meant to shine

I started this blog as a place to document my journey towards the goal - shared with my sisters - of losing enough weight so that I can once again be comfortable in my own body. My discomfort is physical - my feet hurt, my back hurts, my thighs chafe - but it's so much deeper than that. My discomfort also extends to my emotions; it flirts with shame, lingers near embarrassment,  lives in self-consciousness. I quickly realized that for this blog to be a real record of the journey, I'd need to explore the non-physical aspects of What Being Fat Means To Me, and work on the ouchy places there, too.

It's a self-fulling feedback loop: feel like shit ---> look like shit ---> feel worse ---> look worse ---> ad infinitum. Make that ad nauseum... The loop can be interrupted, and thus changed, at any point. I want my loop to be more like this: feel like shit ---> (make a change) ---> LOOK BETTER ---> (make another change) ---> FEEL BETTER ---> (make another change)---> LOOK BETTER---> (make another change)---> FEEL BETTER/LOOK BETTER ---> ad victoriam!

Last weekend I went to Lane Bryant, where I purchased 4 properly fitted bras and matching panties. (Thank the Big Beautiful Goddess for my L.B. credit card!) Having the girls up front and center made such an immediate and astounding difference in the way I looked - and felt about how I looked - that I threw my ugly, ill-fitting, bra in the trashcan behind the counter, pulled the tag off one of the new ones, and wore it out of the store! The very next day someone asked me if I'd lost weight. (I'm pretty sure the single pound I'd lost the week before wasn't what she was noticing!) Bolstered by my improved reflection in the mirror, and the compliment (because yes, "have you lost weight?" IS A COMPLIMENT when you're trying to lose weight!), I have been more mindful of my eating. Which makes me feel proud. Which makes me stand a little straighter. Which looks better. "Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!" (Yul Brenner, as the King of Siam).

I've gathered lots of links on losing weight, being healthy, looking good, and feeling confident (on the sidebar, over there --->), and have spent a fair amount of time browsing. I've reached some startling (to me) conclusions and realizations. Here's the first one:

"Thin" really isn't the only manifestation of "beautiful." 

or, to frame it more positively (ES),

"Beauty has many manifestations."

If you already knew this, accepted it deep in your heart, embraced it as a reality and possibility for not only the world at large, but for yourself as well, then good for you - you're waaaay ahead of me! But after looking at page after page of women with big breasts, wide hips, soft round tummies, and full thighs, I see it now. And finally, I actually believe it.

That means that I can be beautiful right now, at this size, with these thighs. AND YOU CAN, TOO!

Wow.

Want to see for yourself, these busty, curvy sirens, these magnificent and luscious examples of beautiful female bodies? I'm going to show you, lots and lots of them as we travel this path. For now, let's start with these beauties:

(click photo to enlarge)

Seven total knockouts - From far left: Crystal Renn, Amy Lemons, 
Ashley Graham, Kate Dillon, Anansa Sims and Jennie Runk. 
Bottom Center: Lizzie Miller.

Read the great story behind this photo at glamour.com!

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. 
  ~Marianne Williamson

xox,
Susan