To love yourself: a verb

"Love yourself" and "Love your body" are ideals we all strive for to feel comfortable in our skin. For many, this is a daunting and uncomfortable challenge. Loving your body for the way that it looks or the way that it behaves in the face of fat phobia, skinny-shaming, airbrushed skin, and picture-perfect individuals in the media is a battle that takes courage and effort.

When you are insecure, looking in the mirror and saying affirmations can be just about the most unappealing activity imaginable.

I challenge you to a new self-affirming attitude: to love your body as a verb. Love your body the way that you would want a friend to love you. Not by merely looking at you and saying, "I can find you attractive, and so I love you," but by showing you that they love you, inviting you to coffee, listening to your stories, excitements, and griefs. By knowing your likes and dislikes, your friend shows you they love you. By inviting you on a walk when they know that staying home and moping will be bad for your mental health, they show you that they love you.

To love your body is to listen to it and honor its cues. To love your body is to only speak highly of it to other friends. To love your body is to advocate for it when you feel something is wrong. To love your body is to feed it with a balance of foods you know will be good for it and tasty things you know it likes. To love your body is to drink water because you know it feels best when hydrated. To love your body is to put clothes on that fit so that it isn't suffocating or unable to move. To love your body is to move it to be strong and everlasting. To love your body is not to force yourself to love its flaws but to recognize that it is an imperfect being, like all of us, and that it deserves love-- through action-- anyway.