Let's talk about body image for a minute. It seems difficult to have a positive self-body image lately, doesn't it? As the use of social media use increases, it seems increasingly difficult to keep up on "what's hot" and "what's not." Trends are constantly changing and as soon as you seem to think you've altered yourself in some way to become attractive to the rest of the world, it's no longer considered attractive, anymore. We can constantly tell ourselves that we don't care about what others think and that we are good enough, but sometimes society tells us otherwise and then we might feel the need to change ourselves, even if it is subconscious. Well, society is confusing!
I'm here to tell you that you are good enough. We will never be able to keep up with all of the trends. They change from day to day! Remember when contouring was the biggest makeup trend ever consisting of a long process of making your face structure look totally different with a ton of makeup products and then -- bam! All of a sudden something started named non-touring, which is considered a pretty low-maintenance makeup routine? So, now, if you contour, are you too much? Are you considered fake?
Recommended for you
What if you don't really wear makeup? Are you seen as ugly? There's skinny shaming, fat shaming, and tons of shaming going around and not enough love. Another big trend lately is eyebrows and making them look a certain way. Which way is right? What if you are fine with your natural eyebrows? There is still this pressure that we cannot be our natural selves. What about waist trainers? It's totally natural to have a teeny-tiny waist and huge boobs and a huge butt, right? No, not exactly. Not everyone can look like that, and most people don't. Should we go out and get boob jobs, butt implants, and use waist trainers to move our organs up into our rib cages to look appealing for society? No, we should not. We have this constant pressure on us from society and social media. We feel the need to look perfect, always, and this is not healthy for our minds or our bodies.
Everyone has used filters, or has edited out a pimple, or worn a push-up bra, or contoured, or has done something to alter their natural self for the rest of social media and the world to see. We want to appear like we have perfect lives, perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect relationships, etc. Update: No one does! Even though we know that no one has that totally perfect life, we still somehow think that they do.
Social media brainwashes us. We find ourselves thinking, They have never posted a bad picture... They always look happy... They never get into arguments... Nothing bad ever happens to them... They've never had a pimple.
We need to remember that all of us really only post the good parts of our lives. When we open your Instagrams, we want everyone else seeing us at our best, it makes us feel powerful. We need to stop comparing our whole-selves and our whole lives to only the best parts of other people's lives. Social media has taken over the world in such a strange way and we have become addicted. How many hours a day do we spend on Instagram drooling over other people's lives and wishing we had them?
We need to focus on what makes us feel beautiful and powerful. At the end of the day when you wash off the makeup, take off the push-up bra, wash out your hair, who are you? Do you still feel like yourself? Could you go out in public like that without feeling ashamed and embarrassed? We need to step away from social media and think about who we are as a person. We need to stop focusing so much on losing a pound, and perfecting our eyebrows, and start focusing on self-love.
We are given this body to live in and we need to respect and love it because we are living in it for the rest of our lives! We need not worry if we are attractive to the world, but think about if we are attracted to ourselves. Would you want to hang out with yourself? In ten years, is it going to matter what your eyebrows looked like or what the size of your waist was? Love yourself just as you are right now, even if you think you are fat and have bad brows. You are enough just as you are. You are perfect just as you are. Most importantly, people will always love you just as you are.
