Dear Body.. A letter to my body.

Dear Body,

Today I want to write you a letter to apologise for the way I have treated you for so long, hopefully you can forgive me and we can start fresh because we’ve still got quiet a few years together (I hope) and I want to spend those years no longer at war with you.

I am so sorry that my mind convinced me to not like you.

I am sorry that somewhere along the line my mind told me that you were not good enough and that it was you against it.

I am sorry that I listened to my mind instead of my body.

I am sorry for starving you.

I am sorry for causing you physical pain.

I am sorry for the awful things my mind would say to you.

I am sorry for speaking so badly of you day in and day out for as long as I can remember.

I am sorry for always trying to make you smaller and skinnier.

I am sorry for the years of damaged caused my purging, by over exercising, taking laxatives, dieting, taking unnecessary medication in the desperate search for an unachievable goal.

I am sorry for using you as a way to control my life and my emotions.

I am sorry for not respecting you for everything you give me – the ability to walk, run, laugh, dance, hug, kiss and swim in the ocean.

I am sorry for expecting you to be something that you are not – you don’t have to look like another body even though my mind and society has always told me different because every body is unique and beautiful in its own way.

I am sorry for not respecting or loving you while you were creating the most beautiful gift on earth – my daughter. I wish I could have seen how amazing you were during this time instead of hating you for changing.

I am sorry for looking down at you and wanting my pre baby body back even though I spent my whole life hating that body – what I saw after I hated even more even though you had just been through the hardest journey of your life so I am sorry for that.

I am sorry that no matter what I did or how I changed you I never felt you were good enough.

I am sorry for wishing so much evil on you even wishing you were dead.

Dear body…

Now I want to thank you for everything you are and everything you have given me.

I above all, thank you for creating and housing my healthy, happy, beautiful daughter safely for 37.5 weeks through the hell of sickness and my depression, you did so well, actually you did amazing.

I want to promise you that no matter what I will not let those voices in my mind disrespect you, I will love you, nourish you, respect you and treat you well.

I will honor you and acknowledge what you do for me.

I will LOVE you completely even if it takes me forever to do so.

And I promise I will do everything I can to ensure that my daughter never treats the body you helped create the way I treated you.

With Love,

Brittany xx