You are Beautiful

I often hear women talking about themselves, especially mothers, and saying the words “fat”, “gut”, “muffin top”.  It makes me so sad.

One thing that has drawn me to helping women is how beautiful they are.  Short, tall, big, small.  They are all just so gorgeous.

And the women I love more than anything are mothers.  Whether they had their baby a day ago or they are a great-grandma to 15.  Their bodies are just aged to perfection.  They have the bodies I want.  The body that grew and nurtured multiple children.  The body that when you look at it looks saggy and tired, but in truth is just simply beautiful.

As women, we always compare ourselves to others instead of thinking about how we *feel*.  We see commercials and TV shows and covers of magazines and wonder what we are doing wrong.

When the truth is, what we are doing wrong is comparing our body to what we think the perfect body looks like.

My favorite woman’s body is the one that she is comfortable in.  I can’t even begin to describe how a woman glows when she is comfortable in her own skin.  With her wrinkled, sagged breasts, and her stomach that doesn’t really bounce back like when she was a teenager.  The body that grew a living being.  The body that nourished that being and helped it grow.  The body that taught and loved and raised another person.

We, as mothers, don’t give ourselves enough credit.  We see these magazine racks and the women on there with their new babies and perfect bodies and we measure ourselves and find ourselves lacking.

When in fact, the only difference is a trainer that charges $5000 an hour, and a professional with an air brush.

I see women that have just given birth to their child, and their stomach still looks pregnant, and they are tired, but they are at their most beautiful.  Our bodies were made to stretch and grow.  They were made to grow more beautiful with use.

Some of my favorite artwork is of big breasted, full bellied women.  Just like the cavemen used to pray to.  The Mother of all the Earth.

She wasn’t a skinny supermodel.  She wasn’t slim or trim.  She was a woman that loved with everything she had.  She was a woman that bore her body with pride at what she had created and nurtured.

She is the most beautiful of all.

(courtesy of google images)

In my eyes, she is beautiful.

We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to others.  We shouldn’t be unhappy because the number on a scale isn’t what we wished we saw.

We need to learn to be comfortable in our own skin.  We need to learn to be happy with the body we have, the body that grew and nurtured our children.  We need to learn to love ourselves.

You are beautiful.  A number on a scale or a pants size doesn’t make the mother.  What makes a mother is the love she has for her children.  The love she has for herself.

Mothers are the most beautiful to me of all.

This was originally posted on my site heartsandhandss.com months ago, but I felt it needed to be shared on here as well