Body Confidence, Not Just For Summer

Body confidence, I think it is something that the majority of us strive to feel/have. A couple of years ago I was talking about being beach body ready and at the time I was worrying about the thought of putting on a bikini, daring to bare the skin that I was sure others would be less than impressed to see. Now I know the way to achieve that sort of readiness is just to take your body to the beach, simple right? For some maybe not.

"The most beautiful thing you can wear is confidence"

You see to be able to put on that two piece, or one piece of you prefer, you really need self-confidence, a feeling of self worth and belonging, the ability to say f*ck it, this is who I am and I love myself regardless of any lumps and bumps because we shouldn't just be able to feel confident in our bodies at summer time, we should all be able to hold onto those feelings all year round. The question is how to find such confidence?

"What you think of yourself is far more important than what other people think of you"

Changing the Face of Confidence

Over the years I've come to realise that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. As a teenager I began to wear make up, not because I felt I needed it but because it was all my friends were doing but by the time I reached my twenties I became reliant on it, hiding behind it. I lost confidence in my own face. 

Now that I've reached my thirties I've done a u-turn and have begun to gain a bit of my confidence back. Most mornings I don't have time to brush my hair let alone put on a full face of make up, the most you will see me wearing is a bit of mascara and eye liner. 

The bags under my eyes are on full show, showing the tiredness that parenting brings. Persistent spots are there for everyone to see, I'm no longer embarrassed by them because lets be honest they are out of my control and I'm not the only one to have them either. These marks and colours on my face don't define who I am do they?

Having four daughters I want to be able to show them that make up isn't a necessary part of life. By all means wear it but don't hide behind it. There will always be people out there who will want to criticise you but that's normally because they are reflecting their own securities on to you. 

We shouldn't be afraid to be our natural selves and lets be honest, how much time will you be saving if you don't have to put all that 'face paint' on every morning, I know I'd prefer a few extra minutes in bed these days.

Lets Talk Lady Gaga and Fat Rolls

I've talked on my blog and Instagram often about my body, the way I feel judged and how I never seem to be comfortable in my own skin. The media and social media has a big part to play in this and just today the latest body shaming story has sprung. 

Lady Gaga dared to bare her skin and she had, wait for it, fat rolls!! Well not really fat rolls, her body was simply oh natural.

News must be slow if this all they've got to report on and the fact is rolls of fat or not the woman looks frigging hot!

It is articles like this that really get my back up. How are we meant to feel happy with how we look if people constantly feel the need to criticise. Slagging off other peoples bodies seems to have become perfectly acceptable in this day and age and I for one would love to know why?

An Open Letter To the People Who Like to Judge my Body

I think sometimes people forget that we are all human, that we all have feelings and that we can all get hurt by peoples comments, actions and judgements. For me what hurts the most is when others feel they have the right to say negative things about my body, to judge me on the way I look, I pass way too much judgement on myself that I don't have any need for anyone else input.

I've always had issues with my body and the way I look and I'm also aware that I'm certainly not alone, there are many girls, boys, men and women that struggle on a daily basis with the way they think they appear to others. There are definitely days where I don't want to look in the mirror for fear of what I'll see looking back at me. 

How Our Bodies Can Lie

It is no secret that a photo can easily be changed to makes us look better, photoshop can do an amazing job on just about anyone, a little white lie without words. All these images that we notice, those fit and lean bodies, the flawless faces that we want so much ourselves aren't always what they appear to me.

I was talking about body image over on my You Tube channel the other week and just how companies can make us feel about ourselves. The lack of diversity from the models they use in campaigns. This in turn has made many of us, including myself extremely insecure about our own bodies and we feel the need to lie about ourselves in a strange way of making us feel better. Our bodies can lie just as much as the pictures we see them in.

Below I took a series of photos which I'm showing side by side to show just how quick and easy it is to change the appearance of my body. I suppose in an attempt to show that there is no need to be jealous of how others portray themselves as what you see may not necessarily be reality.

Simply sucking my tummy in and tightening my ab muscles gives me the appearance of added definition and of course more light shining onto your body can have the same affect.