Girl, You Speaking My Body Language: A Soapbox Moment

You've heard it a million times, here in America we have loads of problems with self esteem and body image. We blame it on the media, the celebrity craze, bad mothers and fathers...the list goes on. I'm in college, I know lots and lots of beautiful girls who think that they're ugly because they don't fit a cookie cutter mold. It kills me that the image of beauty has become so confined, because there is so much beauty in so much of what we see and do every day.

No, this is not necessarily a "fashion" post, but since so much about expressing your personal style has to do with being confident in your ability to pull off whatever you want, I think it's entirely applicable.

Let me allow myself to be a walking, talking example. After spending high school and the first semester and a half of my first year of college hoping I could hide myself from piercing eyes of the world (despite lofty aspirations ingrained in me since birth), I made some personal changes in my life that helped me turn things around. And one of the first things I noticed, was that it's totally okay to love yourself and the way you look. When you do, you smile more, you walk more like the beautiful woman you are, and people notice, and it makes them smile too.

Since October of last year I have lost about 30 pounds, and am three sizes smaller than I used to be, and still, sometimes I can't see my new body. Shopping for jeans the other day, I picked up a pair in Zara that was my size and held them up, saying to my mother "They look so tiny, I'll never fit into them". Turns out, they fit perfectly, and now I own them, and occasionally put them on to trot about my house when no one's around. It's hard to see yourself as a new person when you change, be it physically or emotionally.

I'm still shocked at some of the things I'm confident enough to do now. This past summer I wore my first bikini ever, at 18, and I felt so fantastic. I am not trying to sell you my "success story", what I'm trying to tell you is this. All the things you think people think, they don't think. Everyone is wrapped up in their own lives and their own insecurities. It is absolutely liberating to say "You know what, I don't want to be part of the self-deprecating crowd" and start liking yourself. Maybe you have the prettiest eyes you've ever seen, the cutest little feet, a smile that dazzles, the best laugh, a fantastic bootylicious bottom...love it. Start loving that part of you you just can't help but look at in the mirror, and pretty soon I think you'll start loving other things you just couldn't look at before, your beautiful legs, your breasts, your arms, your face.

I say we stop blaming the media, the media will do what it wants to do. I say we take responsibility and say "Forget you, I LOVE myself, and I LOVE fluorescent orange, so I'm going to wear it, and people SHOULD look at me, because I'm awesome."