"I love my body, because she always forgives me.

During my life I have struggled. Struggled with life, struggled with my self-image, struggled with self-love. I remember, as a young teenager, praying that I would get boobs soon (they arrived from one day to the next when I was 17).

That I would get skinnier, that I could somehow be like the women on magazines. I would pray, that I could be smarter, do better, be just as good and funny and popular as some of the other girls I knew. But I wasn’t. I was curvy, I was introverted, and I was sad and unhappy when I looked in the mirror.

In my lifetime, I have done a lot of bad things to my body. I have starved her. I have cut her. I have drowned her in endless amounts of alcohol… Also a bit of drugs. I have filled her with food that didn’t fuel her, and I didn’t know, and didn’t think, that she needed that fuel, for her to flourish and for me to flourish with her.

Two years ago, I burned out with stress – and for the first time in my life, I was thin – because I couldn’t and didn’t feel like eating. I wasn’t starving myself – I guess, that the fact that my fight or flight was in overdrive, made my body not prioritise food.

I remember very clearly looking down myself in the shower and looking at my body. I wasn’t sickly thin, to everyone else I probably looked good. But I looked and understood, that THAT is not how I’m supposed to look like.

…I started crying, and I whispered, I’m sorry. And she forgave me. She forgave me for not treating her well, for not seeing her, and for not loving her. I understood then, that my body is actually the strongest part of me. I was filled with love, for this body that was carrying me, and doing the best she could, to keep me alive.

I decided that day, that I will treat her with love. Treat her with more kindness. Whenever I feel like I am weak, I will look at my body, and remember what she has carried me through.

The stress, the sadness, depression, the love, the joy, the days where I treated her bad, and the days I tried my best.

Today I know, that how I feel about my body has NOTHING to do with how I look, but how I treat myself. When I nourish myself with food that feels good in my body, I feel like I look amazing. When I treat myself with love, I feel like I am beautiful.

My weight fluctuates now, as it has all throughout my life – but now I know that it’s just her way of keeping me safe. When I am stressed, I gain weight, because she is trying to make sure I have enough energy to keep going. When I am happy, I weigh a little less – and all states and stages feels just the same, and look just the same in the mirror. Beautiful.

I know, that whenever I look in the mirror and feel like, I am not enough, or, my clothes don’t fit right – that’s a call for me to start loving myself and treating myself and my body, with more kindness and love.

I now see my body like the power of mother nature.

She is the power, she is what keeps me going. She does everything she can to protect me.

She is the strongest part of me, and I just hope to keep doing the best I can, to protect her too."