Body Positive
I'm sure you've heard of the term "body positive" or "body positivity" by now. Or maybe it's because I've invested in finding a way to accept my body that it seems more prevalent to me nowadays.
If you're unfamiliar with the term then let me quickly break it down for you. Body positive is the term people use for being positive about their body. Duh, right? Ok, let's take a little deeper look.
From polling people (mostly women), I've learned that there is a significant level of hatred that people put on themselves about their physical appearance. Whether it be their flabby belly, thunder thighs, cellulite areas, stretch marks, what have you. An area of insecurity floods the brain with negative thoughts. It's really actually unhealthy.
And if I may be honest, I was never really a fan of the movement. At first, I thought it was the ticket (aka excuse) for laziness. Accept your body how it is and you won't have to work on yourself, was my initial thought. To which I felt was complete bullshit. Laziness is most definitely not the answer to happiness. But here is what I learned and hope you can benefit from...
Body positive is defined by YOU. You get to determine how you view and accept your body. For me, I am learning to admire the strength and all the amazingness of my body WHILE I work to be better. That means I'm accepting my body as it is because it housed two children, grew them, kept them alive, delivered them and then fed them - can we say FUCKIN' MACHINE?
My body wakes up every morning, feet to the ground to carry me through the day, my arms allow me to carry and hug my babies. It's finding the reasons to love instead of focusing on all the ways to criticize. My main reason for seeking truth within myself is because I have two daughters now that I want to appreciate their bodies and all their beauty. I don't want them to become a victim of society's standards and that starts with me leading from the front. We learn to hate our bodies and we can learn to love them too.
So yeah, I'm learning to see my body in a totally different way. But that does not discount the fact that I want to fit into my clothes from before kids and feel stronger and get leaner. I'm just learning to love myself through the process. Make sense? Ok, good!
Now if you take nothing else from this blog post, I need you to slow down and read this carefully - MAKE GOOD USE OF THE UNFOLLOW BUTTON. Seriously, clean up your social media. If you find yourself comparing, feeling envious, or like you're not enough - do yourself the favor and unfollow that person! I promise it will make a huge difference.
By learning to make this movement individually defined by me and curb who I follow on social media, this has helped me to find a love that I honestly never thought would be possible. So I encourage you to do the same.
Let me know if you find this to be helpful and don't forget to go over to Instagram and connect with me there. I also have a ladies only Facebook community that is super supportive and absolutely wonderful to be a part of. You can request to join here.
Until next time - you are enough just as you are ♥︎ xo