Trust, as many of you know by now, is an issue for me. I either trust far too quickly or not at all. Or I will trust up to a certain point, freak out, and then push the person far far away! I am working on this, of course. I’m working on a lot. Sometimes I have my guard up and don’t even realize it. Other times I have found that I’ve forgotten how to guard myself at all.

Living with the belief of total honesty isn’t always easy. Sometimes when I think I am being completely honest, I am actually fooling myself. It takes a special person to either call me out on that or to be so vulnerable themselves to me that it’s jarring. I have had both of those things happen in the last couple of weeks. I have been an emotional wreck. Nothing new, eh?! Ha! Seriously though, I have. But I’m coming to terms with a lot and I’m understanding that this is a process and a journey.

I thought my self acceptance journey would be separate from my life in chaos one. I am finding out that this isn’t so. Nothing is separate, it’s all in me, how else could it be? Learning to be on my own (lately more than ever) means learning to just be in my own skin. I have good days and bad days. I have days where I feel like a snail shriveled up inside it’s shell, completely unwilling to face the world…yet somehow I do. And I have days where I can call upon my inner sex kitten and strut like the vixen I know is in me.

Last night while chatting with a good friend, I mentioned loving a new song despite it’s packaged feel because it was just dancey and fun and full of the fuck-word. I wanted to hate the song, but I’ve come to think of it as my own inner anthem when I’m feeling not so great. It works! I said I wanted to create a bad ass sexy bitch playlist for my low self esteem days. They said, “Sarah, you have no reason to…” but I cut them off because fuck that! We all have low self esteem days!

I don’t care who you are, where you come from…everyone has low days, man! You know how I know and what helped me understand this? Gwen Stefani has low self esteem days!!! When I heard that from her very lips, I knew that not only was she human and a regular gal like me, but that everyone feels this way! I’m not talking about depression here, though I will be talking more about mental health here soon, I’m just talking about those off days when you don’t feel like yourself.

Being a giant fat ass in the modern western world can be quite a downer, dude. I won’t lie and say it’s all peaches and roses. I have days or nights when it is, but for the most part it’s a struggle, right? You walk down the street in a good mood, maybe you have a hot pink flower in your hair, you could be smiling or not, and suddenly someone says something or looks at you a certain way and they steal it from you. You know better than to give them this power, but somehow it just happens. You’re robbed of that smile or that strut or hop in your step.

Even if it’s just for a moment, you suddenly feel invaded. Not all of us have the strength/will/or thought to flip off someone who has done that to us, if you can awesome, but know that we are all human. We are all flesh and blood. We are all of the same energy and elements. Some humans simply choose to be willful assholes and take it upon themselves to spread their assholery all over the damned place. They are assholes…you are not!

You can let them get you down or you can shake it off and go right back to strutting your stuff. We all have this choice. Some days it’s easier to make than others, true. But getting down on yourself on top of it? That is not right! That is unacceptable to me. That is not only letting them get you down but helping their asshole cause at the same time. By putting yourself down you are perpetuating all that we/I fight against! No, you are so much better than that!

I highly recommend finding your inner anthem or theme song. A little tune you can have in your head as you walk into a room or start to feel anxious or down. I have a few now, for different situations/occasions. There is value in fooling yourself into a better mood. Sometimes we do have to fake it a bit until we can make it for good. I’m learning this everyday. I have doubts, I doubt myself and can spiral into a swirling vortex of pity/pain. But I put on that song and I cannot help but shake my ass or flip my hair around and feel awesome again!

I hope that you can, too. Because you’re awesome! You are a unique and multifaceted individual and no single trait or characteristic defines you…unless you allow it to. Trust yourself, your instincts, your gut and trust your fat body to love you back as you learn to love it. <3