My thighs touch.
And, you know what?
I am OK with that.
Actually, I am better than OK.
I embrace it.
Touching thighs used to be my worst nightmare.
Once a trigger-point for my eating disorder, my beliefs that my thighs could NOT touch started when I was 8-years-old.
I remember my mom making a casual comment about not liking her own thighs, and in turn, internalizing her belief as my truth for me as well.
I was also a dancer and cheerleader, and I remember feeling very awkward in my pink tights and black leotard, my little 2nd-grade tummy sticking out and those darned touching thighs. I compared myself to the other little girls in their tights, or on top of the stunt pyramids, and thought, if only I was smaller, than I’d be ________ (fill-in-the-blank: cuter, prettier, more well-liked, on the top of the pyramid, etc., etc.).
By the time I was 10, merely the thought of touching thighs sent me into an exercise binge and food-restriction-mode.
Mayday! Mayday! Sound the alarms!
As time went on, hating my thighs became a deeply-rooted belief.
The inner and outer thigh machine at the gym was a MUST everyday.
Squats in the shower, in the middle of the night, while blow-drying my hair.
Hundreds and hundreds of lunges.
No carbs.
My thighs were the “enemy”—and if I had the POWER to control the size of my thighs—the smaller, the skinnier, the more-chicken-leg-like, the better.
After all, don’t perfect women’s thighs not touch?
Take this model for instance.
Isn’t she modeling a perfect body more than a swimsuit?
Today, my thighs that touch represent health, life, strength, hard work, letting go.
Health, as in, now I am healthy.
Life, now that I truly have my life back after years and years of obsessing over the size of my thighs, my waist, my jeans, my arms, and on and on.
Strength, that I have beautiful, muscular, strong legs to carry me through my day-to-day comings and goings. I can walk, run, jump, stretch, sit, squat, and beyond.
Hard-work, from the months and months of hard-work I put into nursing my body from death to life. The hard-work I endured through treatment, often times feeling awful through the process, in order to now, feel great.
Letting go of the “former ideals” and instead, accepting myself as my ideal.
I don’t need to be anyone else or anything else, other than ME.
What a NOVEL idea!
Why be anyone else or anything else?
Embrace your self, your beauty, your strength—inside and out.