How true is this statement for you?

How often do you say this about yourself?

How honest are you with how you see yourself?

When I was growing up, I was a tomboy. I had a HUGE extended family and being noticed or seen, wasn’t a big priority for me. In fact being the shy, unnoticed mouse worked in my favour (it meant that I got out of doing chores most of the time!).

My wardrobe at the time consisted of shorts, big baggy shirts, and more shorts. I didn’t own a dress (my school uniform didn’t count, because I HAD to wear that so I didn’t get detention!) and skirts…..well, I wasn’t a huge fan of them either.

In a way, it kinda made sense to me, because my sisters and my cousins were less likely to “borrow” any of my clothes because they were so tomboyish. And we don’t think much about it at the time, but I obviously knew I was a girl……I just chose to never act like one!

Then puberty hit! And like most girls, I went through the (ab)normal body changes, the scary thought I was literally bleeding to death (when I was only getting my menstrual cycle for the first time….phew that shit was so scary!), and I started to see and take much more notice of all my features in my mirror.

BUT…..I still wore baggy clothes. I still wore shorts everyday. And I still never owned a dress.

Looking back now, I know that I was ashamed.

I was ashamed of how my body was “filling” out and that if anyone made any comments at all about how I looked, I HATED IT and would change what I was wearing, so you couldn’t ‘see‘ the shape of my body at all. I really should just have put a sheet over my head, come to think about it! Lol.

But as we get older, we become more wiser.

And we learn to be kinder to ourselves. But it isn’t easy!

I am 48yrs old, a savvy business woman, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and being kind to myself and how I look, is STILL an everyday practice for me.

And if you think that those young, slim, gorgeous girls you see AREN’T having a hard time learning to love their bodies…..YOU ARE SO WRONG!

If anything, they have it SOOOO much harder. Have you seen the endless spiral of social media posts out there that feature hot supermodel shaped women, with a lush mane of hair, perfect skin and fuller defined lips?

I guess the moral of my tale today is to remind you that people will change and the newer, hotter more updated versions of women will always be ready and available to stand in the spotlight.

But you need to stop treating yourself as an afterthought. And stop with the body bashing, hate saying crap that you and your head tell yourself. Eat delicious food. Swim in a bikini without a t-shirt on. Walk around your house butt-naked and shimmy your ass off to your favourite songs. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. And learn to love the smell of “Don’t Fuck With Me” in the mornings.

Start BELIEVEING that you love yourself AND that you love your body.

WE owe it to every young girl out there, who is watching me and you in our daily lives, to do and SAY this to ourselves. So that they become self-aware that there is nothing at all wrong with them. Don’t you wish that you had this growing up too??

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