So I am sitting here with tears streaming down my face as I type. Like I did the ugly cry 5 seconds ago type cry.
It all started this morning when I got an email from a girl who wanted to purchase some shorts but was too embarrassed to leave her size in a comment for everyone to see and from there I turned into a hot mess.
I started The Tailored Market because I wanted to create a space where ALL the bodies & ALL the sizes could come shop and feel comfortable. I wanted to try and take the power out of the number or the size and just let people shop knowing at the end of the day it is just a number and just a size and here we want you to come as you are. The number doesn't give any kind of measurement for the person you are. It just doesn't and it never will.
A few months ago I started really struggling with my body image. I got an IUD after my last baby and I put on 18 lbs within the first 6 weeks of having it. It was really, really hard for me to look in the mirror at myself and if I did I became super mean to the image staring back at me. I pulled out every trick in the book I learned in eating disorder recovery and not much was helping me shift my focus. One day I came across an article where a mother shared an experience with her daughter and how she shifted her focus from always being hard on her to choosing to love her through the hard moments by simply reminding herself to "Choose Love Today." and for some reason that hit me like a ton of bricks. Not only did it apply to parenting & strangers on the street it applied to me and my body too. I could choose to hate it. I could sit in front of the mirror and pick it apart and cry and scream and the only thing that would change was how deep & dark the hole to self hatred would get. So I made it a goal whenever I found myself engaging in horribly mean self talk I would take 2 deep breaths and say out loud "only LOVE today Kallie. Choose LOVE today."
Here is the thing my friends- we will have babies, we will go through hard things and turn to food or not to food, we will age, we will get sick, we will get healthy and through all of those things our bodies will change and most of those things we can't help, but what can remain a constant in our lives is choosing to see ourselves clearly through and underneath it all.
So today when you find yourself being mean to others and especially yourself I hope you will remember to choose love, because in this house, in this moment and in THIS body there will be ONLY LOVE TODAY!!!!
PS...I LOVE this saying so much I am in the process of making it into a 4x4 wooden sign to hang in my family room as a reminder to choose love in every situation if I can. I also loved it so much when I started working on my packaging with a friend we included it on our inspirational quote tags, along with 40 other inspiring quotes because I want you to have a reminder when the package comes there is so much MORE to you than a silly number. I am hoping in some way it will make you smile & brighten your day when you open it. (These tags will be here in the next couple of weeks and I can't wait to show you them and get them on your packages!)