perfect?  How can she love something that needs so much work?" That's your fear anyway, isn't it?

In a world where we constantly strive for the newer and the better, we're afraid to accept the bodies we have now because doing so somehow feels like we've stopped moving forward.  It feels like if we love our bodies now, we're giving up on any progress in the future.  But that's just not the case.

Body love and self-acceptance means loving and accepting your body at this exact moment in time, regardless of how close to or far away from your goals you are.  It means realizing that there is always going to be room for improvement, and because of that, if we keep waiting for the "perfect form," it may never come.  It means realizing that life isn't about the destination, it's about the journey.  And it means realizing that it's high time you give yourself a break and let yourself off the hook for once.


I found this print today and it really inspired me:

The battle towards self-acceptance is a long and hard one, and it is one fought on a road littered with the ghosts of years of belittling yourself and your body in the past.  Breaking this addiction is not something you can successfully do with a half-way approach.  If you really want to learn to love yourself, it's all or nothing.  You either try your hardest every day until it's real, or you don't make any progress at all.

Every day will be a challenge, and every day you're going to have to face this journey with courage.  But perhaps the most incredible thing about this journey is that in the end, the race is only against yourself. Keep banishing negative thoughts, keep redirecting that energy into positive ones, and each day you're a little closer to a self-acceptance that is going to feel better than any Victoria's Secret body would ever feel. #