Body Posi!

I generally am a very confident person, when I am in my right state of mind.  Which is perhaps ten percent of the time.  The other ninety percent, I struggle with things about myself that I otherwise love!  Nothing is ever good enough.  One minute, I can look in the mirror and call myself beautiful!  The very next minute, my mood shifts, and I think I am the least attractive person on Earth, even though I look exactly the same.  And, since I am excellent at being mean to myself, I take my disliking for how I look even further.  I tell myself, “You’re ugly.  That’s why no one loves you.  That’s why you are alone.”  Then I start comparing myself to others.  “It’s hard being the ugly sister.  I am the ugly one in my friend group.”  I even focus on the smallest things: one eyelash being out of place can bring my entire mood down, making me embarrassed to leave my house to go to school, or work.  I find myself, a naturally confident person, walking around with my head down where I feel it belongs.

But how am I to live confidently and to the fullest when I find myself ugly and undeserving every time I feel low, which is often?  I JUST DO IT.  Lately, I have been forcing myself to do all the things I feel awful about doing, if it’s what I truly want.  I’m not saying my confidence is perfect; on the contrary, I’m even harder on myself when I’m putting myself out there.  But I work with it.  If I take a picture that I don’t like, I say, “It may not be a cute picture, but post it anyway.”  The next time I’m feeling good, I find myself happy that I posted it, because, in actuality, it is a beautiful picture.  I recently started posting covers online.  I had spent my entire life training and educating myself to be a singer, but since I have been battling with depression, I have not truly sung in years-until now.  When I record a cover, I generally don’t like how I sound, especially after all this time.  But I tell myself, “It’s not a great cover, but post it anyway.  The next one will be better,” and I find myself proud that I even took a chance.

What I’m saying is in life, it’s hard to be confident one hundred percent of the time, but we can’t hide and wait to feel perfect.  We still need to live life to the fullest, even if that means going against our own self-judgment.  Next time you want to do something (wear that outfit, post that picture, ask that person out) JUST DO IT.  It may not be perfect, but it’s something, and that’s everything.