I’ve been wanting to write this post for a little while, the idea has been floating around up there but I never found the right angle/time/motivation to put pen to paper (so to speak).
For those of you who have been following my blog from the start you’ll know that Body Positivity has been something pretty high on my list from the start. It all started really well – I took myself right out of my comfort zone with my boudoir shoot before Christmas – but since then it’s been a real love/hate relationship and to be honest there are some days where I really don’t feel like I’ve made any progress.
Some days I feel great. I’m pretty confident, embracing my body as is and generally feeling good… but there is always this lil voice that likes to try and pop the positivity bubble (hello Alice).
I should’ve known the boudoir shoot was never going to be a “click – now I’m fixed” kinda solution. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still one of the best things I have ever done… but there’s a lot of work to be done to unpick the years of body shaming and negative chatter I’ve inflicted on myself.
Getting into the right headspace…
As I’m discovering, with pretty much everything I do in terms of lifestyle change, is to get your head in the right mindset.
If you don’t set yourself up with the right motivation/ headspace, you wont have the right drive to go forward and take the steps you need to make progress.
The other thing I’m realising…is that you can’t rush this process. When it’s the right time, something just clicks and you stop giving yourself the excuses to do it.
I can’t really pinpoint what it was that shifted my mindset, but recently I’ve definitely been more proactive in exploring Body Positivity and starting to learn more about how to achieve this.
A bit of perspective…
At the start of the month I started to read “Body Positive Power by @bodyposipanda” and it’s already giving me some really interesting things to think about.
Like for example, how the way that women generally think about their bodies is a result of the media we see. We are bombarded by the image/idea of the “perfect woman” and then spoon-fed the message that we can achieve this by using a certain product/diet/outfit so that we can be happy.
The book explores this for a while, picking apart the illusion and laying out the facts as they are. It seems so obvious when you are reading it, and you wonder why we have never realised it before. It’s very powerful marketing and it works…because how many of us have ever looked in the mirror and thought “I don’t like…“?
It really hit me hard – like a really big wake up call. It was reassuring to know that 1) it’s not just me that feels like this and 2) it’s not my own doing!
Another thing that really made an impact on me is the journey to body positivity itself. When you look at what you’re up against…it’s a lot of re-programming of the way you think and perceive things. If you’re not in the habit of thinking “I love me/I love my body” then you can’t just flip the switch to suddenly start thinking in that way.
One of the way’s @bodyposipanda approached this is by taking the first step of “Body Acceptance”. Essentially this means that you learn to accept your body for what it is and what it can do – not for how it looks.
Learning to love the skin I’m in
So with a view to start looking at Body Acceptance as a first step, I know I need to face some of the areas I tend to avoid/talk negatively about and start to re-train my brain to look at things in a more positive light.
One thing I have always struggled to accept is my eczema. I’ve had it since I was little, and it’s something I have always felt self conscious about it when I have a flare up.
I’m very fortunate really, as I don’t suffer from it all of the time, but when it does come up it has a huge impact on me mentally.
Eczema is often set off by certain triggers. For everyone it’s different, and over the years I have come to identify the most common triggers for me.
- Allergies – specifically pollen, grass, cats, and peanuts (a random selection I know) and I react differently to each one. On the whole to combat this I take antihistamines regularly, minimise contact where I can, and if I do have contact to wash the area affected as soon as possible after.
- Heat – I’ve noticed particularly in the last couple of years that I get bad flare-ups when the temperature changes suddenly. If my skin gets too hot, I come up in a kind of heat rash (looks like sunburn) but then turns into really itchy eczema. I combat this by trying to stay as cool as possible, including taking cold showers when my skin is particularly bad (sounds horrendous – but it’s oddly satisfying).
- Stress – This is one I always forget at the time, but looking back it’s a really common contributor. Often when I get a flare-up, I’ve experienced/am going through a stressful time.
The problem I have had in the past with this is that I realise I have a flare-up because I’m stressed – try to relax – get self-conscious and stressed about my flare-up – eczema gets worse. It’s a never-ending loop of stress.
It’s not easy, as it’s a particularly uncomfortable condition to live with. I’ve got a pretty good skincare routine in place which keeps it under wraps most of the time, but when the flare ups have happened recently I try and remind myself of the facts:
- This is temporary – whilst it feels like it’ll never ease, it always does and my skin recovers.
- Stress makes it worse – so instead of stressing about it, I’ve got to try and find something to distract myself.
- Why has it flared up? – Trying to figure out what the trigger is
- It doesn’t make me any LESS of a person – I’m no less beautiful, confident, sexy, intelligent, awesome or anything else to be honest just because of a flare-up.
- It’s a part of me and my uniqueness – like it or not, it is a part of me. There is no cure, and I’m very fortunate to have a condition that is so easily manageable.
So here are a few snaps of a flare-up I had back in April, it’s the worst I’ve had it for some time…the trigger was definitely stress (I wonder what stressful thing was happening at that time? 😅).
Over the past few days I could feel that I was on the verge of another flare-up. So rather than stress about it and get worked up about how awful it might be…I decided to accept it.
I looked at the triggers (heat and stress) and was pro-active early on to manage those but also try to keep my mind in a more neutral state. If it went like these photo’s – that’s ok (remind myself of all the points above).
Whilst I currently have a couple of trouble spots, taking this approach has actually meant I’ve avoided a big flare-up like above which is fantastic!
It’s a real positive, and I feel like I’ve finally made a step forward on this journey towards Body Positivity. I’ve no doubt that as with all of my other lifestyle changes, there will be good days and bad, but I can remind myself that it is possible.
Whilst looking to images to go with this post…I found this…it’s scarily accurate! 🤣
