Hey there ladies, I have a bone to pick with you. I see a LOT of your posts day in and day out. I see your gym selfies, your meal prep and your progress pics. I love seeing these things. I feel proud of you and a lot of the time I can sense the pride you feel about your hard work. Only you tend to immediately undermine it with disclaimers about your flaws like:
Still have a LOT of work to do…
Please excuse the cellulite!
I love the way my shoulders are looking but I hate my…
Love that I’m losing weight but UGH I hate these stretch marks!
Not as fit as some other people but…
Stop the Comparisons
Look we allllll have been bombarded with images of perfect women basically our whole lives. Supermodels of the 90’s, magazines and photoshop have done nothing but remind us that we can’t measure up. In today’s society we are face to face with social media posts that have incredible lighting, banging filters and deceptive posing. So much so that we feel like we need to apologize for putting our “flaws” on display. What the fuck is that??
These “perfect women” aren’t actually perfect, and cognitively we know that. We know that they are photoshopped and that trying to look like them is impossible because even they don’t look like them. How are we so aware of this and yet we try anyway?
I love Snapchat’s pretty filter. But somedays I post pics that show how freaking crooked my nose is, and you know what? I look at it and I’m like “Ugh, my nose is so freaking crooked!” but it’s my nose, and I’m not going to apologize for my face not being perfect. I also have stretch marks in various places. I have jacked up pockets of fat on my legs from a botched Coolsculpting job. I have uneven obliques. I have more fat on my upper stomach than my lower. I have cellulite. And idgaf.
These are not flaws. I am not flawed. I am a woman that has grown and changed. I am a woman who made really fucking bad decisions about my body and some really great ones too. Every woman has something on her she either doesn’t like about herself or that society deems a flaw. So if everyone has them, then technically they can’t really be flaws right?
Works in progress
I’m not saying if you aren’t happy with something then you shouldn’t change it. By all means– if you can change it, change it. Want bigger glutes, tighter arms, or a 6-pack? Get after it! Want those things but don’t feel like doing the work? Accept it. There are things you can’t change on your body, or things that are going to take a significant amount of time to change, so cut yourself a break. Some things can be “fixed” with surgery but know that if you go through with it, it’s not going to make you instantly happy. It can certainly work though, and some people do like to have it, so if this is something that interests you then why not look for coolsculpting near me?
You can be proud without feeling like you have to put yourself down. Next time you make a post showing off your hard work, be aware. Are you tempted to discount it by throwing one of your body parts under the bus? Stop it. Write the post without a single disclaimer, rinse & repeat. Stop apologizing for yourself, for your body and for your flaws. Start being completely proud of who you are and everything you’re accomplishing.
Are you guilty of pointing out your flaws?
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