Sunday, April 13, 2008


"If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."
-Roald Dahl, The Twits



Most often, the biggest obstacle we face is ourselves. You'd think that with all the other things out there that can make us fail, we'd try and make it as easy as possible for ourselves, but nasty little things like self doubt step up and we find it hard to push things away. I'm beginning to learn that this whole thing--this whole process of losing weight and eating healthy foods and exercising my body--it's not about being sexy. It's not about wearing smaller pants or running longer on the treadmill. It's an exercise of self-love. If I don't do this, every day, out of love for myself, it will be futile. If I don't love myself, at the core of everything, then all of this is for naught. If I wake up each morning, eat good meals and go to the gym and floss, but I tell myself in the very wrinkles of my brain that I'll never make it, that I'll never be strong enough or smart enough for this, for myself, that I'm not worth it, then what's the point? If I can, however, love myself as I deserve to be loved, all the things I work for have greater value, greater importance for myself. If I love myself as much as I deserve, I can begin to believe the little urging in my heart that all of this is worth it.



4 comments:

Andrew is getting fit said...

Great post. I love the quote!

Anniebeth said...

Like Andrew said.... a great post! Well said and so very true.

Kathleen said...

I very much agree! And I guess now that you've blogged after a brief hiatus, I should too...
Too sleepy now, though. But I will have a new one this weekend!

Anonymous said...

Great post, Ashley---very true.

And I love Roald Dahl! I think _Matilda_ is my favorite.