Becoming a Body Positive Goddess

So way back when I wrote my first post, I mentioned that I'm working my way towards becoming a body positive goddess. But I don't know how many of you actually know what that entails. It's not easy. It takes a lot of time, depending on your starting point, and a lot of perseverance.

Being body positive is loving your body despite what you think is flawed or bigger than it should be. It's loving you for you, despite your flaws. It's not necessarily thinking you're the hottest girl in the room. It's not pretending you're flawless. It's acknowledging your flaws, accepting them, working with them, and not being afraid of them. Even if you're a body positive goddess, you're not going to be satisfied with your body 24/7, 365 days a year. You'll have your off days. You'll have days where you absolutely hate your body. Everyone does. That happens to the best of us. And that's okay. What matters is how you deal with it afterwards-- do you let these feeling bother you for a while, or do you stand in front of your mirror naked and look at yourself and say "I know I have my flaws, but my flaws don't define me. I'm beautiful."

It isn't easy. Being body positive requires a great amount of confidence and self-esteem and self-love that doesn't come overnight. But with time, you'll start believing yourself. After calling yourself negative words, you began to really believe it, didn't you? Well, luckily for you, it works the other way around. I need to find some like research to support that, but for now, you're going to have to trust me on this one.

Some pointers-- in the process of becoming body positive, don't shame other body types, regardless of whether they are bigger or smaller than you. Being body positive is recognizing that all bodies are beautiful, every shape, height, size, color, everything. Every body is beautiful because it's unique. (ermahgerd, y'all, I'm getting mega cliche.)

Piggybacking off that idea, some people believe that you can't be body positive if you are aspiring for the thin ideal. However, here is where a couple clarifications should be made. Do you want to lose weight for yourself? Or is it because of society's beauty standards? Is it because you just want to have an easier experience when shopping for clothes? Or is it because you want to "fit in"? It is possible to be body positive and wanting to lose weight, you just have to make sure the reason you're doing it is for your own personal happiness, and that you aren't succumbing to the thin ideal. That's, like, the opposite of what body positivity is all about.

Body positivity is loving yourself despite what society has told you is "beautiful" and body positivity doesn't always have to do with weight. Do you not remove your body hair? And do you love yourself for it? Well look at you! You're body positive in terms of body hair. If you accept everyone and yourself regardless of weight or appearance, you're the ultimate bodypos goddess! 

One day in class last spring, I may or may not have been distracted and not paying attention... so I was looking around the room, and I noticed a girl in shorts. Which, I mean, is normal. We're in a sunny state and literally every girl where's shorts in the spring, but what struck me as interesting was the fact that she didn't shave her legs. 

I haven't seen a girl with hairy legs since I was like in the 6th grade. 

It was weird at first, and I'm not going to lie, I was kind of disgusted. But then it occurred to me that she was stronger and more confident than I'd ever be. I was so proud of her when I made that realization. I honestly wanted to like give her a standing ovation. She didn't shave her legs for her own personal reasons, whatever those may be, but the fact that she didn't let society tell her what to do was so inspiring to me.

I encourage everyone to try and become more body positive. It's a little difficult to get started, considering we grew up with these ideas all around us of what beauty is. But trust me, once you're on you're way, you're just more accepting and happy and loving, and man, it's pretty rad.