Let’s Talk Body Image

Okay guys! How many of you have experienced a ‘Bad body image day’ ?

I’m guessing a few?

You poke and prod at the parts you don’t like. Maybe it’s your belly, maybe it’s your thighs, maybe it’s your arms, Maybe it’s EVERYTHING! You’re left feeling more and more defeated as you continue staring at your poor body.

I was in this position today! (oh my goodness). I felt great when I woke up, I’d had a wonderful weekend away and I was spending the day with my best friend,  then everything changed. I was sitting down in a bikini, I looked down, I panicked! Full on anxiety about how my tummy rolled and my thighs jiggled, how I wasn’t ‘buff’ or ‘toned’ like all those people on social media (helloooo comparison, you’re not wanted here). I was judging myself so harshly and convincing myself that everyone who would see me would be positively horrified at my appearance (how self obsessed of me). I just went straight back to that place, hating everything about myself. How can you go from feeling on top of the world to feeling so horrible in just a few seconds?

I sat with these feelings determined not to let this ruin my day. I sat and I kept looking at the parts of my body that we, as a society has been taught to dislike and cover up if they don’t fit into these unrealistic standards that everyone has been so brainwashed by. Hey I don’t have abs, that’s okay! I don’t have a large chest, guess what… That’s okay too! My thighs touch and my arms aren’t toned. You guessed it, that’s all perfectly fine!

We need to remember that no 2 bodies on this earth are the same, we are not made to be the same, we are beautifully individual and I think over the years, we have lost that vision. We spend so much time comparing everything about our lives to others who we think ‘have it better.’ Better holidays, better relationships, better bodies. The need to be thinnest, the most successful, the best. Let’s be realistic here, all those people with the lives we think are so amazing or the bodies we think are so perfect have bad days too. Those half naked pictures of amazingly sculpted bodies are no more of a reality than me being able to ride a unicorn. They are primped and preened within an inch of their lives, sucked in and touched up to  look the best they possibly can. We have been so brainwashed by this ridiculous notion that we all need to look this way to be worthy or lovable and it simply isn’t true.

So next time you’re sat in a changing room looking at your belly rolls, or you’re at home in front of your mirror picking out flaws just remind yourselves that our bodies are changing constantly, we will all have days where we feel bloated or ‘out of sorts’, when our favourite outfits don’t quite look right and our self esteem is lacking. But what we must remember is that this is the only body we will ever have and it doesn’t need to change! What needs to change is the pure nonsense that we are swamped with daily telling us that ‘there’s a cream to sort that’ or ‘an exercise to fix this’ or ‘a diet to solve all your problems.’

This is the body that healed me from cuts and bruises, the body that was tortured, starved, cried over daily, the body that healed me from heartbreak and carried me through every single upset that I’ve ever faced and you know what? It still works! It still cares about me, It still tries to fix me even after all the awful things I’ve put it through. Our bodies don’t hold grudges, so the best thing we can do is let it continue to grow and change, let it breathe.

You are more than your made up flaws, you are more than all the negativity you fill your mind up with. Stop comparing, stop wishing away the body that has brought you this far. Just stop. Breathe. And accept.