Sweat & Smiles: The Misconception about Self-Love
By Melissa Romano on April 04, 2020 from Sweat & Smiles
Wanna know five BIG misconceptions about self-love??? ??
1. That it's all chocolate cake and bubble baths.??
Don’t get me wrong I love chocolate cake and a love a good epsom salt bath. What I don’t love is shouting self-care at a person who needs community, who needs connection, who needs to go a little deeper into the root of the problem instead of sticking a bandaid over a gaping wound.
2. That you have to learn to love and accept cellulite to do it.?? 
Body shaming is unacceptable. We are living in a new time period; a time in the world where we know too much and have come too far to be setback by judging another human by the size and shape of their body. It goes a little deeper when it’s us looking at our own selves in the mirror. Just last year I hesitated posting a yoga video because of the cellulite I could see. These biases run long and deep. Loving ourselves is deeper.
3. That you can just tell yourself that you should and you will.
If I were capable of canonizing someone into sainthood Maya Angelou would be a first round draft pick for me. A quote of hers that I hear often is: “when you know better, you do better.” It’s true, except, knowing better and knowing how to do better are very different concepts. Knowing how to do better requires a learning curve and lots of practice.
?? 4. That if you were only a different size or shape it would be easier.??
I am 5’9” and my weight remains around 150 pounds and average a size 6. For the majority of my life I have fit into most of the categories our society deems good from a physical standpoint. In my early 20s I weighed all of 120 pounds and wore a size 2. I can tell you with absolute clarity that the size and shape of my body did not make loving myself easier.
My body has undergone all kinds of changes: surgery, pregnancy, postpartum, training to run, heavy lifting, overworking out. I followed all the ‘supposed tos’, I got into impeccable shape and still my insides felt the same - not. good. enough.
You see, that’s the kind of things that our diet culture promise: if you have a different body, you’ll have a different life. But beyond the aching joints, beyond the shortness of breath - there is an aching and shortness inside which cannot shape shift with physical changes. Self love is deeper than that.
5. That any of this has anything to do with external factors.??
??
The belief and hope that our external factors will aid us on this journey is taking another bandaid and putting it on a gaping wound. External factors undeniably helped create our belief systems about ourselves. Our childhood, our experiences, our culture all played a role in shaping how we feel about ourselves and how we engage with the world. The knife that cut us open cannot also sow us up.
Here's the thing: it takes practice - active, relentless practice.??
Practices like self-parenting. While I wish all it took was a bath self-love looks a lot more like self-parenting.?? ?? Healthy self-parenting looks like setting and maintaining boundaries, and acting in your own best interest.??
How can you act in your own best interest today?
With love (for you and self).
Melissa
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