The time someone complimented my body and I felt truly shocked

This weekend someone told me they loved my figure. Not liked it or thought it was nice, but loved. It was by a woman, which I personally think makes all of the difference. And it was by a woman who didn’t have to say anything at all (read: she wouldn’t have said it had she not meant it.) This compliment really struck a chord with me. Someone had complimented me on something which very rarely gets spoken about.

It made me realise that I spend my life apologising for the way my body is. Having piled on the weight at university I feel that I now spend my days trying to compensate in other ways for not having a generically attractive figure, for a western body. Particularly a body that women would compliment on. The problem isn’t the shape. I particularly like the fact that measurment wise I am nearly a perfect hourglass and have been compared to Jessica Rabbit on a number of occasions. That is fab, the weight stuck to this figure is the bit I seem to apologise for.

I choose to dress flatteringly because I have a certain style and taste. I don’t want people to think that I hate the way I look, because I quite simply don’t. My friends call me beautiful, I know I’m attractive to some people, albeit in not a traditional girl next door way, but I am cool with that. I would rather be ‘somebody’s shot of whiskey that everyone’s cup of tea’. Or at least that’s how I think the saying goes. But despite having a ‘cool style’, ‘nice hair’ or ‘big eyes’, no one comments on my body. I think for that reason I have grown apologetic to others about it. Oh yeah, I’ll lose that 10lbs by Christmas, oh god I know I have a bit of a tummy, oh look how fat my chin is when I yawn etc. I spend so much of my time subconsciously apologising while claiming to be full of self love, that this horrible thought occurred to me: maybe I’m a body love fraud.

The thing is that I know I’m a well rounded person (no pun intended) but this heartfelt compliment from a stranger really uncovered some truths that I must have been holding on to. A friend and associate told me he thought all my friends were really pretty earlier this year, with no mention of me. That seems like nothing right? But apparently that had hurt me more than I had realised. Another friend links weightloss to desirability and I hadn’t twigged how messed up this was until now. There have just been a string of occasions filling me with a bubbling of self doubt. I am a self love advocate, and for the most of times I like to think I keep these doubts under control. But I want to let you know that even the most body confident ahve these doubts at times too.

So I do want this blog post to have a direction, and the direction is this: own what you’ve got! Own it right now. What you have right now is good enough, and whether you are on some kind of transformative journey or not: just own it. Be healthy, be happy and don’t compromise because other people don’t see your awesomeness. The way others make you feel says far more about them than it does about you.

You are awesome. You, right now as you are: are awesome.

Well done ♥

Christmas party times with friends ♥