My Journey to Self-Love and Body Positivity

SASSY PUG!

Hey all, this post has been coming for a while because it's something that's very close to my heart and a topic I've struggled with for years on end. Body positivity. 

Every singe day in college I'll hear a girl I walk past say "oh I'm so fat, I've got to lose weight!" or a guy say "I really need to get myself to the gym, I'm not strong enough yet", both of those things I actually heard within the same two hour period at my college from students. Things like this break my heart because I have had difficulty with body positivity for almost all of my life and knowing that others are feeling the same way I did as a child doesn't bear thinking about. 

As a child I was bullied from Nursery (age 3 or 4) right up to last December age 18, I personally used to think I deserved every bit of bullying I got, I was ugly, fat, disgusting, all of these things I would remind myself of on a daily basis to make the bullying more understandable. At least that way I knew why I was being bullied, I thought that bullying was a punishment because other people had to look at my horrid face, my fat stomach and my huge thighs. I pushed friends away, withdrew from my family and let my school work slide round about the age of 13/14 when I started self-harming and became suicidal because the bullying was getting worse but because I was maturing I was starting to understand that the bullies were nothing but children who targeted my weak spots... it worked but still, at least I was maturing enough to know it. 

In school I had very few friends, only two I can think of that I would consider true friends, these friends weren't always nice to me but I passed the majority of the things off as friends taking the piss. After several suicide attempts, more self-harm, and God knows how many nights I'd cried myself to sleep or whatever, at 16 things started to change and this is how. 

I walked into a shop and went straight to the magazine isle, I LOVED women's magazines but this day I had seen so much on the TV about how large the average woman was getting, how they used to look, accounts on Twitter making highly offensive fat jokes, insensitive parents using "tough love" to make children lose weight and I had had enough. So, when I saw the typical magazine article where a clinically underweight celeb put on enough wight to be considered healthy, the magazine branded them the worst word possible... FAT *DUN DUN DUUUUUNN*

I laughed to myself, I'd taken these articles as gospel as a child, but how can anybody take something seriously where medical advice and medical opinions are given by journalists? Girls are made to feel bad by inaccurate medical and health opinions given by someone who works in a completely different field! It sounds daft but that was my turning point. From that day I stopped picking up those magazines that made me feel awful about myself. 

I still had issues with how I looked obviously so I thought it was time to address them and I did it my getting dressed every morning and saying one nice thing about myself, even if I didn't mean it, it did feel great to have said something nice. I remember one day I got to the bathroom mirror and without thinking, without having to remind myself to do it I said "Wow, I look so cute today!" and I meant it, that was the best feeling I've ever experienced. Obviously that wasn't the only thing that I used to boost my body confidence, I'm on instagram and I follow accounts such as Tess Munster (Holliday now I believe), Body Positivity, I look at and absolutely love the Carol Rosetti drawings. When you're trying to build up your body confidence and trying to love yourself for who you are I can't lie to you, it's a difficult and long road, picture a turtle trying to walk up a steep hill that's covered in peanut butter on a hot summer day. That's how difficult it is, however in this day and age the media including social media also push it down our throats not to fat shame or skinny shame but each day girls and boys are told they need to be skinny, they need to be strong, muscular, curvy is bad, a bit of a belly is a sin and god forbid you get labeled as fat because they make out your life is over! Well I will tell you something for nothing, your life in never over unless you allow it to be! Whether you're fat, skinny, middle, wobbly or green you have a life, you are valued and you are BEAUTIFUL. I'm a plus size blogger, I'm fat, my clothes go above a size 18 and I am actually healthy. I have the best friends a girl could wish for, I'm enjoying college and I'm on my way to getting my ideal career, I have the most wonderful family anybody could ever dream of and most importantly I truly do love the person I am. 

For all of you girls and boys struggling with anything body related make a list of things you're good at, things you know, things you like, what you want to do and who you want to be. After all, if a person has good thoughts they are beautiful. 

I wish all of you the best of luck of any of you are wanting to start your journey to self-love and body positivity.

Love Katherine. 

3 Things I Like About Myself and 3 Things I Don't

Credit to Effyourbeautystandards on Instagram

This post is a kind of follow on from yesterday's Advice to My Younger Self post, that post was very personal to me as it addressed some of the issues I've faced in the past however, I would like to keep a theme of body positivity and self acceptance going on my blog for as long as possible as I feel it's really very important to spread a vibe of body confidence to everyone. Therefore I'm going to write a post on 3 things I like about myself and 3 things I'm not too keen on, I've only written three of each because I have an assignment for college and I'm rather pushed for time, so lets get down to it, enjoy everyone!

I LIKE: I really love my eyes, they're such a lovely combination of colours, my eyes start as a very dark green around the outside or the iris and they gradually get a lighter green until theres a light yellow right around the pupil area. Also because of my eye colour I really suit browns, golds and creams in eyeshadow shades which I love to wear anyway so... bonus!

I DON'T LIKE: I really don't like how much of a stress head I am. If I could change anything about myself I would honestly say that I would change how I handle stress. I've always stressed over little things, even things like what book I'm going to read next, so big things like life decisions tend to be daunting times for me purely because of how high my stress levels go. My best friend is so laid back and I really envy her for that, I'm currently in the process of finding ways to relax when I' stressed and so far I've found gallons of tea and cross stitching works rather well. 

I LIKE: I like how sensible I can be, a lot of the time when I was younger I was really insecure about being so different from other girls my age, I was never into going out drinking or staying out on school nights and I think because of that I was able to look at the culture of people my age in a different way, I was able to spend more time on getting good grades and having nights in with my friends when we were free to do so. 

