CONFESSION: I have bad self image days too.
Yes, me. Even though I am constantly telling girls how enough they are.
I am human. And people tell me their opinions about my body. And sometimes I have to remind MYSELF who the fuck I am.
This shit is hard. It shouldn’t be, but it is.
So. If you’re trying to get into a better mental health relationship with your body, here are some of the things that I think are useful to try:
- Follow girls with similar bodies to you on Instagram/TikTok and unfollow diet culture accounts.
Unfollow girls with unrealistic body types if you find yourself comparing yourself or feeling depressed after spending time on social media and look for girls similar to you. I was in literal tears when I found the midsize community. As being someone who has always been “too fat” to be skinny and “too small” to be plus size, it’s been so frustrating to feel like I belonged in any community of women my size. It’s been frustrated trying to find flattering clothes that aren’t meant for my body type and feeling comfortable in what I do choose to wear. Following confident girls with a similar body type to me, showing off what they love to wear and being comfortable in their own skin has definitely improved my own self confidence and self image.
Here’s a good place to start:
#riotsnotdiets , #effyourbeautystandards , #bopowarrior , #bodypositivity , #fatacceptance , #HAES , #honormycurves , #radicalbodyacceptance
2. Feel your body
We aren’t suppose to love our squishyness and tiger stripes but you have the right to. Try to feel your body, like actually FEEL it. Feel the softness of your skin, the texture of your hair, the curves of your body. Work on releasing the negative associations that have you have been conditioned into believing by touching your body with kindness and curiosity.
3. Allow yourself to exist in photos.
When someone takes a photo of you, or you take a photo of yourself., promise yourself that you will try not to pick it apart. That you will allow yourself to exist in photos because your life is worth documenting. When you go to smile, try to smile from a place of joy and let it come out of your face. Take a photograph saying, I may not be perfect but I am perfect as I am and my life is worth being captured.
4. Wear what you want to.
Wearing something that shows off your arms, when you’ve always tried to hide them, or that lets your tummy peek out, when you’ve always tried to cover it, can be terrifying. But exhilarating and freeing at the same time. Practice naming that emotion excitement instead of fear. I know that wearing something you’re totally uncomfortable in can feel brave, but realize that it shouldn’t be. You should be allowed to wear whatever it is you want.
5. Do a boudoir shoot.
I’m a boudoir photographer, so yes, I have to include this. But doing my own boudoir photos is honestly what got me into doing them for other women. When I was at my heaviest weight, I was feeling extremely disconnected from my body. Seeing my body back through my self portraiture was empowering and transformed how I showed up on a day to day basis. Seeing yourself in nothing but lingerie, or nothing at all and being surprisingly okay with how you look, is healing. I love to give girls an album of their own favorite photos so they always have something to look back on and remind them how badass, beautiful, and enough they are, if they ever forget.
6. Thank your body
Take a second to appreciate all that your body allows you to do. For allowing you to see, touch, feel, and hear. Don’t compare the body you have now to a body that you have had in the past. Thank that same body for transforming with you and carrying you through all of the different stages of your life.
7. Talk to yourself like you would to a friend.
Would you call your friend ugly or stupid? If you wouldn’t say it to a loved one, don’t say it to yourself. You are your most important loved one. So practice being kind to yourself and letting judgmental thoughts pass by.
8. Try to see yourself as something that cannot be compared.
Think of the family and people in your life that you love. How they are all so unique which different reasons why you love each of them. Realize that there are reasons people love you, even if you’re not sure what is unique about you.
9. Know that your worth cannot be taken from you by diet culture and societal expectations.
It is innate and unwavering. You are always loveable and worthy no matter the number on a scale or how you’re perceived by others.
10. Know that you are fighting an industry that profits from you hating yourself.
They WANT you to think that something is wrong with you all of the time so they can sell you the answer. They want you to think that if you have this, or buy this, or are more this, that you will be enough, and it’s sickening. It’s complete bullshit and you are free to refuse to believe that you are anything than enough exactly as you are right now.
If you’d like to feel more connected to girls on the same journey, come join our community of body positive warriors. It’s somewhere that you can chat about having a rough self love day and share when you feel unaplogetically great about yourself.
In a world that is trying to convince you that you’re not enough, trying to change that is BRAVE. And you deserve to feel like the perfectly imperfect badass QUEEN that you are.
Leave a comment: What is something that you do to feel better in your own skin? <3
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