This time of year especially, when bikini companies’ ads begin flooding into our social media feed, it is so easy to feel bad about yourself. We all know that pictures we see on Instagram are highly edited, yet we choose to view it as the reality we want to suddenly achieve. We still catch ourselves comparing ourselves to the girl on the little 4×4 square on our phone. We still wish we were them.
Even though we know they are not real.
Growing up in today’s society, girls start from a really young age seeing edited and unrealistic images while slowly molding our ideas of beauty into something unachievable. When we are old enough to realize we have been comparing ourselves to edited images, it’s almost like it’s too late. How do I unlearn all my bad habits I slip into constantly?
I hear the sound of girls retching over the toilets after lunch.
I hear the subtle conversations that are held at lunch tables, the ones that include friends backhandedly food-shaming each other.
I watch my feed of “perfect girls” and I suddenly have the desire to learn how to curl my hair, too.
I grew into what I saw and heard, and now it’s hard to re-teach myself, that I am enough and I am beautiful and that the ideas of “perfection” do not exist.
Hopefully, this can be your reminder that you are enough. And I understand. Never doubt your worth. It is worth the journey it takes to get there. Do what makes you feel your best as you construct a new view of beauty.
xoxo