iampeacemaker, September 2, 2023
I’ve learned a lot in my life about how to feel better about myself. Overweight as a young teenager, with awkwardly bad taste in clothing, and glasses that were too big on my face, I was meek, shy, caring, and quiet. A big bundle of Love, for real; but frankly, I didn’t know how to deal with teasing and bullying of other classmates.
The ones who tried not to bother me considered me to be a HUGE snob, but truly I was far from that, I liked everyone even those who hated me. But I was scared shitless of their rejection.
How to have a positive body image? and feel better about myself, didn’t even enter my mind.
High school wasn’t so bad. In my late teens and early 20’s, over 24 years ago, I was slim, healthy, very active, and hard-working. Then at 23 years old, I developed Schizophrenia. The psychiatrist prescribed me Olanzapine, which has a very well-known side effect of consistent weight gain.
My body started gaining fat immediately, over the following 15 years my weight more than doubled. I couldn’t manage to keep a job after the onset of my brain illness either, although I tried very hard many times.
I continued taking the meds, however, knowing that my mental health meds were critical to functioning at all.
With the onset of such an illness, it’s difficult to find the right meds that work, and dangerous to try new ones that might not work.
So, I decided I’d rather be fat and sane, as opposed to being skinny and utterly dysfunctional or even dead.
Sadly, a very large percentage of persons with Schizophrenia and other grave mental illnesses face the same issue: difficulty maintaining a healthy weight due to medications.
So more than being judged by being mentally ill, they are also judged due to lack of employability, and now being fat, and none of this is their fault.
Persons with mental illnesses, persons who can’t hold a job, persons with a fat problem, even if they have an eating addiction and lack of ability to create better habits, it is often completely out of their control to have these features.
I am NOT my body’s features.
I AM a being of light who is living in the neuronal system of a fat body. The fat is not who I AM. It’s just on my body.
My body is big. I admit it, I own it, I rock it!
People who call me fat are very observant. I usually pay them that compliment when they notice and try to help by informing me.
Despite being fat, I love myself, and I don’t hate my body. My big, beautiful body naked in the mirror looks great, in my honest opinion.
Despite being fat, my body does so many good things for me! I can see! Taste! Hear! Smell (through my nose I mean lol, Yes it can make me smell bad too that’s what laundry and showers are for!)! I can move and touch things, breathing and hearing my heartbeat are things I am super thankful for!
Someone could be a lot lighter than me and still be thankful for their body.
You are not your body’s features.
You are a being of light, who HAS a body. Don’t even worry about dying, your light will continue to shine, you’ll just be losing this old worn-out, leathery, smelly, meat frame.
If you don’t want to die, if you want to feel healthy, do everything you can to stay fit, eat well, stay healthy… but still when you die is out of your control.
How to feel better about my body?
Remember your body is a thing you are bound to lose. People lose things, invariably.
People lose their livelihoods, possessions, homes, their health, and their lives… all the time. No one gets to keep any of it, ultimately.
Only worry on what you CAN control, and even then, only worry enough to remind yourself to DO something about it.
I’ll share some of Yeshua’s most important words from his sermon on the mount to help you feel better about yourself. Please read the following carefully.
‘Do not store up treasures for yourself on earth, where moth and woodworm destroy them, and thieves can break in and steal. But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworm destroys them, and thieves cannot break in and steal. For wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be too.’
Matthew 6: 19
You are a being of Light.
Your body is a thing of bone, muscle, and blood, which requires maintenance, but do not worry about impressing others with your looks. Instead, impress people with your gifts of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These might be treasured much more than any amount of money, they cannot be taken from you, and no law can touch them.
‘The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is clear, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkened, what darkness that will be!’
Matthew 6:22-23
That last line was Yeshua encouraging you to cherish and protect the light within you.
‘No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave of both God and of money.’
Matthew 6:24
People who care terribly about their looks are likely slaves of money and not God. How prepped up you look is not important unless you are trying to impress others. If it wasn’t for attention or impressing others to spend money, why would you worry about your looks?
‘That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
‘Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to your span of life?
Matthew 6:24
You might argue that birds may not be less valuable than you. I think Yeshua’s reason for saying that is that mankind is here to tend the earth, we have a job here, and the bird lives to make the world a more beautiful place. He places more value on his sheep, fellow shepherds, and peacemakers.
“And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these.
“Now if that is how God clothes the wildflowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you who have so little faith?
So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?” It is the gentiles who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all.
Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God’s saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’
Matthew 6:25-34
People should not be judged, only judge yourself, unless you are a government-appointed judge. As long as no one breaks the laws of the land or hurts people weaker than themselves, then no person deserves harsh judgment.
‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgements you give are the judgements you will get, and the standard you use will be the standard used for you. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the great log in your own?
Matthew 7:1-3
In other words if you are athletic and decide only to want to be around slim and athletic people, still do not openly mock people with fat problems or pass judgment on people weaker than you.
You might ask, “Why shouldn’t I mock fat people? Aren’t I better than them?” Because tomorrow you may fall off a ladder that leaves you paraplegic. You may lose all your money overnight.
The people who remember you mocking that fat person will consider you a superficial asshole and not care to help you. That means you will be the one being judged.
Karma is God’s way of humbling you.
How to feel better about your body
Don’t judge other people and be kind to yourself. Seek forgiveness and forgive yourself for your mistakes.
Learn from your past mistakes to become a better person than you were yesterday. Feel better about yourself, don’t self-destruct.
You are a beautiful being of light, a creator, an entity of Love and intelligence. What is in your control you can work on by taking action steps.
Anything not in your control, like other people judging you, don’t worry about it.
Which leads me to this helpful prayer not to take for granted:
The Serenity Prayer of A.A.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference”
Hope this helps.
God Bless you,
~ Enlillie
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