I don't know this for sure, but I imagine many of you here have felt what I am about to describe.

You see the looks, hear the clicking tongues, feel the shame imposed upon you from the heads turning in the other direction. People wish they didn't have to look at you, and you wish they didn't, too. You want to crawl into a hole and hide. Instead, you try hold your head high, let the fat be your protection, then when you get home, you cry to release the pain. You eat to feel the comfort.

But do you feel the love?

I mean, seriously. People have been hurtful, for sure. But in all of the pain, I have had people be loving and caring. But somehow, in all of that, I only held on to the negative, believing it, living it, and becoming it. What made me listen to and believe the people I didn't even know as opposed to believing in, and trusting my husband and other loving people around me?

I became what I hated, but why?

I felt negatively, and when people enforced those feelings, I believed them because somehow I felt them to be telling the truth.

When people said good things, I did not believe them, because I didn't *feel* good. Hence, they must have been telling "mistruths". Or better yet, they were biased and only trying to make me feel better.

I started, one day not long ago, looking in the mirror and telling myself, "You are a good person. You are attractive, funny, and have such a loving heart. You *are* worthwhile. You CAn be the person you want to be"

I started to believe this after repeating it like a mantra for weeks.

Now, when people say negative things, I think to myself, "Oh, you are *so* wrong. How can you be so hurtful and so negative?"

When people say good things, I have somehow come to accept it. Like warm fuzzies. I never have been good at accepting compliments or praise, I was not accustomed to it. I find strength and reinforcement, encouragement. It is letting my heart bloom and feel full. Human again.

We slip into the negative things, and it is an ever increasing downward spiral, somehow coming to believe them, no matter how painful or wrong.

Yes, I am obese. I had eating problems since childhood, and health problems on top of that.

But does that make me any less human? I think not.

In fact, I have instead chosen to baby myself with love and nurturing. I pamper myself with carefully prepared meals. Each exercise is a form of self love.

I think and feel better of myself now, and it is starting to show on the outside, to the world.

I used to say I didn't care what anyone else thought, when in reality, I only cared when people made it hurt. I used the hurt to reinforce my negative self image, used the fat to hide behind.

I *do* care what people think, but instead of picking and choosing, and only choosing the bad to heed, I pick and choose, choosing mostly the good. I do not totally negate the bad, however. I can take constructive criticism, as long as I view it honestly and without emotion to determine whether it is meant to be helpful or simply an attack.

Instead of facing the world with anger and frustration, which was really directed at myself, I see the world in a completely different way.

There is something to be said for positive thinking.