Lately, every day is like an out of body experience. I look down at my hands as I type and…I smile. My chubby, swollen fingers are gone. Don’t get me wrong – my fingers are still puffy, but they don’t look like overstuffed sausages anymore. My arms taper into wrists that are actually visible. When I sit on the couch, my legs are starting to look like legs instead of huge, thick blobs. Every time I check my reflection in the mirror I do a double take because I’m surprised at how much less junk there is in my trunk. My back has lost its roundness. My perky posture is back. I don’t look slumped over anymore. My body is getting its angles back.

This may sound horrible to some of you, but I’m beginning to feel like a human being again for the first time in a very long time.

Somewhere on the road between eating full bags of potato chips and making 5 trips to the vending machine on a stressful work day, I stopped feeling like a person. I did it to myself. I have an amazing family and a wonderful group of friends and co-workers. None of this came from them. I heaped a world of hate on myself because that is what I learned from a few hateful people when I was a child. That is what I thought I deserved…so I spent the majority of my life visiting that hell upon myself. Because I believed that was acceptable.

I felt like a thing. A blobby, out of control, depressed creature that was unworthy of love. Even the love of my family and friends did nothing to stop the negative crap in my head. A continuous loop of hateful thoughts and feelings ran 24/7 in my brain. It’s a mental trap that many obese people get into and it’s hard as hell to get out. Thank God my defining traits include a ruthless stubborn streak and a thirst for sniffing out the truth or I never would have found the doorway out of that hell hole.

The truth is…I’m not unworthy. I never was. The heartless, ignorant, horrible excuses for human beings who tortured me as a child are the ones who are unworthy. The problems I’ve been carrying around for the last 20+ years are their problems, not mine. It’s incredibly freeing to shrug that shit off and start out on my own path.

As of this morning, I’ve lost 90 pounds and 5 sizes. I’ve lost a startling 12 inches off my waist. I’ve reveled in countless NSV’s (Non Scale Victories). All of this success is merely a side effect of shrugging off the judgment and lies from a handful of assholes that had a hold on me as a child. I’m finally shoving it all aside and grasping for a life filled with wonder and love and happiness.

My dance teacher and a handful of other adults broke my spirit as a child. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a mistake. They meant to do it. They sought me out. They got a sick thrill from damaging me. It’s never okay for anyone to hurt a child – and I truly believe in my heart that these people will be hit square in the ass with the karma train at some point in their lives. They may have been hit already, I don’t know. None of them have been in my life for a very long time, nor will they ever be. They don’t deserve to be.

As much as I’m aware that none of that was my fault, though, it took me years and years to get away from the lessons they taught me. I wasted years of my life trying to be good enough. Skinny enough. Pretty enough. It was all for nothing…because I’m already enough just as I am. I always was.

If you can relate to anything I’ve said here, then do me a favor and stop your day for just a second. Look at yourself in the mirror. Feel in your heart that there is beauty and grace and love in you that a thousand assholes cannot take away. Those people do not matter. Those people are trash.

YOU are priceless.

And if you can’t feel that yet, then think about what lessons you’ve learned from the toxic people in your life and get rid of them. What is the truth? Where are the lies? Sniff it all out because you deserve to be free of the bullshit. You deserve to walk in the light. And you’re the only one who can figure that out. You’re worth the trouble. Do it.

I was born awesome…and so were you. So let this be your Independence Day. Let go of all the bullshit heaped on you by others and just be you.

It’s enough. It’s really enough. It’s never okay for someone to steal your joy and dull your sparkle. Don’t let them.

Don’t Ever Let Anyone Dull Your Sparkle Wood Sign