We've all been found guilty of seeing someone in the media, or even on social media; a friend, a celebrity, any of those fitness site people we see... And thinking "How is that possible?" It's not. Everything is perspective.
31-year-old Ashliee Molstad posted a photo of herself standing flexed against a wall next to one of her relaxed sitting in a chair. Molstad runs a site titled Foodie Girl Fitness. She titled her post: same girl, different angle. This sparked something within me. Realism.
Body image is something so fragile. So let's shatter the expectation that we must stand tall, be flexed, be thin, be anything but the real versions of ourselves. We are not defined by the rolls we have when we lounge in our comfiest clothes on the couch at 4 PM with our cartons of ice cream watching bad reality TV. The same way that we are not defined by the hours we labor at the gym 3-4 times a week. We are all but a balance of the two. Beautiful when sweating on the treadmill and beautiful when sprawled out.
Molstad writes "loving ourselves exactly as we are is hard. Because we've been told for years that we're not good enough until we {insert any of the thousands of ideas of perfection that has been fed to us over the years}. But I call BS. I say that the real magic happens when we embrace who we are, at every angle and size."
We are not broken, We don't need fixing. Media does.
Loving ourselves is not easy when we are conditioned our whole lives to believe that there are things that need constant changing. Start by being honest; be honest with yourself. Be honest of your self-image and you will inspire those around you to begin the journey to accepting and loving themselves.