Instead of throwing these clothes away I made piles of them and put these piles at the back of my cupboard, so that when I ‘got skinny’ in the future (that was the plan), I would be able to wear them again. Sounds practical and simple, no? Or so I thought..
So, back to the closet, I was going through the clothes and although some of them now fitted me – I didn’t feel any self-applause, and there was no climatic moment, which is what I had expected myself to feel after hardly being able to breathe whenever I tried these clothes on over the past two years. Instead I actually felt unsettled and uncomfortable. But why?
What I realised is that these piles of self-loathing had just been sitting there in my room and in my mind/body for all this time, and I had been carrying it with me every single day. I can now understand why I have avoided looking at my body so much in the past and have just used clothes to hide in, instead of expressing how beautiful I actually am.
But at the start of this week, there was a difference. There were those thoughts sneaking in again of, “you should lose weight” or “that’s not good enough”. At first I was annoyed, as I thought I had gotten over this self-loathing issue the week before! However, I realised it doesn’t happen just like that – my closet was just one ‘pocket’ that I had looked at and by looking at it and dealing with it (or at least having a first go, as there is more clearing out to do), it had made a huge difference in my life.
The question then came; what is the next pocket to look at?
I came to an understanding that instead of going the downward spiral way of putting myself down (which I have experienced), and getting trapped in self-loathing I can only grow in how beautiful I feel as a woman if I am prepared to look at what the next thing, in the way of me expressing in full, is there to let go of.