For those who saw it, Neens put up a post of herself on our social channels on 11th July of her in a bikini with the heading Reality Vs. Expectation. I thought it was bloody brave of her and reminded me of a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago that I thought we’d share with you. Remember: Life isn’t about how others make you feel. It’s about how you talk to yourself about yourself.
We hope you enjoy 💜🤘🏼💪🏻👌🏻
I Feel Pretty
IT’S a dreary Sunday afternoon, I’ve just got back from walking the Dollster and we’re both effing soaked. I already have a cold so I’m back in my PJ’s and watched a film. I decided on ‘I Feel Pretty’ with the incredible Amy Schumer. In this movie, she plays us. Those of us who live in a world of poor self belief, shit self esteem, those considered by today’s society as not quite beautiful enough to [still] rock it. Did I settle on this film as it resonates with me? If I’m honest yes. It’s part of my process right now. My journey is simple to state and as hard as pushing loose sand up Snowdon. I am on a journey of acceptance. Not to others. To me. For me.
TO give you some background I work in a REALLY female dominated environment in a REALLY female dominated industry. My office (which is pretty much Fifty Shades of Pink) is bursting at the seems with beautiful, clever, ambitious young women who currently have the world at their pedicured feet. I am making an assumption that they feel this way about themselves too, that they are without the same insecurities that plague me. I am. Because we never really know what goes on in somebody else mind.
WE are told constantly that social media has us comparing ourselves to people who look, live and act a particular way. I gotta tell you girls….that’s not me. I don’t aspire to be like them. I truly don’t. I want one very simple thing and that is for ME to look in the mirror at ME and like, no fuck it, love what stares back at me. To look and think, wow, look at you!
SO is this about getting older? No, I have always felt this way. Am I envious of these girls youth? Of course I am, I’m not stupid. Who wouldn’t want to drink constantly from the foundation of youth? But when I was their age, the girls around me didn’t look like they do now. Oh there were a few but they were the Cindy Crawfords (still gorgeous), the Christy Turlington’s (still gorgeous) and the Naomi Campbells (still nuts, still gorgeous). But they point is there just weren’t so many of them.
AS I watch this film, it occurs to me, that as I get older and have never been that person who great self esteem , if I were to change how I look at myself, would I stay the same person inside? As this film progresses and the central character believes she is suddenly beautiful even though nothing other than a bang to the head has occurred, her personality changes too. She starts to feel ‘sorry’ for her normal looking friends, choosing to dump them so she can immerse herself in a group of ascetically pleasing people who she believes she needs to be part of to be somebody. If you are so consumed by feeling fabulous, being fabulous, do you forget who you really are inside? Do beautiful people not have humility? Of course they do. We are all only human. Sadly, some of us (raise your guilty hand) allow how we feel about ourselves to define who we are.
WATCHING this film is really a snap shot into a conscious path I am taking, albeit without falling off a spin bike and smacking my head. But the part where, one day, I look in the mirror and I like that person, I like how she looks, I like who she is.
THIS is not about doing this for anybody else but for me. I want to be acceptable to me. To see my own beauty. To feel confident. To be brave.
I AM BRAVE, I AM BLONDE, I GOT THIS.
SO these changes I am bringing about in my sub and conscious mind…am I scared? What am I scared of? Is the change in how I view myself making me fearful that I will no longer be me? Have I always just hid in the shadows of myself, put myself in my own prison so I don’t become somebody else? Do we think all beautiful people must also be raging egomaniacs?
THERE is no magic in my journey (but there is magic in my soul) and until I feel it, breathe it, believe it in every way I will never see how beautiful I truly am. Mine is a journey. How fucking cliche is that? My journey is going to be like going round the bloody M25 at 5.30 on a Wednesday afternoon.
THERE are a couple of brilliant lines in this movie. and I am about to bastardise one for you. So listen up and repeat after me: I AM BRAVE, I AM BLONDE (fill in your own blank), I GOT THIS!
SO here’s what I do know. It may not come across on here but I am funny. Like fucking funny. I am THE funniest person I know. Not even shitting you. This is the one thing about myself that I know deep down in my bones and if somebody doesn’t agree with that statement, unlike every other time when I care even though I shouldn’t, I don’t give a rats arse. Because its true.
SO here is Step 1. When somebody tells you that you are beautiful/amazeballs/incredible/thoughtful/kind or funny (it’s okay, you can be funny too!), just say thank you. Acknowledge it. Feel it. See it through their eyes. And feel it all the way down to your toes.
💜dB🤘🏼