I DON'T LIKE: I don't like my my eye sight, I mentioned above that I really like my eyes, well I don't like how my eyes work... or don't. I have pretty bad eyesight and I can't really take my glasses off without bumping into something or falling over, I would love to have better eyesight. 

I LIKE: I absolutely love my boobs! This might be too much information but I love my bosoms, they're pretty large and have been since I was young. They've always made me feel really feminine, womanly and when I find a bra that actually fits and they're in a good top I can't help but feel really good about myself because I've found that having melons my size also really helps to accentuate my waist and hips, both of which I also love!

I DON'T LIKE: I'm not too keen on my feet but then again I'm not keen on anybody's feet so technicallyI don't think that should count, so I'm going to end on a positive note despite the fact that it's in the I DON'T LIKE  section. I do like myself, it was so hard to think about all the things I don't like about myself but honestly was a doodle to list 5 or even 10 things that I like about myself and that's because I've finally learned to love myself and my flaws not in spite of my flaws because my flaws are part of what makes me, well... fabulous ME!

I hope more people out in the world will learn to love themselves because no matter who you are I genuinely believe that you deserve to love yourself!

Love Katherine. X

Advice to My Younger Self: Things I've Realised

A young me with with the grandparents on our jollies

This post is my second post of they day and it's going to be a pretty personal one, I've been doing a lot of soul searching these past few weeks and I think it's about time I put my thoughts into physical(ish) form. Over the years I've struggled with quite a few things such as body issues, long term medical and health issues self esteem/confidence and bullying. I never was the sort of person to stand up for myself and take charge of my own life... until now. Over the course of my life I've completely changed as a person, as a woman, I'm confident, I'm funny and to be rather honest I'm an all round fabulous lady and all of those bullies, those people who've tried to put me down, they've failed miserably because right now I couldnt be happier, I've learned quite a lot in my short life but I've only just realised most of it. This post is basically me, the strong and confident woman I am now, telling my scared, anxious younger self what's what in life. 

It's okay to be single! It's okay to love yourself too!

When I was much younger I never thought of myself as beautiful or even pretty, I thought of myself as the girl who would always be bypassed, trodden on and left alone because everyone wants to avoid the fat girl with her nose in a book. I genuinely thought I was unlovable and that being single was a cardinal sin but my GOD I was so naive! Just because I was single I thought I was less of a person, less than what all the other girls in my class were but I was so wrong! Looking back now being single in those years allowed me to focus on other things, I got good grades, I had time to spend with my best friends and have fun like any other teenager should be doing, I wasn't overly concerned with boys I was concerned with my own body issues. I was able to figure out who I am as a person because I didn't have the pressure on me to get a partner because I assumed nobody would want me! As I've gotten older I've realised how wrong I was, I've had boyfriends and such albeit not loads but the feeling of having a boyfriend is nothing compared to the feeling I get when I'm able to look into the mirror and finally say that I like... nay I love who I am as a person, of course I still have my insecurities but who doesn't?! My appearance does not define me, I have a fab personality, I'm funny, quirky and I have awesome friends. That brings me on to my second point...

The things I don't like about myself don't matter to anyone but me!

"Can you see my scar?" "Am I too pale?" "My stomach is far too big" these are the things I would cry over when I was younger. I would cry about them because I didn't like them, I thought my friends could see those insecurities, could see how awful I looked... No. Those things mattered only to me, they only mattered because I let them matter. I spent so much of my time obsessing over how I looked, crying about my appearance and what I could and couldn't wear. If I could go back in time and meet my younger self I would grab the poor girl by the shoulders and I'd make her believe that she was and is a gorgeous young lady with a personality to die for! I'd tell her to wear what the hell she wants, do whatever makes her happy and stop wasting her teenage years worrying over things that were only huge problems to her. Nowadays I do just that, I wear what makes me comfortable, I do what makes me happy (reading usually haha) and I spend time with the people I love and have a good laugh nearly every single day.

Don't try and make everyone like you!

This was a biggie for me mind. I was so scared of doing something wrong, even at home, I tried to make every single person I came across like me. This in the end became too stressful and I realised that half the people I was trying to make like me, I didn't like myself. That I realised pretty quickly in sixth form when I met a wider variety of people, you simply can't make people like you and I would have saved so much time if I'd stopped trying to do that. Now I take the mentality of - well I'm being myself so if you don't like me you're missing out - and I'm getting along just fine and dandy with that mentality. Actually I'm much more chilled out and happy since I've stopped trying to get everyone to like me.

Put yourself first! Say No!

This is something I still have a few issues with, I think that's mainly because I like to help people whenever I can though. When I was a young whipper snapper I did everything... for everyone. When I was at school I would actually do other people's work because of my inability to say no, that took up way too much of my own personal time so now if I don't want to or I can't do something I will say no. I've found out how important it is to take some time for myself, even if it's only 5 minutes listening to my favourite songs or half an hour reading. It's a great way to calm down and relax, I wish I'd had the sense to see it when I was younger. 

So all in all over the years, yeah I've struggled with stuff but so have so many other people around the world, I don't ever let that fact take away from what I feel or what I think but I've finally realised that along with going with the flow, loving and accepting myself and making sure I surround myself with positivity, life isn't always going to be as bad as it seems, it may not have turned out exactly as I planned it would when I was younger but it's much better that I ever could've imagined right now. 

Also for those of you who have body issues or are having trouble accepting yourselves I highly recommend following Tess Munster, Body Positive and the Eff Your Beauty Standards on Instagram!

Thanks for reading all and I hope you enjoyed reading it. 

Love Katherine. X