A mom of two is saying no to self-loathing and embracing body love in a powerful way.
On Sunday, mom and HuffPost blogger N'tima Preusser posted five photos and an inspiring caption on Facebook.
Reflecting on the way society tells her to view her postpartum body, Preusser writes in the caption, "These pieces of me are suppose to be gross, and unacceptable and embarrassing."
"I've spent way too long hating myself to waste any more time not loving the thing that I can attribute the most to my survival in this exhausting life," adds the mom, who gave birth to two daughters -- 2-year-old Anabel and 7-month old Olive.
Preusser then shares her vow to love her body, as her vessel for life and survival. "My body is responsible for persuading me to get out of bed when daylight was daunting," writes Preusser, outlining the invaluable ways her body has enhanced her existence.
"I put food in my own dang mouth when my brain had convinced me I didn't deserve to eat," she adds. "My bones have born the weight of two perfect children, and sustained them as long as it was capable."
"And yeah, my hair is falling out in fistfuls. And some things hang lower and softer now that they exist. But my body is my trophy," she concludes. "My scars tell my stories. My body made me a mother, but my babies made me a woman. This figure is mine."
In the photos, Preusser wears a wearing a "Mom Bod Babe" shirt from her friend Kait Villegas-Payne's empowering T-shirt company babe.wear. The mission of babe.wear is to "help women highlight their biggest insecurities and own them in the most bold and beautiful way," Preusser told The Huffington Post.
"I was gifted the 'Mom Bod Babe' shirt, and I used the opportunity to write about what that means to me," the mom added, noting that she wrote an "ode" to her postpartum body after her first daughter was born and was happy to reiterate those messages after the recent birth of her second daughter.
"I've always been passionate about body image as that is something I struggled with the most growing up," she continued. "I've never loved my body more than I do now that I've learned how forgiving it is after building my daughters."
Ultimately, Preusser hopes her Facebook post can help other moms appreciate their bodies for the stories they tell and see them for all that they are instead of all that they are not. However, she doesn't want to make anyone feel badly for not having achieved that.
"Loving yourself, completely, is a process," she told HuffPost. "It's OK to desire health, and comfort and confidence in our bodies if that means external change. But, I believe, loving yourself wholly is, ultimately, the first step in achieving any of that."
Hear, hear.
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