Seeing Beauty in Body Image

With permission of my friend, Madelyn Oney, I’ve been given the privilege to use her Instagram post on body image and beauty as today’s blog post. First of all, I have to applaud her courage and vulnerability in allowing me to repost this. I hope you girls find her example as inspiring as I did.

Beauty Body Image

So I’m not gonna lie the first thing I felt when I saw this picture was loathing. I felt like my face was too fat and I looked disgusting and thought of how I needed to work out more often, and eat less, and lose weight in general.

But then I remembered to ask myself, why do you think that?

“Because you’re fat,” screams every lying part of my brain.

But having fat on my body doesn’t make me unacceptable? My size does not determine my value. My weight means nothing in terms of now or forever. This is something I’ve had to work on beating into my head over the past few months as I’ve been trying to recover from disordered eating and warped body image.

I don’t say any of this because I need to be validated. That’s something that can’t come from other people. I am who I am in Christ and that’s all that matters. I’m saying this because I want to be able to share my struggles and let other people know that it’s not uncommon. You’re not crazy. It happens I’ve been praying for a long time about what I can do to reach out to other people who have gone through and are currently going through body image struggles and I’m ready to put myself out here and see what God does next. Until then I will keep wearing polka-dots and learning how to love myself in pictures

 

Do any of you ever struggle to see beauty in your body image? How have you worked to overcome a negative body image?

Recent Comments

  • Brenna
    January 14, 2017 - 2:28 am · Reply

    Wonderful post, Liz and Madelyn. I struggle with this at times, as I think we all do. It’s not just my appearance, either- I wish I was more productive, more disciplined, a better musician and a better writer. In some ways I see flaws in every aspect of my self-image. But it’s important to remember that, as you so beautifully put it, “I am who I am in Christ and that’s all that matters.”

    • Elizabeth Newsom
      January 20, 2017 - 2:44 pm · Reply

      I know 🙂 I’m so glad Madelyn allowed me to post that. You’re right; I think we all do too. I’m so glad you enjoyed the post!

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