photo of Jade by Gastelum Studio

This photo was taken this past weekend at a groundbreaking event that I was invited to speak at called Tedx Pitic: one of Mexico's few legit Ted talk happenings and the first ever Tedx in Hermosillo, Mexico.

If I had looked at this photo 3 years ago I would have cringed and then sobbed in agony. "I look so fat! Look at that double chin! WHY did I wear that," would have been the cruel thoughts tearing carelessly at my already fragile self-esteem.

Thank goodness I have worked relentlessly over the last 3 years to love myself completely. Rolls, double chin, rouge pimples and all.

I have chosen to disempower the word "fat." It means nothing to me now. It's like saying "eyebrow" or "fingernails." It's a part of life and it does not own me. I own me. And I own my precious self esteem and I worship my body that has seen me through 34 heart-wrenching and glorious years on this planet just like I worship a sequoia tree and fresh water streams and dolphins jumping in Bahia de Banderas and just like I worship you. We are all manifestations of life, thats just a basic fact so many of us tend to forget.

I took this photo of myself in my dirty mirror 3 years ago. I was thin, but still did not know about the power of self love. I wasted precious time obsessing over every single thing I consumed and I weighed myself religiously every single morning which determined how much I would hate myself that particular day.

Here is some backstory. I learned, like way too many of us do, that my appearance and my beauty and later my sexiness determined my overall success. I blindly bought into the industry's message of deficit mentality who profit by the millions of dollars by tearing down my self-esteem by convincing me that I need things to be phenomenal and worthy. I agreed to the system that bombardes me with billboards and adds in bathroom stalls and on the subways in New York that if I just bought this one thing, i would FINALLY be beautiful and worthy of someone else's love.

That's the key: worthy of someone else's love is what we think is the goal with this precious life. When all I really needed was my own damn love.

So I agreed, for nearly 22 years, to try and literally squeeze myself into someone else's idea of beautiful, someone that I didn't even know! And I also agreed to be a prisoner to my self created jail until I decided, that is to say until I chose to stop believing that disempowering and more importantly UNTRUE story.

Now I believe that I am awesome and that my rolls are as gorgeous as the rolling hills in Vermont in the late summer. I am sacred just like Jacaranda tree on the Malecòn in Puerto Vallarta and I am glorious, just like you.

This is me in 6th grade with my girls in Yelapa Mexico in what's called 'La Escolta." You have to be the smartest in your class to be in the Escolta. It's a big freakin' deal. But all I knew is that I was pudgy, that I had a 'big' forehead and awkward feet, that I had blackheads and my clothes were so not cool and mostly stained. I wasted tons of time wishing I was someone else, specifically a thin girl with that kind of pore-less skin that I saw in teen magazines back in the USA and even on the magazine racks in Rizo's supermercado in Puerto Vallarta. I did not know that pore-less skin was a result of airbrushing and later photoshop but I did know it taught me to not like the girls in the photos or anyone that resembled them and to hate myself.

Fast forward a few decades and a half and I give birth to a beautiful little boy, gain 50 pounds, 30 of which just WILL NOT GO AWAY and I am the most successful I have ever been. Fat, filled with self love and happy to be free from the prison of my learned self-loathing:

last 2 photos by Gastelum Studio

So here are 4 things that I have learned, after a life lived being bullied, being sexually abused and being taught to loathe myself just the way I am:

1.) I am precious and I have a superpower called forgiveness.

2.) When I love myself completely, rolls, pimples and all, I love this life more completely. I love you more completely.

3.) When I love myself and others wholeheartedly, I develop successful relationships which then lead to phenomenal opportunities like publishing a book, raising nearly $80,000 to publish the book, and giving 3 Tedx Talks in under 6 months among a whole bunch of other blessings.

4.) My photographs dominate the google search "A Beautiful Body."

Our diversity makes this life beautiful. And when we can love our entire selves inside and out, then we trust the rest of the world and we can love our sisters. It's not enough to just be kind and compliment others, we MUST compliment ourselves. It's amazing, trust me.

photo by Jade Beall

Jade would like to deeply thank the TedxPitic crew for the most phenomenal weekend of spreading ideas that matter. For more information on Ted Talks in Hermosillo visit their FB page!