Written by Ashley Lopez

I was looking in the mirror when I noticed my many flaws and the worst self-criticism began. Specifically, my nasty words were targeting my lower body—my biggest tormentor. My worst nightmare.

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During my self-criticism, I kept thinking the words ew, yuck, or why. Why do I have so many stretch marks and why do my hips have to be so big, yet so square? My body doesn’t make any damn sense.

Ew to my cellulite.

Yuck to my dark inner thighs.

Why is my body like this?

Why is it so hard to believe that I look good? Do I even look good?

Self-criticism is my enemy

I was being so cruel to myself, and although I’ve gotten better at being nicer, my cruelness is still apparent. Why would anyone want to be my friend if I’m so mean? If my friend told me, “Ew, Ashley, you have so much cellulite and it makes you look ugly,” I’d be in complete shock.

What did you just say to me?

The thing is, typically, we are blinded by the beauty of others. So why are we so prone to criticize ourselves, but not the people we love? Because there’s nothing wrong with them: they’re beautiful.

And so are you.

Beating self-criticism

How can I expect to have friends if I’m not even friendly with myself? I need to learn to talk kinder to myself because, well, I am beautiful too. So, since I have a list of everything that’s wrong with me, I figured I should also have a list of everything that’s right with me.

Yum to my booty. Damn girl to my calves. Lovely to my eyes.

I also felt inspired to write something encouraging for my body. When you read below, I hope it truly inspires you to love your body even more.  

I am beautiful, but most of all, I am strong. My body is capable of nurturing life until it’s ready to blossom. My body is exceptional: it accomplishes everything I need it to do and want it to do; it keeps me alive and pushes me forward.

What I put into my body may not be the best at times, but I will start to nourish it better. The marks on my body are sexy because they’re me. No one else is as uniquely me as me.

I don’t want to be anyone else but me.

My body shape may not be what the media portrays as sexy but it is sexy because when I’m naked, there’s a whole lot of woman to see—and embrace.

Though today I don’t feel so great, now, I’m starting to. I love myself enough to know that I am completely divine.  

Become your own friend again

If you read this out loud to yourself, you may just want to be your own friend again.

Instead of being negative to ourselves and pointing out everything that’s “wrong” with us, we should start switching our own scripts and only follow uplifting ones.

You are the only person in your life that you can actually change and manage, so before you try doing that for others, do it for yourself. Love yourself enough to make the change you need for you.

This post was about self-criticizing our appearance, but it’s important to recognize that we can also criticize other aspects of ourselves too, however, we’ll get to that in another post.

This week I challenge you to talk to yourself the way your true friends would. Let’s face it: we should be friends with genuine people and it’s time we are genuine with ourselves.

If this post resonated with you, please let me know in the comment section. Are you going to do the weekly challenge?

If you liked this post, you might like this one too: Dear Body, I love you.

Thanks for reading, xo.