Anyone who knows me well knows that I love to criticize myself. It's embarrassing, but I could talk for hours with friends about things that I don't like about myself. They can be big things like, "I really wish I was taller" to things that it would practically take a microscope to see, like "My nostrils aren't very symmetrical." Picking myself to pieces has become a favorite pastime of mine. Countless times I have sat inches away from the mirror to analyze the size of every pore on my face. I have have spent hours dreaming of what I would change about myself if I had a magic wand (or a Kardashian budget). I have obsessed over diet and exercise routines. I have probably spent thousands of dollars on my appearance - makeup, hair products, weight loss tools, tanning memberships, salon bills, the list goes on and on.
The other day while I was getting ready to go out I began my routine of internally berating my body for not looking better, for not being better. I criticized my legs for being so short and the muscles on my quads for being so big and bulky instead of lean and long. I picked on my hips for being too wide. I told my nose it could be more "button-like" and my hair that it should be softer and thicker. I asked my eyes why they weren't bigger and brighter and pleaded with my teeth to be whiter and my lips to be fuller. I wondered why my skin wasn't more tan. I begged my waist to be smaller.
While I continued down the list of all the ways my body had failed me, I started to think about what I had learned in my anatomy and physiology class. Did you know that the human body produces 25 million new cells each second? That means that every 13 seconds, you produce more cells than there are people in the United States. How about that if you stretched out the capillaries in your lungs they would extend about 1,300 miles. My body does millions of things every second to keep me alive and healthy. Right now, without my supervision, my eyes know to blink to stay clean and lubricated, my stomach and small intestine are digesting breakfast and harvesting nutrients from the food I ate that I'll use as energy later to get me through spin class. My immune system is undoubtably fighting off some infection or virus that I'll never even know was attacking me to begin with. My kidneys are filtering toxins to send out of my body, my large intestine is absorbing water FROM MY POOP to hydrate my body. My heart is going to pump about 1,900 gallons of blood to my body today. My blood is composed of red blood cells that are going to deliver oxygen to my cells to keep them functioning and then transport the carbon dioxide back to my lungs to be cast out. And don't even get me started on the reproductive system. How is it possible that my body is capable of creating an entirely new human being, and that the tiny body that my body produces will ALSO DO ALL THE THINGS?!
My body is more complex and magical than I can even begin to comprehend.
And then, slowly, my thinking starts to change. Those short legs, they can walk and run and skip and climb. My hips and knees hold the weight of my body and are designed to do it effortlessly. My nose can smell wonderful scents and even send a message to my brain that will bring back nostalgic memories and warm fuzzy feelings, or alert me to danger. My hair is just a bunch of proteins connected; yet it can make me feel so beautiful. My eyes somehow take in light and DMs my brain so it can interpret what I'm seeing. My mouth can taste chocolate and form words and kiss my niece's cute little toes. My skin is so sensitive that when it feels heat it alerts my nervous system which commands my muscles to move my hand off of that curling iron before I even had the chance to realize that I was hurting myself. My skin is simply the wrapping paper on the gift that is my body.
This isn't to say that I'm suddenly thrilled with everything about myself, I'm not sure if that will ever happen. This is just a reminder to myself that there are so many more things to me thankful for than there are to hate about the body I was given. I saved a comment I saw on reddit awhile ago and recently it came back to mind (I apologize in advance - I can't give credit to the author).
"Think about it, there are 100 billion stars in the galaxy and ten times as many cells in your body, your body is a universe within itself. You are the universe on a microscale. You are large and vast and open and complex, just like the universe. There is nothing that is fundamentally wrong with you and a lot that is fundamentally right. I don't know your situation but I know that you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in one drop."
