I Am Entitled to Body Hate

As a mother, a moment of low self-esteem was a luxury I felt like I was no longer entitled to.
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Yesterday was not a pretty day. I was not feeling it. I was not feeling it at all.

I was getting ready for an event and none of my clothes were agreeing with me. Mountains of them all over the closet in protest. Big piles of nope. And since I've been riding high on the lady emotion train, I shut the door and just cried. This alerted Andy because the closet door only shuts for two reasons: I'm having sex or I have Kit Kats.

Why is the door shut?

Because I can't let the kids see me upset with my body right now, it's not allowed.

As a mother, a moment of low self-esteem was a luxury I felt like I was no longer entitled to.

A few weeks ago I taped a television piece, and the camera man was shooting up at me, like, from the ground. Upshots, in general, should be illegal and punishable by a nail gun to the throat, but when I politely said something to him, he came back at me with mind-f*ckery.

If it's at all possible, could you maybe shoot me at face level? I feel like my body looks really unflattering at a low level, it's a woman thing.

Hey, where's all that body love you were preaching about?

Because I love my body, I'm not entitled to have a say in how it's portrayed, and I have to like every shot of it, or I fail at self-love. It's like this guy has never been in a tagged Facebook photo eating before.

Last night, I lay in bed and let this all process, and I've come to the conclusion... it's bullsh*t. Here I was getting more and more upset about the feelings I'm not supposed to be entitled to, either because I'm a mom or a confident woman, what have you, I don't get them anymore. Thinking about how these emotions were yanked away from me, I just got angrier.

I do love my body, and I am confident in my skin, but I miss those feelings. They weren't fun feelings or even proud feelings, but they were human feelings that I need to feel to remind myself that I'm flawed and I'm growing and that I can't feel guilty when moments of body hate slip in there every now and then.

I can't pretend as a mother or as a woman that they don't happen; I can only model how to bounce back enough that the love moments outnumber the hate moments.

And that is a beautiful thing.

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