During the month of July, I’ve been writing for Spring about self care with regard to our bodies and weight.

I’ve written about accepting what we perceive as our flaws – celebrating those bumps, curves, speckles and scars that we’d otherwise wish away. Our bodies are perfect only in their guaranteed imperfection.

I’ve encouraged letting ourselves off the hook about being nutrition experts and gym rats. Being active is great, but you’re not getting into heaven because you run five times a week and nobody cares how many crunches you can do. I needed the soapbox for that one.

And last, but never least, I’ve talked about how we are each uniquely suited to embrace the body we’ve been given, no matter the challenges it may bring us.

So when I sat down a few days ago to write my fourth and final column about loving our bods instead of beating them up, I realized that my entire philosophy on the subject boils down to one idea: Confidence.

At 265 pounds and wearing a size 24 pants, I was confident about no more than a handful of my personality traits. I knew I was smart and funny, I knew I could string together some words on a page. I knew I was a good friend and a hearty eater.

…But those pretty much exhausted my list. I hated my body, my lifestyle choices, my failures. And I would have been hard pressed to come up with more pluses. Good speller? Lover of cats? Could drive?

Buried beneath all that weight and pain was a young woman with an untapped reserve of delightful traits. But I possessed none of the confidence to allow them to rise to the surface. That put me miles away from accepting my own flaws or embracing my unique blah blah whatever the hell.

Losing 115 pounds isn’t what made me confident. What ultimately changed me was realizing I would never be perfect, realizing I’d always be a wonderfully messy work in progress. It was then that I chose to be proud of who I am without condition.

I say “chose” because it was a choice. I decided to trust that being confident (even when I wasn’t feeling it) would serve me better than feeling bad about myself all the time.

I had to make an active decision to turn off the nasty critic that plagued my every move. She sat smugly inside my head sipping bitter coffee and reading the Wall Street Journal over her half moon spectacles.

“Nice thighs. Look at your arms. You can’t wear dresses like that. You love to eat, that’s your problem. Why won’t you workout more often? You need to lose 20 pounds by the fall. You gained two pounds last week. You ate pizza all weekend! You’ll never do this.”

What a witch.

Replacing that critic with unconditional confidence was a process, but it has now served me so well that I wonder how I ever got by without it.

Perhaps confident self love could be perceived by a less secure person as arrogance, but I can promise you it’s nothing close. I am a wellspring of flaws and they humble me daily. But I choose to forgive myself for being human.

Having confidence in who I am physically and in the choices I make for my health brings me so much more peace than spending my time always wishing things were different, “starting over” every day, hoping I’ll try harder tomorrow, and dwelling in the minutia of how many miles run, how many pounds gained or lost, how my butt looks in those shorts.

Self care is about being confident in who you are today, without condition. If you don’t step up to the plate and decide that you’re good enough, why should anyone else? We teach people how to treat us.

Instead of teaching people that you’re too fat, too thin, too old, too unmotivated, or any of the rest of that critical noise, teach people how lovely you truly are, without condition.

Jen Curran is a writer, comedienne, and baker living in Brooklyn, NY. Jen recently quit her "boring desk job" at a law firm to pursue what makes her happiest, and she chronicles the inspiring, messy, colorful journey on her popular blog "follow my bliss." Besides spending her time as a freelance writer, Jen also owns the boutique wholesale bakery, Fanny & Jane, she's a member of the award-winning sketch comedy group, Harvard Sailing Team, and she performs improv comedy at The PIT in NYC. She draws inspiration from her two zen cats, her talented, supportive boyfriend, her big, boisterous family, and from a sincere belief that anything we put our minds to becomes instantly possible.