Scary Self-Love

Hello beautiful! Today we’re going to talk about the positively terrifying topic of body positivity and self-love.

Something I’m a big fan and supporter of is the gorgeous, amazing, body positivity/self-love campaign that is sweeping the internet. People like Gala Darling, Jes Baker and Meghan Tonjes have made me feel so sparkly, I feel like they’ve opened up my head and poured a load of glitter inside! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this movement or have some negative pre-conceptions about it, I’d like to briefly mention that there is a difference between self-love and narcissism/arrogance, but more on that later…

Now this is something I find super scary to talk about, because it’s so much easier to not openly express any joy in who I am because then I don’t expose myself to hear about my shortcomings from others. People will say what they say either way, potatoes gonna potate haters gonna hate amirite?! But when you tell people you love yourself, it can add fuel to that fire. Regardless of this though, I want to add my voice to the mix. The more people that come forward and start talking about this wonderful, positive stuff the further it spreads and the more people can start to feel awesome.

Now, I’m not at a point where I truly love myself. It’s a sad thing to accept, but I think realising it is important and starting the journey to improve your relationship with yourself is courageous, so any of y’all out there doing this shit, WELL DONE. I think it’s important to be honest about myself and my insecurities – not to gain pity or to fish for compliments – but to give an idea of where I’m starting, to let anyone else who shares these feelings know that they’re not alone and that it’s all gonna be ok!

Thanks to the wonderful ladies I mentioned above and a variety of awesome Instagram accounts all about self-love and body acceptance, I feel pretty good about how I look a lot of the time. But some not-so-happy stuff seeps in from time to time. For instance, I do not have a thigh gap and sometimes that can get to me! But then one morning a few months ago, I was sitting on the floor with some lovely cats and they were being all cuddly in my lap and I was smiling away… And I realised that these cats don’t give two shits whether my thighs have a gap or not and they’re happy using my legs as a cushion exactly as they are. My legs are useful and they give joy to little kitties who wanna snuggle! Maybe that sounds very strange, but it’s things like this I try to focus on rather than comparing myself to others. Our bodies let us do all the wonderful stuff we love doing and whether you’re slim or curvy you are beautiful exactly as you are.

Now, more on Gala Darling. I recently bought her book and I LOVE it. In this wonderful book of hers, she suggests taking yourself on self-love dates. You go out on your own and do something fun like go see a movie, go shopping, whatever you like! So last week I decided to take her advice, and gave myself £10 to go shopping with. I thought I would share with you my tiny, self-love date on a budget haul haha! I bought a gorgeous smelling bath bomb from Lush, Popcorn lip scrub from Lush and a lip brush (my lipsticks keep breaking and I am lacking in the brush department…) Call me boring if you like but hey, I had a great time. I picked stuff that’d make me feel looovely and spending time alone out and about was strangely thrilling! Sometimes it can be easy to think “oh people must think I’m strange out here all by myself” but a) I’m pretty sure they don’t care/don’t notice and b) I loved just being with my own thoughts and taking in everything around me.

So this was kind of a long post! I hope you enjoyed it, there’s more of this stuff to come as I am determined to brave talking about all of this! We all deserve to love ourselves and wouldn’t doing so just make life easier? You are the person you spend the most time with after all. Please tell me all about your self-love journeys in the comments, I’d love to hear all about it.

Love love love

xxx