This girl always bring summer vibes what ever the weather ❤️ • A G L A E • is beautiful for @soiparis . . . #summervibes #fashion #style #fashion #bodypostitive #beautiful #model #modelswithcurves https://www.instagram.com/p/B2UWiA7g9KQ/?igshid=1wvee0h77fjpa
I overheard something the other day that made me stop and think. I overheard a woman who I respect – a high-level corporate in a successful business, with a lovely family, with a nice house and holidays every other month – brazenly talking about how unhappy she was.
If you share the thought process of the sane, logical half of my brain, you’ll recognise how ludicrous this seems – what on earth could this woman have to be unhappy about? Freed from all of the traditional stress-factors that could define her (lack of money, family struggles, an insecure position at work), what more could she possibly want? Inevitably, it was that central, very un-traditional stress factor that was defining her – her weight, and her body-image.
And unfortunately, the other, irrational, constantly nagging side of my brain understood her completely. Why are none of the other successes in her life enough to stop her feeling that nagging self-doubt that is so prevalent amongst the women I meet? Why is the size of her thighs enough to send all of her other achievements into the shade? “I’m in my late 50s now, and I’m still not happy, and it’s tiring,’ she said.
I reeled. I imagined how it would feel if thirty years from now I’m still struggling in the constant war I fight every day, just to feel comfortable in taking up space. I felt exhausted just thinking about it.
But she wasn’t alone.
Sure enough, all the other women in the vicinity soon began to express their own worries and body hang-ups. From the junior with a poster stuck to her desk proclaiming that ‘when you eat bread, Ryan Gosling is sad’, to the team member who has a picture of her skinnier self of two summers ago taped to the wall, ‘DON’T CHEAT’ scrawled across it, this culture of ‘not enough’ seemed to surround me, at least from a self-love perspective.
It made me sad. If all I could do in that moment was to advise them to get themselves onto Instagram and fill their heads with #bopo, then that’s all I could do. I wish there was more I could do. Because every woman who chooses to stop letting her body define her happiness, her success, define her, is another member of this team I want to be part of. And that makes Ryan Gosling sad, let him cry.
I’ve been called fat, crazy and an angry black women. From Rejection to Not Wife Material 👰🏾 But WTF I look like believing that or Living any part of my life based on those opinions 🤷🏾♀️😝 #selfloveSaturday Don’t Believe the Hype Love ❤️ Life I went from Victim to Survivor to Thriving What’s Next? You Decide . . . . #selflove#selfloveisthebestlove#selflovejourney#workinprogress #sayyestoyou #bodypostitive positivity#bodypositive #antibodyshamingzone #acceptance #lovingallofme #blackmommagic #blackmomskillingit #blackmoms #blackmommagic (at Smoothie King) https://www.instagram.com/p/Byu-dFlgNj-/?igshid=1no99o3n960ox