Body confidence seems to be a particularly popular subject for bloggers right now, which is great when it encourages girls, women and men to feel good about themselves. It can also bring up feelings of self doubt when I struggle to feel 100% confident with myself. People assume that because I pose in front of a camera this means I must love myself and be confident (which I can see why they think that) but in my case it’s the opposite and I will explain why. Maybe make yourself a cuppa, this is a long one.
Social Media Acceptance
I honestly think a lot of people love social media and blogging for getting acceptance from others. Not many people would openly admit that but I actually don’t see that as a negative thing at all. Personally, I blog because I am extremely passionate about having a creative outlet, but of course I also do it because I care about what people think of the outcome. The majority of the human race are just after self acceptance from others and social media has driven this desire to the point where we question ourselves more regularly, as well as comparing ourselves to others.
Some of the blog posts I have read on body confidence (Sophie‘s one for example) question this idea of comparison to others and the effect of social acceptance among younger generations. Most of the time I don’t question it, it is so easy to forget that we (us bloggers) are openly expressing ourselves publicly to potentially 1000’s of people. That is until I see a body confidence posts and then I find myself thinking about how I feel about myself and why I do all of these things on the internet. I am perfectly okay with how I portray myself, being that it’s fairly personal and realistic to how I live as I don’t tend to sugarcoat much of my content (especially on Twitter)!
Personal reasons
My reasons for having fairly low confidence is that of my health background; you all know I suffer with Crohns Disease, and with that can come a lot of self struggles. Things that can come from it are weight issues, anxiety, pain, scarring and more complex things in between. I had an operation when I was 15 which left large scars on my belly, which have now faded really well, but of course I still see them and judge myself because of them.
I’m not a typical bikini model blogger who posts holiday snaps in my bikini, far from it. I tried to take some pretty Pinterest worthy snaps on holiday this year and nearly found myself in a rage of tears because I have definitely over indulged on cake. Regardless of this, I know i’m not ‘ugly’ (what even is that anyway) and I also know I can take a good photo.. this comes with practising my babein poses, of course!
Learning to accept it
So my issue with the topic of body confidence is that it needs to be realistic, it’s not just about loving yourself as a whole, it’s about loving parts of yourself and embracing them. I may not be the most popular, skinniest or quite frankly nicest person in the blogging sphere but I know I have good points and I also have points I don’t like about myself.
I can either learn to accept the negatives (which quite frankly isn’t going to happen) or I can actually embrace the parts I do like and show them off more, so that’s what I have decided to do. No women in my opinion will ever be 100% satisfied with how they look and feel and that is quite simply a part of life. Once I became aware of that I also became comfortable that I do have a complete lack of body confidence, but that is OKAY.
As long as we stop judging one another, saying mean things and bringing people down then life will carry on, balanced and healthy. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to be ‘body confident‘ just learn to love the parts of yourself you do already like and the rest shouldn’t matter, so don’t dwell or overthink things.
Thanks for reading. Go do something you love and stop looking at yourself thinking you NEED to be body confident. Let me know what you think in the comments and what your opinions are.
“Body confidence doesn’t come from trying to achieve the perfect body, it comes from embracing the one you have already got”
Lingerie Set – c/o Freya
xxx