Just a Vessel

So I have been thinking today about something. My body is only a vessel for the person inside. My body is not me and says nothing about me. When I was obese I was the same person as I am now that I am underweight ( a little less mature but still the same person). I feel like the reason I have never accepted my body is because I have never been sure of myself. I have never thought that someone could love someone like me. I mean I am a hippie, animal rights, liberal living in a Southern Baptist Republican state full of people who love to kill animals and hang them on their wall. I have always been picked on for being the Jesus Freak or the Hippie. When my mom started commenting on my body and how it wasn't good enough, that is something I figured I could change to get people to like me. I mean it worked. I lost weight, my mom's family applauded me, I gained weight, they turned their backs on me....it seemed logical.
So in walked anorexia. I mean if I kept losing would people just keep on liking me more and more. Maybe if they liked me enough I could like myself. This is where I went wrong.
 I need to learn to like me for me. Not because other people like me, not because guys are or aren't attracted to me, not because I get the right grades or say the right things or believe the right things, but because I am me. Then my body won't matter as much. Then I will reach the point where I see my body is just what holds my spirit, my being, me inside. People can judge my body and it won't matter because my body isn't me. Heck, people can judge me and it won't matter because I will know who I am is good enough because it is who the Creator designed me to be. I mean it would be nice to accept my body but I don't think I will until I accept myself. If I can't accept the person in the mirror then I won't be able to accept the body in the mirror. Honestly I just fixate on my body and getting it perfect so that I don't have to focus on who I am. I can't change who I am so I don't want to look at that piece of me because if I don't like it, there's nothing I can do about it.
I am also scared to like who I am. To just be me. If I get comfortable will i let myself go, will I stop caring and go to the other extreme with my body and then have this whole cycle start again. Also, if I accept myself I will have to accept that some people won't accept me. For a people pleaser like me that's just hard to do. I want to help everyone and I can't help someone if they don't accept me.Then again, people not accepting me means nothing about me.
Case and point. I look at a pit bull and I see a beautiful, courageous, loving dog that I just want to snuggle with. Most of society looks at the same pit bull and sees an ugly creature to be feared. It is the same dog, nothing has changed about it and there are two opinions. Does this mean the dog is loving, I am right, and everyone else is wrong? Or does it mean the dog is vicous, everyone else is right, and I am wrong? Neither. Our opinions of the dog mean nothing of the dog. If the pit licks me it loves me, if it bites me it may be vicious, but its not that way because of our judgement of it.
So if people's judgements of me don't mean anything about me the only judgement that matters of me is my own. That can define who I am. If I accept me, I will show my true colors, I will be happy, I will be confident. If I continue down this road of condemnation I will end up unhappy, insecure, and most likely dead. It's gonna be a hard road, but I am tired of focusing on the vessel and not focusing on myself. I really am not a bad person and that's what scares me. I am loveable, I am acceptable and yet people don't accept me. It's not because of my body though and as I gain weight I won't lose my friends, because they don't love me for my body. They love me for me. Now I need to do the same. I need to stop hating myself for my body and start loving myself for me.