“Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change.” Iyanla Vanzant

“We live in a culture that worships thinness.

Media images establish what it means to be beautiful in our society. It doesn’t matter that the vast majority of us don’t look like the people we are taught to adore.

We are taught that our souls will only feel as good as our bodies look; that we can never be happy unless we reach physical perfection.

Our obsessions with eating and weight mask the deeper needs of our spirits. We are looking for a way to maintain peace, order, and security in a world that seems out of control. 

We want to be happy and healthy, to feel accepted and connected within a larger community. We need to sense that our lives are meaningful—that we have a greater purpose.

The traditional way to manage these kinds of spiritual yearnings has been through religion. 

Many people have adopted “The Religion of Thinness”. This religion teaches us that controlling our weight will gives us a feeling of control over a lives. 

It offers us the hope of health and happiness through the idea of the “perfect” body, which we believe is attainable through diet and exercise. It teaches us to feel morally superior if we “eat right” aka less and connects us to a larger community of women who are trying to lose weight. It gives us rituals, such as counting and burning calories, that create a sense of order. And it includes a plethora of icons and symbols in the form of models and actresses whose image we are encouraged to recreate ourselves. 

Perhaps most importantly of all, it gives us an ultimate purpose—the “salvation” that comes from being thin.

But in the end, its promise are hollow. The Religion of Thinness cannot fill the emptiness we feel inside ourselves.

It cannot satisfy our deepest hungers—our hunger for love and acceptance. It cannot undo the past or solve the problems that exist in our lives. It is merely a distraction. The hope it offers is an illusion, one that we have been fed by the media and other sources, and one that many of us have consumed with a religious-like fervor in our quest for meaning and purpose. 

The truth is that our happiness and worth is not dependent upon being skinny.”

-Michele M. Lelwica 

We can derive a sense of purpose not from trying to make our bodies thinner, but rather by simply being who we are and doing what we love.

Find a sense of purpose in being a mother, father, a daughter or son.

Find it from being a student and working hard towards a goal and a dream.

Find it from a job or hobby you love.

Find it from making other people happy.

Find it from surrounding yourself with people you care about and love.

Find a sense of purpose simply from the fact that you are alive, that you are breathing.

That you have a voice, an opinion, a mind.

Our weight and appearance are such a small and insignificant part of who we are.

You are so much more than a number.

You are full of meaning and purpose.

You create it every moment.

You are unlimited.

Set yourself free.

You so are (:

<3

If you’re reading this, you’re beautiful. So perfect just the way you are.

                    You are more than what you are going through. You can and will get past this. Chin up, love.

I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.  -Lucille Ball

"Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are."

Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.  -RICHARD BACH

I am not defined by the size of my body, or my weight on the scale.

I am defined by the size of my heart and the weight of my words. 

“There was some voice in me that just said, ‘You’ll get there.’ And I took hope from the voice inside of me”

“When you really listen to yourself, you can heal yourself.”

Remember your true purpose, WHICH is only Love.

If you cannot see or feel love, lie down now and cry; it will cleanse your vision and free your heart.

I love you; I am you.

-SARK

“You don’t have to feel like a waste of space
You’re original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow

Maybe you’re reason why all the doors are closed
So you can open one that leads you to the perfect road”

To experience true self love, you have to conquer the fear of your own body.

“Life is too short to waste my time hating my body this way.”

YOU ARE LOVED

 

To be who you are is to be enough. 

To share who you are is to share enough. 

To do what you love is to do enough. 

There is no race to win and nothing to be proven, 

Only dreams to be nurtured, a self to be expressed, 

And love to be shared. 

Never doubt your worth, 

And always know, without any doubt, 

That you are truly valued and deeply loved. 

Over the years I have developed a picture of what a human being living humanely is like. She is a person who understands, values and develops her body, finding it beautiful and useful; a person who is real and is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it, and to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.  -Virginia Satir

             When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. -Donald Miller

No one outside ourselves can rule us inwardly. When we know this, we are truly free.  -Coral Anika Theill

We endure so much more than we think we can, all human experience testifies to that. All we need to do is learn not to be afraid of the pain. Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don’t deny it, don’t be overwhelmed by it. it will not last forever. One day the pain will be gone and you’ll still be here. -Harold Kushner

                                                      Find you. Be you. Be happy with that.

Everything you're running away from is in your head.

"I finally figured out that the only reason to be alive, is it enjoy it."

"You are all together beautiful my darling, beautiful in every way." - Songs of Solomon 4:7

Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.

It is impossible to live without failing, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default. 

If you care about what others think of you, then you will always be their slave. -James Frey

Sometimes, you need to step outside, get some air, and remind yourself of who you are and who you want to be.

                                                          You are good enough. Believe it.

The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.

                                              What makes you different, makes you beautiful<3

"Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish."

"Because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have." -Unknown

Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed a mountain. -Unknown.

Believe that you can do it, under any circumstances. 
Because if you believe you can, then you really will. 
That belief just keeps you searching for the answers, 
then pretty soon you get it. -Wally Amos

                    I know there's a blue horizon, somewhere up ahead, just waiting for me<3

I am beautiful. I am wonderful. I am smart. I am capable. I am 

worth loving. I am worth fighting for.

                              When is it that we stopped being beautiful just as we are? 

"If you're lucky enough to be different from everybody else...don't change to be the same." -Taylor Swift

I must learn to love the fool in me- the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. Theodore Isaac Rubin

"I want people to stay still for a while, and let something they have no power over wash over them, gladly, and be a little better for it." -Jeff Buckley

"If you can promise me anything, promise me that whenever you’re sad, or unsure, or you lose complete faith, that you’ll try to see yourself through my eyes."

"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." 

— Marilyn Monroe

     "Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

"Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are."

Love is when you look into someone's eyes, and see everything you need. 

~ Unknown

“How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” –Trina Paulus

When you run from something, it only stays with you longer. If you fight something, it only makes you stronger.