It’s ok to not be perfect – no one is.

I always have to try hard to remember that no matter which stage of the fat acceptance journey I am in, I am still fallible. I can still have moments of self-loathing. I can still have moments where I feel like being fat is the worst thing in the world. I still have these moments, and many more that I would guess that many others in the fat acceptance community feel.

No one person is perfect, and trying to live up to an expectation of perfection is stifling, trust me. I can have these moments and then guilt myself more because I’ve failed as a fat person to accept myself. What I should be doing is accepting that I have achieved by recognising that my thought process was not what I want it to be.

It is very easy to get swept up in the idea that everything you do has to be success. I learn by failure so that I can have success. It’s awesome when things go right and as long as when things go wrong, I take away some new information that I can put to good use, then really I still have achieved success, just not the success that I was planning.

Why am I telling you all this? I don’t want you to feel alone. I want you to read from a real person who doesn’t get it right all the time. I sometimes get lost in the small things that trouble me and forget the big picture. I feel awful because I had a moment where I felt fat and hated myself, yet really it’s just part of my personal journey towards total self-acceptance. It is one that might take forever, but the bumps along the way are not something to get stuck on.

So when I’m having a bad fat acceptance day, I now allow myself to feel those feelings. I then work out why I’m feeling that way, and what I can do to improve the situation. Sometimes it is as simple as realising that it is ok to feel things because I’ve been conditioned to feel that way. By realising this, I can condition myself to react the way I want to react. Sometimes I seek out Natalie (my fat acceptance guru™) and talk it through with her. Sometimes I don’t like what I hear because I’m not ready to hear it, but in time I’ve learned that I just need to take it in and mull over it. Eventually it makes sense, either as something I can use now or something I can store for later.

I think it’s important to accept that I am imperfect, and just try to be the best that I can be.