Sharing comfort of being comfortable in own skin

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/05/2022 (1254 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was one of those days, where nothing fit and I fretted over my reflection in the mirror.

My hair wasn’t right and no amount of styling seemed to work. My three-barrel curling iron, set on high, only produced frizzled strands of singed hair instead of the beachy waves I was going for. My makeup didn’t seem to cover my blemishes, and my body seemed particularly rotund that day. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin.

Body image issues were creeping in fast.

I try so hard to be body positive and to embrace and appreciate who I am and what I look like. My body, after all, has walked me through many years and experiences in life. It was my daughter’s first home, as she grew from it. It might not be perfect, but it is strong, and it is a gift.

Most days, I am comfortable in my skin. There will always be things I might want to change or work on, but that doesn’t mean I’m not comfortable. Heck, some days I am so confident, it’s a bit obnoxious.

It’s taken me many years to get to this point, and I credit my daughters for making me better at loving myself. I know they’re watching me, and the way I am to myself is the example I am giving them on how to be and think about themselves.

Sometimes, it’s hard.

I have years and years of society’s expectations of beauty standards programmed into me like a code in my DNA, something I feel like I am constantly fighting against. We have been taught our entire lives to chase these unattainable and unrealistic beauty standards. To be thin, but thick in exactly the right places. To have hair on our heads but nowhere else. To have skin that is soft and flawless, without so much as a stretch mark or a pore.

It’s exhausting.

Sometimes, I have a moment or even a day where my clothes don’t fit or I can’t get my hair to look the way I want it to. Sometimes, I scroll through social media, comparing myself with other people’s highlight reels and beautifully curated (and perhaps filtered) selfies. Or I just feel blah.

Those are the days I am unkind to myself, and I tend to spiral to this place where the mirror or candid photographs of myself cause insecurity. That old self-loathing rears its ugly, judgmental head.

On this particular day, it was fierce. I couldn’t shake the blahs. And then, it arrived. A children’s book called Her Body Can by Katie Crenshaw and Ady Meschke that I had ordered for my youngest daughter.

Sometimes, timing and the universe align so perfectly it’s like poetry. The book was recommended to me by a friend. It was for my daughter, but at that moment it was exactly what I needed to see and read.

The book is about self-love and body positivity. Crenshaw’s website states, “Her Body Can is a book of poetic self-love and body positivity declarations for all young girls. Its aim is to encourage our young girls to create a reality for themselves in which they love themselves and their bodies for exactly who and what they are. The very first book of its kind, written for girls one to 101, this book intends to teach all young girls their bodies can do anything.”

As I read through the pages, excited to read the book again with my daughter later that day, I came to a part in the middle that struck me. Words I want to read over and over to my daughters, so they might take them to heart and believe them without hesitation.

“Her body is beautiful — strong, kind and wise. All bodies are lovely no matter their size.”

This isn’t a book review or an attempt to sell you on Her Body Can (though I think it’s a great story with a great message). It’s just a little something that happened during my week I wanted to share.

Perhaps someone needs to see that message as much as I did that day.

Be kind to yourselves.

shelley.cook@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @ShelleyACook