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It’s like rolling a marble down a sand-dune...
Mon, 1st Aug 2011
FYI, this story is more than a year old

My journey towards health and over-all well-being began about a year and a half ago after I was left broken hearted, with a shattered self-esteem. My journey started with a simple truth: I looked in the mirror and decided no one could possibly love me in my present state. I decided to make use of the gym membership I'd had for some three years, and I took on a personal trainer.A year and a half on, I now know how fundamentally flawed that one perceived truth that started it all really was. I have realised that I did not need affirmation of my goodness as a person to come from the outside, but that I needed to find the strength within myself to be able to recognise and love myself for it.Committing myself to something such as a personal trainer has taught me how entrenched in guilt my life and daily mantras really are. This journey has taught me to be far more self-aware than I've ever been before, and as such I realised that guilt and the way I believe people perceive me was ruling my life. And I felt guilty for feeling guilty.My exploration of guilt started with food and weight, and the way the media viciously circulates this holy ideal that we're all supposed to live up to. The media does not teach us that there's no such thing as ‘good food' or ‘bad food' – it teaches us that fat is bad and must be banished. That fat people must strive to be thin, that thin people must strive to be even thinner. You must feel guilty for caving into that craving, or for having to buy a pair of jeans a size bigger than your last.I started my blog because, although my battle with guilt and my journey to rid my life of it felt like a hugely personal one, I know that I am not alone. It's not easy trying to be what everyone else wants you to be, or what you BELIEVE they want you to be (more importantly). It's an affliction both men and women have, and I've realised that, nine times out of ten, we're actually our own worst critics. I'm sharing my journey towards enlightenment and love in the hopes that I may inspire the same goal in others.