How I Became My Own Role Model
Growing up I never felt that I belonged. There was always something wrong with me,
I wasn’t beautiful or skinny or girly, or cool enough. I longed to be anyone but myself. I looked at my sister with her perfect body, and my best friend who was desired by all men, and felt invisible.
Suffering with an eating disorder and torturing my body for years, I begged therapists to save me. I begged them to help me stop doing this to myself,
‘I’ll do anything just tell me how’ I would say.
And then my art therapist said something that cemented deep into mind; something that I would never forget. She told me that I am my own hero, I’m the only one who can save myself, I can spread my wellness wings and fly.
After years of fighting and resisting, constantly repeating old habits, and wondering why I was stuck on this hamster wheel, I remembered what she said to me, and I repeated it to myself.
I am my own hero; my body is my best friend.
I am love,
I am beautiful,
I am worthy.
So instead of shooting bullets at my body with my mind and with other self-destructive behaviors, I became my own role model.
But what I learned through this painful yet empowering journey of self-discovery and healing is that life is not a straight path. Small steps are the biggest triumphs and every day I am learning something new. The map is not clear; there are many obstacles and branches in the way; there are harsh storms, deep floods, and steep mountains to climb. I fall off the path, but then I find my way back. I trip and stumble, I go up the ladder, and then back down the snake. Yet with each dark night that arrives, a new star shines even brighter in the sky to light the way.
By being my own role model and learning that this experience happened for a reason, I became that for other strong, beautiful women who couldn’t see their light and their power.
I long to continue to help women end the war with their bodies, and to learn to love themselves and see themselves for the goddesses that they are.
When we truly surrender, the healing arrives. Something that I learnt, is that being a role model doesn’t mean that you must be perfect.
I used to worry that when I coached women, I had to have all my shit together, and that because I am still on a journey, that I was a fraud, but I am human. I am perfectly imperfect, I am flawed and cracked too, and with each piece of the puzzle I put together, it makes a beautiful mosaic.
‘There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.’ - Leonard Cohen
By: Georgia Barnett
A content writer and life coach from the U.K, living in Tel Aviv. Using her own experience and personal journey as inspiration, she focuses on coaching women who are struggling with eating disorders or negative relationships with their bodies. Her passion is to help women discover their inner power, and to help them learn to love their bodies and themselves.
Find out more about her on Instagram and be inspired for her page Happy Hippie Health.
